ALMA tagged posts

Double Star System Flips Planet-Forming Disk into Pole Position

Artist’s impression of a view of the double star system and surrounding disc.
Credit: Copyright University of Warwick/Mark Garlick

New research led by an astronomer at the University of Warwick has found the first confirmed example of a double star system that has flipped its surrounding disc to a position that leaps over the orbital plane of those stars. The international team of astronomers used the Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array (ALMA) to obtain high-resolution images of the Asteroid belt-sized disc.

The overall system presents the unusual sight of a thick hoop of gas and dust circling at right angles to the binary star orbit...

Read More

A Young Star Caught forming like a Planet


This is an artists impression of the disc of dust and gas surrounding the massive protostar MM 1a, with its companion MM 1b forming in the outer regions.
Credit: J. D. Ilee / University of Leeds

Astronomers have captured one of the most detailed views of a young star taken to date, and revealed an unexpected companion in orbit around it. While observing the young star, astronomers led by Dr John Ilee from the University of Leeds discovered it was not in fact one star, but two.

The main object, referred to as MM 1a, is a young massive star surrounded by a rotating disc of gas and dust that was the focus of the scientists’ original investigation. A faint object, MM 1b, was detected just beyond the disc in orbit around MM 1a...

Read More

Trans-Galactic Streamers Feeding Most Luminous Galaxy in the Universe

Artist impression of W2246-0526, the most luminous known galaxy, and three companion galaxies. Credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF, S. Dagnello

Artist impression of W2246-0526, the most luminous known galaxy, and three companion galaxies. Credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF, S. Dagnello

ALMA data show the most luminous galaxy in the universe has been caught in the act of stripping away nearly half the mass from at least three of its smaller neighbors. The light from this galaxy, known as W2246-0526, took 12.4 billion years to reach us, so we are seeing it as it was when our universe was only about a tenth of its present age.

New observations with the Atacama Large Millimeter/ submillimeter Array (ALMA) reveal distinct streamers of material being pulled from three smaller galaxies and flowing into the more massive galaxy, which was discovered in 2015 by NASA’s space-based Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE)...

Read More

When is a Nova not a Nova? When a White Dwarf and a Brown Dwarf Collide

This object is possibly the oldest of its kind ever catalogued: the hourglass-shaped remnant named CK Vulpeculae. Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/S. P. S. Eyres (link to DOI: 10.1093/mnras/sty2554 below)

This object is possibly the oldest of its kind ever catalogued: the hourglass-shaped remnant named CK Vulpeculae.
Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/S. P. S. Eyres (link to DOI: 10.1093/mnras/sty2554 below)

Astronomers have found for the first time that a white dwarf and a brown dwarf collided in a ‘blaze of glory’ that was witnessed on Earth in 1670. Researchers from Keele University have worked with an international team of astronomers to find for the first time that a white dwarf and a brown dwarf collided in a ‘blaze of glory’ that was witnessed on Earth in 1670.

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, the international team of astronomers, including workers from the Universities of Keele, Manchester, South Wales, Arizona State, Minnesota, Ohio State, Warmia & ...

Read More