An image from the super computer simulation of the creation of the Moon. Credit: Durham UniversityResearchers from Durham University's Institute for Computational Cosmology used the most precise supercomputer simulations ever, revealing an alternative for how the Moon formed 4.5 billion years ago. It showed that a colossal impact between Earth and a Mars-sized body...
Artist's illustration of a small Saturn-like planet discovered in the system LkCa 15. The planet resides within dense rings of dust and gas that surround a bright yellow star. Material accumulates in a clump and arc-shape, about 60 degrees away from the planet. Note: illustration is not to scale.Credit: M.Weiss/Center for Astrophysics | Harvard...
The large radio telescope and an illustration of the signal. (CHIME/MIT)A brand-new radio signal from deep space is once again challenging our understanding of these mysterious phenomena.Not only is this brand-new fast radio burst, called FRB 20191221A, another extremely rare repeater, but it is not even that quick: the radio flashes received across intergalactic...
A pulsar with its jets and magnetic fields. Credit: NASAFar out in the Milky Way, about 22,000 light-years from Earth, a star unlike any other roars with a magnetic power that beats anything physicists have seen before.At an enormous 1.6 billion Tesla, a pulsar named Swift J0243.6+6124 smashes the previous records of around one...
Discovered in 1950, this galaxy is known as Hoag's object, and is the first known instance of a ring galaxy. It's highly unusual, with an elliptical, very red center, a large gap between the nucleus and the outer ring, and the blue, young stars in the outer ring have no identifiable trigger leading to...
Artist's Impression of a comet passing through our solar systemAmateur astronomers may very soon be able to see a comet initially spotted in 2017.Comet C/2017 K2 (PANSTARRS), abridged as K2 for brief, was once the most distant active comet ever before pinpointed, a difference it recently ceded to the mega comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein, found out...
Hidden magnetic field lines stretch millions of light years across the universe. Credit: Quanta Magazine.When we look into space, all of the astrophysical objects seen are enclosed in magnetic fields. This holds not only in the neighborhood of stars and planets but likewise in the deep space between galaxies and galactic clusters.These fields are...
Scientists create “time machine” simulations studying the lifecycle of ancestor galaxy cities. Credit: Scitech Daily.Scientists have produced simulations that directly recreate the complete life cycle of a few of the biggest collections of galaxies observed.Several processes in astrophysics take a very long time, making their evolution tricky to study. A star like our sun...
This illustration reveals the accumulation disk, corona (pale, cone-shaped swirls over the disk), and also supermassive great void of energetic galaxy 1ES 1927 +654 before its recent flare-up. Credit: NASA/Sonoma State College, Aurore Simonnet.Something weird is taking place in the galaxy referred to as 1ES 1927 +654: In late 2017, and for reasons that...
An illustrated view of a black widow pulsar and its stellar companion. The pulsar’s gamma-ray emissions (magenta) strongly heat the facing side of the star (orange). The pulsar is gradually evaporating its partner. Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain.The flashing of a nearby star has attracted MIT astronomers to a new and mysterious system 3,000 light-years...
