A team of astronomers have used the ALMA telescope to find a slowly-rotating galaxy in the early universe. That galaxy is the youngest ever found with a measured rotation, and it’s much slower than present-day galaxies.
Continue reading “The Earliest Galaxies Rotated Slowly, Revving up Over Billions of Years”Do Supermassive Black Holes Prematurely end Star Formation in Some Galaxies?
Some galaxies, like the Milky Way, have maintained regular star formation for billions of years. Others, like large elliptical galaxies, are “red and dead.” Star formation in those galaxies shut off long ago. Astronomers have long suspected the nefarious influence of supermassive black holes, and new research has found the smoking gun.
Continue reading “Do Supermassive Black Holes Prematurely end Star Formation in Some Galaxies?”Hubble Sees a Surviving Companion Star After its Partner Went Supernova
When stars die they’re often not alone, and for the first time astronomers have found a companion to a supernova, lingering long after its sibling destroyed itself.
Continue reading “Hubble Sees a Surviving Companion Star After its Partner Went Supernova”The Stars in Other Galaxies are Generally Heavier Than the Milky Way’s Stars
How many of what kinds of stars live in other galaxies? It seems like a simple question, but it’s notoriously hard to pin down, because astronomers have such a difficult time estimating stellar populations in remote galaxies. Now a team of astronomers has completed a census of over 140,000 galaxies and found that distant galaxies tend to have heavier stars.
Continue reading “The Stars in Other Galaxies are Generally Heavier Than the Milky Way’s Stars”Dark Stars: The First Stars in the Universe Could Have Been Powered by Annihilating Dark Matter
Dark matter doesn’t really do much of anything in the present-day universe. But in the early days of the cosmos there may have been pockets of dark matter with high enough density that they provided a source of heat for newly forming stars. Welcome to the strange and wonderful world of “dark stars.”
Continue reading “Dark Stars: The First Stars in the Universe Could Have Been Powered by Annihilating Dark Matter”Could we Detect Dark Matter’s Annihilation Within Globular Clusters?
A team of astronomers studied two nearby globular clusters, 47 Tucanae and Omega Centauri, searching for signals produced by annihilating dark matter. Those the searches turned up empty, they weren’t a failure. The lack of a detection placed strict upper limits on the mass of the hypothetical dark matter particle.
Continue reading “Could we Detect Dark Matter’s Annihilation Within Globular Clusters?”We can Probably Find Supernovae Enhanced by Gravitational Lensing, We Just Need to Look
Gravitational lensing provides an opportunity to see supernovae and other transients much farther than we normally can. A new research proposal outlines a plan to use a comprehensive catalog of strong gravitational lenses to capture these rare events at extreme distances.
Continue reading “We can Probably Find Supernovae Enhanced by Gravitational Lensing, We Just Need to Look”Volcanoes May Have Killed Venus with a Runaway Greenhouse, and Almost the Earth Too
What Does Micrometeoroid Damage do to Gossamer Structures Like Webb’s Sunshield?
Tiny little bullets flood the solar system, each micrometeoroid a potential hazard. New research has found that the James Webb Space Telescope’s thin sunshields, and future inflatable spacecraft, may be at risk.
Continue reading “What Does Micrometeoroid Damage do to Gossamer Structures Like Webb’s Sunshield?”Scientists Create Molecules that can Follow Darwinian Evolution
A team of researchers at the University of Tokyo have discovered a set of RNA molecules that are capable of replication and diversification. This potentially allows the molecules to undergo Darwinian evolution, pointing the way to a possible first step to life on Earth. As lead author Assistant Professor Ryo Mizuuchi said, “The results could be a clue to solving the ultimate question that human beings have been asking for thousands of years — what are the origins of life?”
Continue reading “Scientists Create Molecules that can Follow Darwinian Evolution”