STELLAR CHEMISTRY - SKY NIGHTLY

Witnessing the birth of a massive binary star system

Mar 19, 2019 (SPX)

While it is known that most massive stars possess orbiting stellar companions it has been unclear how this comes about - for example, are the stars born togethe...

Storm rages in cosmic teacup

Mar 19, 2019 (SPX)

The source of the cosmic squall is a supermassive black hole buried at the center of the galaxy, officially known as SDSS 1430+1339. As matter in the central re...

Controlling thermal conductivity of polymers with light

Mar 15, 2019 (SPX)

In a new study, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have designed and demonstrated a novel type of polymer demonstrating a switchable ...

Astronomers Make a Case for Science on Capitol Hill

Mar 15, 2019 (SPX)

The AAS brings member volunteers to the Hill for its Congressional Visits Day (CVD) program every spring, typically coinciding with the start of Congress's form...

Quasar jets confuse orbital telescope

Mar 14, 2019 (SPX)

"One of the key results of our work is a new and fairly unexpected way of indirectly studying the optical emission from the central regions of active galactic n...

Understanding and controlling the molecule that made the universe

Mar 14, 2019 (SPX)

H3+ is prevalent in the universe, the Milky Way, gas giants and the Earth's ionosphere. It's also being created and studied in the lab of Marcos Dantus, Univers...

Massive hyper-runaway star ejected from Milky Way's disk

Mar 13, 2019 (SPX)

"This discovery dramatically changes our view on the origin of fast-moving stars," said Monica Valluri, a research professor in the Department of Astronomy at U...

Founding members sign Square Kilometre Array Observatory Treaty

Mar 13, 2019 (SPX)

Ministers, Ambassadors and other high-level representatives from over 15 countries have gathered in the Italian capital for the signature of the treaty which es...

Massive twin star discovered snuggling close to its stellar sibling

Mar 12, 2019 (SPX)

An international team led by the University of Leeds has determined the distance between the massive young star PDS 27 and its orbiting stellar companion to be ...

Milky Way And Beyond: Next Generation Survey Telescope

Mar 11, 2019 (SPX)

With the publication of 13 papers, the consortium introduces 4MOST to the scientific community. In a special issue of the ESO Messenger, several articles give a...

Could Photon Mass Influence the Rotational Dynamics of Galaxies

Mar 11, 2019 (SPX)

With this in mind, the physicists Dmitri Ryutov, Dmitry Budker, and Victor Flambaum have suggested that the rotational dynamics of galaxies might be explained b...

Stars exploding as supernovae lose their mass to companion stars during their lives

Mar 11, 2019 (SPX)

A considerable number of massive stars have a close companion star. Led by researchers at Kyoto University, a team of international researchers observed that so...

What Does the Milky Way Weigh? Hubble and Gaia Investigate

Mar 08, 2019 (SPX)

The Milky Way weighs in at about 1.5 trillion solar masses (one solar mass is the mass of our Sun), according to the latest measurements. Only a few percent of ...

Why Do Some Galactic Unions Lead to Doom?

Mar 06, 2019 (JPL)

Only a few percent of galaxies in the nearby universe are merging, but galaxy mergers were more common between 6 billion and 10 billion years ago, and these pro...

A High-Precision Test Bench for LISA Technology

Mar 06, 2019 (SPX)

The work ties up with the LISA Pathfinder mission, which tested LISA technologies in space from 2015 to 2017. LISA is a planned observatory in space that will d...

Galactic Bubbles Play Cosmic Pinball with Energetic Particles

Mar 06, 2019 (SPX)

The galaxy NGC 3079, located about 67 million light years from Earth, contains two "superbubbles" unlike anything here on our planet. A pair of balloon-like reg...

Physicists analyze rotational dynamics of galaxies and influence of the photon mass

Mar 06, 2019 (SPX)

But although researchers have been seeking it for decades, the existence of such 'dark matter' has yet to be definitively proven and we still don't know what it...

NASA's Webb Telescope Will Study an Iconic Supernova

Mar 06, 2019 (SPX)

When you look at a photo of SN 1987A, two features stand out: a clumpy outer ring that looks like a pearl necklace, and an inner blob. The outer ring is materia...

CERN reveals plans for new experiment to search for dark matter particles

Mar 06, 2019 (UPI)

"It is very exciting to have FASER approved for installation at CERN," Jamie Boyd, a spokesperson for the FASER experiment, said in an update. "It is amazing ho...

Researchers Tackle Mysteries of Dark Matter, Dark Energy

Mar 06, 2019 (SPX)

Don't feel so bad. It turns out scientists have a hard time detecting some 95 percent of the matter and energy that make up the universe, according to NASA. Ind...