Stars

Men at work within the Borexino experiment (Photo courtesy Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics. All rights reserved)

0

An article published in the journal “Nature” reports the detection of neutrinos produced by the Sun by the Borexino experiment. The scientists of the Borexino Collaboration at the Gran Sasso National Laboratories of the Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics that conducted this investigation have thus obtained experimental evidence that the CNO (carbon-nitrogen-oxygen) cycle, which produces those neutrinos, powers the nuclear fusion that occurs in the solar core. This cycle is predominant in stars with a mass greater than the Sun, and this adds importance to the evidence offered to a theory developed more than 80 years ago.

CK Vulpeculae seen with Gemini North (Image International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA. Image processing: Travis Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage), Jen Miller (Gemini Observatory/NSF's NOIRLab), Mahdi Zamani & Davide de Martin)

0

An article to be published in the “Astrophysical Journal Letters” reports a research on CK Vulpeculae (CK Vul), what was considered a well documented nova having been described between 1670 and 1672, also for the bipolar nebula that left and was recently studied. A team of astronomers led by Dipankar Banerjee, Tom Geballe, and Nye Evans used the GNIRS spectrograph mounted on the Gemini North telescope to obtain measurements that led to the conclusion that CK Vulpeculae is about 10,000 light-years away from Earth, five times as far as previously estimated, and that the explosion was more powerful than a nova but not at the levels of a supernova.

A hyperluminous galaxy seen by Hubble (Image ESA/Hubble)

0

An article published in the journal “Astronomy & Astrophysics” reports a study on hyperluminous galaxies. A team of researchers led by Lingyu Wang of the Netherlands Institute for Space Research, Utrecht, used the LOFAR radio telescope to assess the amount of hyperluminous galaxies in infrared and concluded that it’s ten times higher than what stars can produce according to current models. If the models are correct, it means that in many galaxies there are other light sources such as an active galactic nucleus powered by a supermassive black hole surrounded by large amounts of materials heated to the point of generating electromagnetic emissions.

The Crew Dragon Resilience starts its Crew-1 mission blasting off atop a Falcon 9 rocket (Photo NASA/Joel Kowsky)

1

A few hours ago, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Resilience spacecraft blasted off atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral in its Crew-1 o SpaceX Crew-1 mission with Shannon Walker, Victor Glover, Mike Hopkins, and Soichi Noguchi on board. After about eleven minutes, it successfully separated from the rocket’s last stage and went en route to carry out its mission. This is the second crewed mission of the Crew Dragon spacecraft, this time within the normal rotation of the International Space Station crew.

An artistic illustration of a short gamma-ray burst such as GRB 200522A

0

An article published in “The Astrophysical Journal” reports a study on the kilonova observed on May 22, 2020, and its consequences. It was the merger between two neutron stars that generated a short gamma-ray burst cataloged as GRB 200522A and as a result, produced what from the first analyzes appears to be a magnetar, still a neutron star but of the type characterized by an extremely powerful magnetic field. A team of researchers led by astronomer Wen-fai Fong of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, USA, considered various possible explanations for the observed event, which had an exceptional brightness, and a kilonova that produced a magnetar was the most likely explanation.