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Science News
A Crisis in Cosmology
Maunakea, Hawaii – A group of astronomers led by University of California, Davis has obtained new data that suggest the universe is expanding more rapidly than previously thought. The study comes on the heels of a hot debate over just how fast the universe is ballooning; measurements thus far are in disagreement. The team’s new […]
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Massive Filaments Fuel the Growth of Galaxies and Supermassive Black Holes
Maunakea, Hawaii – An international group of scientists led by Hideki Umehata of the RIKEN Cluster for Pioneering Research, a branch of Japan’s largest scientific research organization, has made detailed observations of the filaments of gas connecting galaxies in a large protocluster in the early universe. Based on direct observations they found that, in accordance […]
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Oldest Galaxy Protocluster Forms “Queen’s Court”
Maunakea, Hawaii – Using multiple Maunakea Observatories – the Subaru Telescope, W. M. Keck Observatory, and Gemini Observatory – an international team of astronomers has discovered the earliest protocluster ever found; it is comprised of a collection of 12 galaxies in the constellation Cetus, which were observed as they were about 13 billion years ago. […]
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Black Hole at the Center of Our Galaxy Appears to be Getting Hungrier
UCLA astronomers notice brightest light in 24 years of observations Maunakea, Hawaii – The enormous black hole at the center of our galaxy is having an unusually large meal of interstellar gas and dust, and researchers don’t yet understand why. “We have never seen anything like this in the 24 years we have studied the […]
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Mid-Mass Black Hole Hurls Star Across the Milky Way
Maunakea, Hawaii – An international team of astronomers has pinpointed the origin of a runaway high-velocity star named PG 1610+062 and determined that it was likely ejected from its birth cluster with the help of a mid-mass black hole (MMBH). The findings are published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. In order to put tight […]
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Newly Discovered Giant Planet Slingshots Around Its Star
Three times the mass of Jupiter, a first-of-its-kind planet swings around its star on bizarre path Maunakea, Hawaii – Astronomers have discovered a planet three times the mass of Jupiter that travels on a long, egg-shaped path around its star. If this planet were somehow placed into our own solar system, it would swing from […]
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Ghosts of Ancient Explosions Live on in Stars Today: Galactic archaeology reveals signatures of long-dead stars
The chemical composition of certain stars gives clues about their predecessors, stars that have long since exploded and faded. Maunakea, Hawaii – When small, dense stars called white dwarfs explode, they produce bright, short-lived flares called Type Ia supernovae. These supernovae are informative cosmological markers for astronomers—for example, they were used to prove that the […]
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New Study Traces Io’s Volcanic Tides
Loki Patera, the major volcano on Jupiter’s moon Io, appears to wax and wane with an approximately 500-day oscillation in the moon’s orbit. Maunakea, Hawaii – Hundreds of volcanoes pockmark the surface of Io, the third largest of Jupiter’s 78 known moons, and the only body in our solar system other than Earth where widespread […]
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Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity is Questioned But Still Stands ‘For Now’
Detailed UCLA-led analysis of the star’s orbit near supermassive black hole gives a look into how gravity behaves Maunakea, Hawaii – More than 100 years after Albert Einstein published his iconic general theory of relativity, it is beginning to fray at the edges, said Andrea Ghez, UCLA professor of physics and astronomy. Now, in the […]
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Fast Radio Burst Pinpointed to Distant Galaxy
Maunakea, Hawaii – Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are among the most enigmatic and powerful events in the cosmos. Around 80 of these events—intensely bright millisecond-long bursts of radio waves coming from beyond our galaxy—have been witnessed so far but their causes remain unknown. In a rare feat, researchers at Caltech’s Owens Valley Radio Observatory (OVRO) […]
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