Astronomy / Astrophysics

An illustration of the emission detected from the galaxy HATLAS J142935.3–002836

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An article accepted for publication in the journal “Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters” reports the detection of a megamaser generated by HATLAS J142935.3–002836, a galaxy undergoing considerable activity due to a galaxy merger that also led to an intense star formation. A team of researchers led by the University of Pretoria, South Africa, used the MeerKAT radio telescope to detect the maser emissions. The strength of its emissions is so high that the researchers called it a gigamaser, but certain detections are only possible thanks to a gravitational lensing phenomenon. This still makes it the brightest and most distant astronomical maser known.

The galaxy MoM-z14 photographed by the James Webb Space Telescope's NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument with an image from the so-called COSMOS Legacy Field in the background.

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An article accepted for publication in the “Open Journal of Astrophysics” reports evidence that the galaxy MoM-z14 is the most distant known so far. A team of researchers led by the Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) used the James Webb Space Telescope as part of the “Mirage or Miracle” (MoM) survey, in which the NIRSpec instrument was used to verify the nature of very bright and potentially very distant galaxies observed in images captured by the NIRCam instrument. The results confirm that we see MoM-z14 as it was about 280 million years after the Big Bang, confirming again that highly active galaxies existed at that time.

A graph with the conservative habitable zone illustrated by the orange band and ellipses illustrating the extended habitable zone proposed by this study

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An article published in “The Astrophysical Journal” reports the results of a study on the habitable zone that goes beyond the so-called conservative zone because it’s based on rigid assumptions. Astrophysicist Amri Wandel of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem focused on examining the conditions existing in systems of low-mass stars: orange dwarfs (K-class stars) and red dwarfs (M-class stars). The study specifically considered planets tidally locked to their stars.

Amri Wandel conducted an analysis using climate models that account for global heat transport, the greenhouse effect, and albedo. This led him to conclude that these stars may host planets potentially habitable for Earth-like life forms orbiting outside the conservative habitable zone.

A Falcon 9 rocket lifting off on the Twilight rideshare mission (Image courtesy SpaceX)

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A few hours ago, a Falcon 9 rocket launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base on the Twilight rideshare mission, carrying a total of 40 satellites in various phases. About two hours and twenty minutes after launch, the final group of satellites was deployed by SpaceX’s system. Among them were NASA’s Pandora Space Telescope and the BlackCAT and SPARCS nanosatellites, both 30x20x10-centimeter CubeSat-class satellites, part of NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative. These satellites will conduct their astronomical observations from low-Earth orbit.

The location of Cloud-9 (Image NASA, ESA. G. Anand (STScI), and A. Benitez-Llambay (Univ. of Milan-Bicocca); Image processing: J. DePasquale (STScI))

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An article published in “The Astrophysical Journal Letters” reports the discovery of what was dubbed Cloud-9, which can be described as a failed galaxy. A team of astronomers used observations with the FAST radio telescope to identify what appears to be a new type of astronomical object, and follow-up observations with the Hubble Space Telescope, the Green Bank Telescope (GBT), and the Very Large Array (VLA) to confirm the existence of the first object of its kind that was identified with reasonable certainty.

Technically defined as a reionization-limited H i cloud (RELHIC), Cloud-9 is a starless gas cloud that is supposed to be composed of dark matter filled with hydrostatic gas in thermal equilibrium with the cosmic ultraviolet background. Cloud-9 will help test cosmological models regarding dark matter.