December 2024

On the left the galaxy cluster MACS J1423.8 + 2404 with a zoom of the area in which the Firefly Sparkle galaxy and its companions are located

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An article published in the journal “Nature” reports the results of the study of a primordial galaxy that has characteristics similar to those attributed to the Milky Way shortly after its formation. A team of researchers led by Lamiya Mowla of Wellesley College in Massachusetts nicknamed it Firefly Sparkle after observing it using the James Webb Space Telescope and with the help of a gravitational lens within the Canadian Unbiased Cluster Survey (CANUCS) with the NIRCam and NIRSpec instruments. The observations also included two companions, two galaxies that appear to be gravitationally bound to Firefly Sparkle.

The center of the Centaurus galaxy A and the source C4 (Image NASA/CXC/SAO/D. Bogensberger et al.; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk)

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An article published in the journal “The Astrophysical Journal” reports the results of X-ray observations of the jets emitted by the supermassive black hole at the center of the Centaurus A galaxy. A team of researchers used NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory to find a V-shaped structure that indicates that one of the jets hit something whose nature is uncertain. Only Chandra’s X-ray observations revealed that unusual structure, cataloged as C4, while many other instruments, especially radio telescopes, had never shown such anomalies.

A group of galaxies observed by the James Webb Space Telescope (Image NASA, ESA, CSA)

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An article published in “The Astrophysical Journal” reports the results of a new measurement of the universe’s expansion rate obtained using observations conducted with the James Webb Space Telescope that confirms previous results obtained with Hubble. A team of researchers led by Adam Riess, who has been investigating the expansion of the universe for years, verified that the so-called Hubble tension, as the discrepancy between different measurements is called, was not due to limitations of the Hubble Space Telescope. According to Riess, this result confirms that our cosmological models are incomplete and there may be something we don’t yet understand about the universe.

Sentinel-1C satellite blasting off atop a Vecga-C rocket (Photo courtesy ESA-CNES-ARIANESPACE/Optique vidéo du CSG–S. Martin)

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A few hours ago, the Sentinel-1C satellite, part of the Copernicus / GMES, was launched from the Kourou spaceport, in French Guiana, atop a Vega-C rocket. After about 1 hour and 44 minutes, the satellite regularly separated from the rocket’s last stage and started sending signals. Its final orbit in low Earth orbit will be at an altitude of about 693 kilometers.