Category Astronomy/Space

Visualising the local solar neighbourhood in 3D. Credit: ESA. Acknowledgement: H. Bouy (CSIC-INTA) & J. Alves (U. Vienna

Astronomers have used modern techniques to visualise data from ESA’s Hipparcos space astrometry mission in 3D. This offered insights into the distribution of nearby stars and uncovered new groupings of stars in the solar neighbourhood, shedding light on the origins of the stars in Orion and calling into question the existence of the Gould Belt – an iconic ring-shaped structure of stars in the Milky Way. The results show the potential of 3D visualisation of the solar neighbourhood, an approach which is of particular relevance to ESA’s Gaia mission which will map the Milky Way and Local Group in 3D with unprecedented sensitivity and accuracy.

3D map of massive O and B ty...

An image of Camargo 791, one of the newly found embedded clusters. Credit: Camargo et al.

When a giant cloud of molecular gas condenses, star clusters are born. It may sound simple but the formation of star clusters is a very complex process. By peering into this process we could get valuable information on the evolution of galaxies and improve our knowledge about large cosmic structures in the universe. “Star clusters are often considered as building blocks of galaxies. Understanding how these objects form and evolve is vital to our comprehension of the structure, formation and evolution of galaxies,” Denilso Camargo.

Camargo and his colleagues recently discovered a multitude of star clusters using NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer: 652 star clusters, stellar groups and candidate...

Lasers could Heat materials to Temps hotter than the Center of the Sun in only 20 quadrillionths of a second

Theoretical physicists from Imperial College London have devised an extremely rapid heating mechanism that they believe could heat certain materials to degrees in much less than a million millionth of a second. The method could be relevant to thermonuclear fusion energy, where scientists are seeking to replicate the Sun’s ability to produce clean energy.

The heating would be ~100X faster than rates currently seen in fusion experiments using the world’s most energetic laser system at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, CA. Researchers have been using high-power lasers to heat material as part of the effort to create fusion energy for many years...

NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has detected the first extragalactic gamma-ray pulsar, PSR J0540-6919, near the Tarantula Nebula (top center) star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy that orbits our own Milky Way. Fermi detects a second pulsar (right) as well but not its pulses. PSR J0540-6919 now holds the record as the highest-luminosity gamma-ray pulsar. The angular distance between the pulsars corresponds to about half the apparent size of a full moon. Background: An image of the Tarantula Nebula and its surroundings in visible light. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center; background: ESO/R. Fosbury (ST-ECF)

The object sets a new record for the most luminous gamma-ray pulsar known...