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Showing posts with the label Astronomers

Astronomers describe the star birth web of the cosmic Tarantula Nebula

This composite image of the star-forming region of Doradus 30 — also known as the Tarantula Nebula — reveals areas of cold gas that could collapse to form stars. (Image credit: ESO, ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/Wong et al., ESO/M.-R. Cioni/VISTA Magellanic Cloud survey.) The newly released image of 30 Doradus, also known as the Tarantula Nebula, reveals thin, spiderweb-like strands of gas that reveal a dramatic battle between gravity and stellar energy that could give astronomers an idea of ​​how massive stars have shaped this star formation. regions and why they continue to be born in these molecular clouds. This high-resolution image of the Tarantula Nebula, located 170,000 light-years from Earth, consists of data collected by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). Located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, the Tarantula Nebula is one of the brightest star-forming regions in our galaxy’s backyard. It’s also one of the most active in term

Abell 3266 Astronomers discover a physics-defying shockwave in a distant galaxy

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Fossil remains of the black hole-eating frenzy of the past have been found deep within one of the largest galaxy clusters in our sky. Astronomers also saw physics-defying plasma shockwaves, and loops of radio energy within the same galaxy cluster. Key points: Astronomers have discovered a trio of rare objects in a distant galaxy cluster known as Abell 3266 One of the mysterious objects is a shockwave relic dubbed the “wrong way”. The objects were discovered using radio telescopes in Western Australia and New South Wales The cluster – Abell 3266 – is located 800 million light-years away and spans the sky 300 million light-years in the southern constellation Reticulum. An international team of astronomers, led by Christopher Riseley of the University of Bologna in Italy, studied the cluster in detail using the powerful Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder radio telescope in outback Western Australia, and the smaller Australia Telescope Compact Array in Narrabri, New South Wales.

Astronomers Have New Way of Finding Exoplanets in Cataclysmic Binary Systems

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Have you heard of the LU Camelopardalis, QZ Serpentis, V1007 Herculis and BK Lyncis? No, they weren’t in the boy band in ancient Rome. They are Cataclysmic Variables, binary stars so close together that one star takes matter from its sibling. This causes the pairs to vary greatly in brightness. Could a planet exist in this chaotic environment? Can we see them? A new study says yes to both. Cataclysmic Variables (CVs) experienced a large increase in brightness. All stars vary in brightness to some degree, even our own sun. But the increase in CV brightness is much more pronounced than in stars like our Sun, and it happens on an irregular basis. Remove All Ads in Universe Today Join our Patreon for only $3! Get an ad-free experience for life There are different types of catastrophic variables: classic nova, dwarf nova, multiple supernova, and others. All types share the same basic mechanics. A pair of stars orbit each other closely, and one star is larger than the other. The mo

Astronomers Have Seen A Record-Breaking Magnetic Field In Space, And It's Incredible

Deep in the Milky Way, roughly 22,000 light-years from Earth, a star unlike any other roars with a magnetic force that beats anything physicists have ever seen. With 1.6 billion Tesla, a pulsar called Swift J0243.6+6124 broke the previous record of around 1 billion Tesla, found in the vicinity of pulsars GRO J1008-57 and 1A 0535+262. For a little context, your average new fridge magnet comes in at around 0.001 Tesla. More powerful MRI machines manage to reach around 3 Tesla. A few years ago, engineers were credited with hitting the semi-respectable 1,200 Tesla, keeping it in a flash of just 100 microseconds. So it makes sense that 1.6 billion Tesla would demand some truly amazing physics. The kind that can only be achieved by massive objects crammed into impossible volumes and spinning at incredible speeds, fast enough to accelerate electrons to ridiculous speeds. Swift J0243.6+6124 is already considered a noteworthy star. A type of super-compact cosmic heavyweight known as a pulsar

30 years after its discovery, astronomers realize the first confirmed exoplanet is truly rare

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In 1992, astronomers discovered the first exoplanet in an unexpected part of the universe: around a pulsar, a rapidly rotating stellar corpse. Not many other pulsar planets have been discovered since then, and with potentially good reason: In new research detailed July 12 at the National Astronomical Meeting in the UK, astronomers are now discovering that such pulsar worlds may prove extremely rare. Here’s the background- Astronomers discovered the first known exoplanet around the pulsar PSR B1257+12 in 1992, located about 2,300 light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo. A pulsar is a type of neutron star, the corpse of a star that dies in a cataclysmic explosion known as a supernova, whose gravity is strong enough to crush protons together with electrons to form neutrons — but not massive enough to become a black hole. The violent nature of supernovae often makes the remnants of their ancestral stars spin. A rotating neutron star can spin up to 700 times per second, emittin

Astronomers detect 'heartbeat' radio billions of light years from Earth

Astronomers at MIT and elsewhere have detected a strange and persistent radio signal from a distant galaxy that appears to flicker with surprising regularity. The signal is classified as a rapid radio burst, or FRB — a very powerful burst of radio waves of unknown astrophysical origin, which usually lasts a few milliseconds at most. However, this new signal lasted up to three seconds, about 1,000 times longer than the FRB average. Within this window, the team detected bursts of radio waves that repeated every 0.2 seconds in a clear periodic pattern, similar to a heartbeat. The researchers have labeled the signal FRB 20191221A, and it is currently the most durable FRB, with the clearest periodic pattern, detected to date. The source of the signal lies in a distant galaxy, a few billion light years from Earth. Exactly what the source is remains a mystery, although astronomers suspect the signal could be from a radio pulsar or a magnetar, both types of neutron stars – the cores of gian

Astronomers detect radio "heartbeat" billions of light years from Earth

Astronomers at MIT and universities in Canada and the United States have detected a strange and persistent radio signal from a distant galaxy that seems to flicker with surprising regularity. The signal is classified as a rapid radio burst, or FRB — a very powerful burst of radio waves of unknown astrophysical origin, which usually lasts a few milliseconds at most. However, this new signal lasted up to three seconds, about 1,000 times longer than the FRB average. Within this window, the team detected bursts of radio waves that repeated every 0.2 seconds in a clear periodic pattern, similar to a heartbeat. The researchers have labeled the signal FRB 20191221A, and it is currently the most durable FRB, with the clearest periodic pattern, detected to date. The source of the signal lies in a distant galaxy, a few billion light years from Earth. Exactly what the source is remains a mystery, although astronomers suspect the signal could be from a radio pulsar or a magnetar, both types of