An article published in the journal “The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series” describes the results of the CARMA-NRO Orion Survey, a high-resolution mapping of the molecular cloud called Orion A, one of the two giant molecular clouds in the Orion molecular cloud complex. A team of astronomers combined the observations of the CARMA and NRO radio telescopes to map the stars but also the gas movements inside the cloud.
An article published in the journal “Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society” describes the discovery of laser emissions in the Ant Nebula. A team of astronomers used observations conducted with ESA’s Herschel space observatory to detect a very rare phenomenon connected to a star’s death. It suggests the presence of a binary star system in the heart of the nebula.
An article published in the journal “Nature” describes the discovery of the most distant traces of oxygen ever detected. A team of astronomers used the ALMA radio telescope and ESO’s VLT telescope to observe the galaxy MACS1149-JD1, where there are traces of star formation about 250 million years after the Big Bang, a very remote era in which so far there were just some clues of possible star formation.
An article published in the journal “Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia” describes the discovery of the fastest growing supermassive black hole. A team of astronomers from the Australian National University (ANU) used data collected by ESA’s Gaia space probe, NASA’s WISE space telescope and the SkyMapper telescope at the ANU Siding Spring Observatory to find it. It’s a quasar, one of the brightest objects in the universe but is more than 12 billion light years away from Earth. It swallows the equivalent of the Sun’s mass every two days.
An article published in the journal “Nature Astronomy” describes a new examination of data about Europa, one of the great moons of Jupiter, collected in 1997 by NASA’s Galileo space probe. A team of researchers used new computer models to interpret an anomaly in the magnetic field around Europa that had remained unexplained. The result of the new examination is that the anomaly was generated by plumes of water vapor containing various compounds, a new proof of their existence.
