STELLAR CHEMISTRY - SKY NIGHTLY

Beyond the Brim, Sombrero galaxy's halo suggests turbulent past

Feb 21, 2020 (SPX)

These latest observations of the Sombrero are turning conventional theory on its head, showing only a tiny fraction of older, metal-poor stars in the halo, plus...

How newborn stars prepare for the birth of planets

Feb 21, 2020 (SPX)

Most of the stars in the universe are accompanied by planets. These planets are born in rings of dust and gas, called protoplanetary disks. Even very young star...

A Cosmic Jekyll and Hyde

Feb 21, 2020 (SPX)

Astronomers found this volatile double, or binary, system in a dense collection of stars, the globular cluster Terzan 5, which is located about 19,000 light yea...

ESO telescope sees surface of dim Betelgeuse

Feb 17, 2020 (SPX)

Betelgeuse has been a beacon in the night sky for stellar observers but it began to dim late last year. At the time of writing Betelgeuse is at about 36% of its...

Galactic cosmic rays affect Titan's atmosphere

Feb 17, 2020 (SPX)

Titan is attracting much interest because of its unique atmosphere with a number of organic molecules that form a pre-biotic environment. Takahiro Iino, a scien...

Method combination allows deep insights into ultrafast light-induced processes

Feb 14, 2020 (SPX)

"A precise understanding of the processes triggered by photoexcitation in molecules is, for example, a prerequisite for the development of sustainable technolog...

Kazan University's telescope assists in discovering a binary star system Gaia16aye

Feb 14, 2020 (SPX)

"The gravitational lensing method is one of the most powerful space exploration tools. In space, photons deviate from the rectilinear direction when passing nea...

Citizen scientists discover rare cosmic pairing via Backyard Worlds project

Feb 13, 2020 (SPX)

"Astronomers would conclude that brown dwarfs separated by billions of miles would dissolve as they moved through the galaxy over time," said Faherty, a senior ...

Hyper-Kamiokande Project is officially approved

Feb 13, 2020 (SPX)

The supplementary budget for FY2019 which includes the first-year construction budget of 3.5 billion yen for the Hyper-Kamiokande project was approved by the Ja...

Silver sawtooth creates valley-coherent light for nanophotonics

Feb 11, 2020 (SPX)

Tungsten disulfide has interesting electronic properties and is available as a 2D material. 'The electronic structure of monolayer tungsten disulfide shows two ...

Galaxy formation simulated without dark matter

Feb 10, 2020 (SPX)

Cosmologists nowadays assume that matter was not distributed entirely evenly after the Big Bang. The denser places attracted more and more matter from their sur...

Astronomers discover unusual monster galaxy in the very early universe

Feb 07, 2020 (SPX)

Using W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea in Hawaii, the team found that the galaxy, dubbed XMM-2599, formed stars at a high rate and then died. Why it suddenly ...

Controlling light with light

Feb 07, 2020 (SPX)

"Most computation right now uses hard materials such as metal wires, semiconductors and photodiodes to couple electronics to light," said Amos Meeks, a graduate...

Tel Aviv university researchers demonstrate optical backflow of light

Feb 07, 2020 (SPX)

"This 'backflow' phenomenon is quite delicate and requires exquisite control over the state of a particle, so its demonstration was hindered for half a century,...

ALMA catches beautiful outcome of stellar fight

Feb 06, 2020 (SPX)

Like humans, stars change with age and ultimately die. For the Sun and stars like it, this change will take it through a phase where, having burned all the hydr...

Astronomers reveal rare double nucleus in nearby 'Cocoon Galaxy'

Feb 06, 2020 (SPX)

After studying data from optical and radio telescopes based on the ground and in space, a team of astronomers determined that a galaxy known as NGC 4490 (and ni...

Scientists complete ELM Survey, discover 98 double white dwarfs

Feb 05, 2020 (SPX)

"We targeted candidate low mass white dwarf stars and found that they are all ultra-compact binaries. It makes sense," said Dr. Warren Brown, astronomer at CfA ...

New argument presented to highlight the axion nature of dark matter

Feb 04, 2020 (SPX)

"Dark matter is a cosmic substance that does not directly interact with photons, and all information about it was obtained by astronomers only indirectly, as a ...

Interaction between light and material promises new platform for computing

Feb 04, 2020 (SPX)

Their work is described in a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Kalaichelvi Saravanamuttu, an associate professor of Chemis...

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope Ends Mission of Astronomical Discovery

Jan 31, 2020 (JPL)

Launched in 2003, Spitzer was one of NASA's four Great Observatories, along with the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Compton Gamma...