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Science News
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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Spiraling Filaments Feed Young Galaxies
New data from W. M. Keck Observatory show gas directly spiraling into growing galaxies Maunakea, Hawaii – Galaxies grow by accumulating gas from their surroundings and converting it to stars, but the details of this process have remained murky. New observations, made using the Keck Cosmic Web Imager (KCWI) at W. M. Keck Observatory in […]
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Astronomers Make History in a Split Second
Maunakea, Hawaii – In a world first, an international team of astronomers has determined the precise location of a powerful one-off burst of cosmic radio waves. The discovery was made with CSIRO’s new Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio telescope. The galaxy from which the burst originated was then imaged by three of the […]
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Cool Halo Gas Caught Spinning Like Galactic Disks
Corotation Found to be Typical, Suggesting Cool Halo Gas Prolongs Galaxy Growth Maunakea, Hawaii – A group of astronomers led by Crystal Martin and Stephanie Ho of the University of California, Santa Barbara, has discovered a dizzying cosmic choreography among typical star-forming galaxies; their cool halo gas appears to be in step with the galactic […]
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