Category Astronomy/Space

In this artist’s illustration, the young Sun-like star Kappa Ceti is blotched with large starspots, a sign of its high level of magnetic activity. New research shows that its stellar wind is 50 times stronger than our Sun’s. As a result, any Earth-like planet would need a magnetic field in order to protect its atmosphere and be habitable. The physical sizes of the star and planet and distance between them are not to scale. Credit: M. Weiss/CfA

Nearly 4B years ago, life arose on Earth. Life appeared because our planet had a rocky surface, liquid water, and a blanketing atmosphere. But life thrived thanks to another necessary ingredient: the presence of a protective magnetic field...

Image shows an artist’s impression of a black hole, similar to V404 Cyg, devouring material from an orbiting companion star. Credit: ESO/L. Calçada

Violent red flashes, lasting just fractions of a second, have been observed during one of the brightest black hole outbursts in recent years. June 2015, a black hole called V404 Cygni underwent dramatic brightening for about 2 weeks, as it devoured material that it had stripped off an orbiting companion star. V404 Cygni, which is ~7,800 light years from Earth, was the first definitive black hole to be identified in our Galaxy and can appear extremely bright when it is actively devouring material.

The astronomers associated the red colour with fast-moving jets of matter that were ejected from close to the black hole...

(a) The white ring is a ceramic helical insert on which the screw sample holder is placed. The scale bar is 10 mm. (b) The body of the growth cell is made of quartz glass (orange). Two capillaries of quartz glass with rubber stoppers (yellow) are fixed to the body with an adhesive. Tubes of elastomer (red) are attached to each capillary. After the growth cell is filled with the growth solution (light blue), the tubes are closed with metal wires (arrows). (c) Schematic illustration of the growth cell. Credit: K. Tsukamoto et al/Tohoku University

Crystal growth rate on ISS by interferometry will show the effects of microgravity. Sometimes, distance can lend a new perspective to a problem...

Artist’s concept of a giant extrasolar planet. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

The giant planets have masses from 2.4 to 5.5 the mass of Jupiter and have very long orbital periods ranging from nearly 2 to slightly more than 4 Earth years. The team, led by Matias Jones of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, made the discovery during observations under the EXPRESS (EXoPlanets aRound Evolved StarS) radial velocity program. They used 2 telescopes located in the Atacama desert in Chile: the 1.5 m telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory and the 2.2 m telescope at La Silla observatory. Complementary observations were conducted at the 3.9 m Anglo-Australian telescope in Australia.

Using spectrographs mounted on these telescopes, the researchers were monitoring a sample of 166 b...