Astronomy / Astrophysics

The jet from protostar Cep A HW2 seen by the VLA (Image Carrasco-Gonzalez et al., Bill Saxton, NRAO/AUI/NSF)

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An article accepted for publication in the “Astrophysical Journal Letters” reports a study on the massive protostar Cep A HW2 and in particular on the jets of materials ejected from it. A team of researchers used the VLA to capture the best images so far of a protostar that, at the end of its formation, will likely be about 10 times more massive than the Sun. The details of the ejected jets indicate that they have an origin close to the star that has a wide angle and then tapers as the distance increases, a process called collimation. In lower-mass protostars, the collimation of the jets occurs much closer to their surface. Understanding the reason for this difference will help to better understand star formation processes.

The galaxy NGC 2276 (Image ESA/Hubble & NASA, P. Sell. Acknowledgement: L. Shatz)

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An image captured by the Hubble Space Telescope shows the galaxy NGC 2276. It’s a spiral galaxy that shows some peculiarities, as its shape is a bit distorted and the colors that indicate the distribution of the stars inside it reveal a certain irregularity. The reason for that is the interaction with a neighbor, the galaxy NGC 2300, whose force of gravity distorted some of NGC 2276’s spiral arms. Another interaction also involves the intergalactic gas that is present in the cluster that includes these two galaxies, which crashed into NGC 2276 triggering a high rate of star formation on an outer side of this galaxy.

Structures at the center of the Milky Way seen by Chandra and MeerKAT

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An article published in the journal “Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society” reports a study of the center of the Milky Way that reveals the presence of superheated gas threads and magnetic fields. Astronomer Q. Daniel Wang of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst combined the results of 370 observations of various parts of that area conducted with NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory adding observations conducted using the MeerKAT radio telescope. The results suggest the possibility of ongoing processes that could be due to an unknown energy source in the galactic center.

Deep field image (Image Dark Energy Survey/DOE/FNAL/DECam/CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA Acknowledgments: T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSF’s NOIRLab), M. Zamani (NSF’s NOIRLab) & D. de Martin (NSF’s NOIRLab))

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29 articles report various aspects of the results of a major cosmological research on the largest sample of galaxies – 226 million of them – ever observed to produce the most accurate measurements of the composition and growth of the universe. More than 400 scientists from the DES (Dark Energy Survey) Collaboration used images captured by the Dark Energy Camera in the first three years of the program, which started in 2013, to obtain results. The goal is to improve our knowledge of the universe, in particular, the nature of dark matter and dark energy.

Occator Crater on the dwarf planet Ceres and the structure of the ammonium molecule (Image NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA)

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An article published in the journal “Nature Communications” reports a study of the origin of the ammoniated phyllosilicates present on the dwarf planet Ceres. A team of researchers conducted lab experiments based on the simulation of the Ceres environment. The results confirm the hypothesis that this dwarf planet formed in an area of ​​the solar system where ammonia ice is stable. However, they can’t rule out that it formed in the asteroid belt.