Astronomers have found examples of giant galaxy clusters dozens of times larger than the Milky Way with all the raw materials for star formation, but they haven't gotten going yet. NASA's Chandra and other telescopes found regions of gas blazing in x-ray radiation between 3.4 and 9.9 billion light-years from Earth. The total mass of the gas outweighs all the stars typically found in hundreds of galaxies in galaxy clusters.
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Even though we still don't know what dark matter is, astronomers can use it as a natural telescope lens with gravitational lensing. A new theoretical paper suggests that mini-halos of dark matter in the early Universe could be used as a probe to map out primordial magnetic fields. These magnetic fields are everywhere in the cosmos today, but were they produced in the early stages of the Universe? It depends on the influence of magnetic fields on dark matter.
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The 30 Dor B star-forming region is one of the most dramatic places in the Universe. It is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, about 160,000 light-years from Earth, and is home to some of the most massive stars ever seen. It's been forming stars for the last 8-10 million years, the largest of which have detonated as supernovae, hurling material and seeding even more stars. A new image from Chandra has identified the remnants from at least two supernovae in the nebula.
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Neutron stars are the incredibly dense remnants from massive star supernovae. Although they're pulled into dense spheres by their intense gravity, it's believed that neutron stars could have slight deformations, known as "mountains," caused by crustal strains and interactions with magnetic fields. If the mountains are there, merging neutron stars should slightly distort the signal received by gravitational wave observatories.
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In the search for life, astrobiologists have proposed that various chemicals, like methane, could be potential biosignatures. But a new study suggests that missing chemicals might make an even stronger case there's life in the world. For example, if a terrestrial planet has much less carbon dioxide in its atmosphere than other planets in the same system, life could cause the difference. Fortunately, this is the kind of signal JWST could search for.
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