Category Astronomy/Space

In this image, a laser beam in an experiment propagates along the two-dimensional surface of a glass object shaped like an hourglass, curling once around the middle of the object. This is an example of an object with negative surface curvature (like a saddle, for example), in contrast to an object with positive surface curvature, such as a sphere. Credit: Vincent Schultheiß

To investigate the influence of gravity on the propagation of light, researchers usually have to examine astronomical length scales and huge masses. However, physicists have shown that there is another way. In a recent study, they find the answers to astronomical questions in the laboratory, shifting the focus to a previously underappreciated material property – surface curvature.

According to Einstein’s general theory...

Artist’s impression of the clouds scattered by an intermediate mass black hole. Credit: Tomoharu Oka (Keio University)

Nobeyama 45-m Radio Telescope data reveals signs of an invisible black hole with a mass of 100,000 times the mass of the Sun around the center of the Milky Way. The team assumes that this possible “intermediate mass” black hole is a key to understanding the birth of the supermassive black holes located in the centers of galaxies.

Prof Tomoharu Oka’s team has found an enigmatic gas cloud, called CO-0.40-0.22, only 200 light years away from the center of the Milky Way. What makes CO-0.40-0.22 unusual is its surprisingly wide velocity dispersion: the cloud contains gas with a very wide range of speeds...

Artist impression of W2246-0526, a galaxy glowing in infrared light as intensely as 350 trillion suns. It is so violently turbulent that it may eventually jettison its entire supply of star-forming gas, according to new observations with ALMA. Credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF; Dana Berry / SkyWorks; ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)

Obscured quasar 12.4 billion light-years away – is so violently turbulent that it may eventually jettison its entire supply of star-forming gas, according to new observations with ALMA. A team used ALMA to trace, for the first time, the actual motion of the galaxy’s interstellar medium – the gas and dust between the stars. What they found, according to Tanio Díaz-Santos of the Universidad Diego Portales in Santiago, Chile, is a galaxy “so chaotic that it is ripping itself apart.”

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This is an artist’s impression of the record-breakingly powerful, superluminous supernova ASASSN-15lh as it would appear from an exoplanet located about 10,000 light years away in the host galaxy of the supernova. Credit: Beijing Planetarium / Jin Ma

Astronomers studying what may be the most powerful supernova ever seen, with energy of hundreds of billions of suns. At its heart is an object a little larger than 10 miles across that could be a very rare type of star called a magneta – but one so powerful that it pushes the energy limits allowed by physics. An international team of professional and amateur astronomers spotted the possible supernova, now called ASASSN-15lh, when it first flared to life in June 2015.

Krzysztof Stanek, turned to the movie This is Spinal Tap to find a way to des...