Telescopes

Perseus and Centaurus galaxy clusters

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An article published in the journal Nature Astronomy reports the results of a study of seven galaxy clusters which contain various supermassive black holes that offers evidence that outbursts generated at these black holes help cool the gas they feed on. A team of researchers used observations with multiple instruments to examine seven galaxy clusters. Outbursts in the form of jets from the supermassive black holes in those clusters cool the gas by forming thin filaments. Some of that gas will eventually flow back toward those black holes, triggering more outbursts in a mechanism in which the black holes “cook” their own meals.

The Andromeda Galaxy

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A new image of the Andromeda Galaxy has been created by combining images captured by the Hubble Space Telescope from about 600 separate fields of view. It took two observing programs over a total of more than a decade and a thousand Hubble orbits to achieve this result. The new mosaic includes more than two hundred million individual stars in the Andromeda Galaxy, a minority made up of the stars that are more massive and bright than the Sun. Hubble’s observations provide a wealth of information about these stars that helps us better understand Andromeda’s history.

Artist's concept of a neutron star emitting a fast radio burst from its magnetosphere (Image courtesy Daniel Liévano, edited by MIT News)

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An article published in the journal “Nature” reports the identification of the origin of the fast radio burst cataloged as FRB 20221022A linking it to a magnetar-class neutron star, probably emerging from its magnetosphere. A team of researchers coordinated by MIT used observations conducted with the CHIME radio telescope to identify the origin of this already-known fast radio burst by exploiting the phenomenon of scintillation, comparable to how stars twinkle in the sky. This is further evidence of the link between magnetars and fast radio bursts, the very powerful emissions that can be one-time or repeated events.

Artist's concept of the most distant blazar (Image U.S. National Science Foundation/NSF National Radio Astronomy Observatory, B. Saxton)

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Two articles – one published in the journal “Nature Astronomy” and one in “The Astrophysical Journal Letters” – report different aspects of a study of the blazar cataloged as VLASS J041009.05−013919.88, or simply J0410−0139, the most distant found so far. Two teams of researchers used several space and ground-based telescopes and some radio telescopes to obtain detections in various electromagnetic bands.

The NGC 346 cluster with 10 circled stars surrounded by protoplanetary disks (Image NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, O. C. Jones (UK ATC), G. De Marchi (ESTEC), M. Meixner (USRA))

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An article published in “The Astrophysical Journal” reports the results of the study of a group of protoplanetary disks with an age of up to 30 million years, even 10 times older than current models of planet formation predict. A team led by Guido De Marchi of ESA’s European Space Research and Technology Centre used observations conducted with the James Webb space telescope of the cluster NGC 346, in the Small Magellanic Cloud. That region is characterized by a limited amount of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium, just like the early universe. This study confirms that in those conditions, protoplanetary disks can last much longer than astronomers thought.