Category Astronomy/Space

An image of the open cluster Trumpler 20. Credit: University of Vienna

An international team has detected two new giant lithium-abundant stars in an old open cluster named Trumpler20. The discovery could yield new important information regarding the phenomenon of omnipresence of lithium-rich stars in different environments throughout the universe. The newly found stars were designated MG 340 and MG 591. They were detected during an analysis of a sample of 40 giant stars of the 1.66 billion-year-old Trumpler 20 cluster, for which high-resolution spectra were obtained by the Ultraviolet and Visual Echelle Spectrograph (UVES) on the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile...

an artistic view of the accretion disc surrounding the black hole V404 Cygni, where the intense wind detected by GTC becomes evident. Credit: Gabriel Pérez, SMM (IAC)

An international team of astrophysicists have detected an intense wind from one of the closest known black holes to the Earth. During observations of V404 Cygni, which went into a bright and violent outburst in June 2015 after more than 25 years of quiescence, the team began taking optical measurements of the black hole’s accretion disc using the 10.4m Gran Telescopio CANARIAS (GTC) – the biggest optical-infrared telescope in the world in the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (Garafía, La Palma) in the Canary Islands.

The results show a wind of neutral material (unionised H and He), formed in the outer layers of the accret...

About 80 solar cycles seen from the surface, i.e. more than 1,000 years in solar time, modelled by means of a computer simulation. At 20-50 years in simulation time, a simulated grand minimum occurs, which in actual fact is the maximum of magnetic energy. Credit: Image courtesy of Aalto University

The study of the Sun’s long-term variation over a millennium by means of super computer modelling showed that during a time period of the Maunder Minimum type, the magnetic field may hide at the bottom of the convection zone. The study seeks explanation for the mechanisms underlying the long-term variation in solar activity. The recently published study was carried out by running a global computer model of the Sun on Finland’s most powerful super computer over 6 months.

‘The Sun has an 11-year cy...

Olympus Mons is the largest volcano on Mars, possibly the largest in the Solar System. It is more than 372.84 miles (600 km) across and towers 16.8 mils (27 km) above the Mars surface level. Credit: Image courtesy of Freie Universitaet Berlin

The research project is based on image data of the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) installed on the European Mars Express spacecraft, which has been orbiting the red planet since December 2003. Using the camera images, the scientists in the Planetary Sciences and Remote Sensing group generated a mosaic and a terrain model of the Olympus Mons volcano. The image data show that the volcano shield is shaped in the form of arched terraces and the foot of the otherwise very flat volcano drops steeply...