ALMA tagged posts

An international team of astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), of which the U.S...

Astronomers have discovered a chemically rich collection of sulfur-bearing molecules surrounding the rare massive star HD 87643. The observations include the first detection of sulfur monoxide and sulfur dioxide around a B[e] supergiant. The paper was published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters on July 1.

Rare and old
B[e] supergiants, or sgB[e], are rare, evolved massive stars that have moved past their main hydrogen-burning phase. They are notable for distinctive emission lines—hence the “[e]” in their name—including rare “forbidden” lines produced by the surrounding gas and dust, along with an infrared glow far more intense than that of ordinary B-type stars.

As these stars approach the final stages of their lives, they shed enormous amounts of material, building up mes...

Scientists have found the oldest quasars ever seen, revealing giant black holes blazing across the universe when it was only 670 million years old. Astronomers have uncovered 31 of the oldest known quasars, including the two earliest ever detected, shining from a time when the universe was only about 670 million years old. Powered by supermassive black holes billions of times the Sun’s mass, these incredibly bright objects challenge scientists’ understanding of how such enormous black holes formed so quickly after the Big Bang.

Quasars rank among the brightest and most powerful objects in the universe...

Astronomers, using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), have confirmed the existence of a close quasar pair housed in a pair of merging galaxies seen when the universe was less than a billion years old, at a redshift of 5.7. The system, designated J2037–4537, is one of only two confirmed quasar pairs at redshift greater than 5 ever found. A paper outlining this work was submitted to the preprint server arXiv on April 7.

Quasars are among the most luminous objects in the universe. They belong to the family of active galactic nuclei (AGN)—galaxies that are powered by supermassive black holes at their centers...