Telescopes

A binary system formed by high mass newborn stars

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An article published in the journal “Nature Astronomy” describes the first observation of a binary system formed by high mass newborn stars. A team of researchers used the ALMA radio telescope to study a star-forming region cataloged as IRAS07299-1651 where a cloud of gas and dust is collapsing adding materials to two protostars that have similar masses for a total of at least 18 solar masses and must still reach a state of stability. The observations indicate that this pair was born from the division of a single disk of gas and dust and now each of the two protostars is surrounded by its own disk.

83 quasars discovered in the early universe

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5 articles published in the journals “The Astrophysical Journal Letters”, “The Astrophysical Journal” (here and here), “The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series” (paiwalled, available here) and “Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan” describe various aspects of the discovery of 83 new quasars dating back to about 13 billion years ago, studied together with 17 other quasars from that era that were already known. A team of researchers led by Yoshiki Matsuoka, now at the Japanese Ehime University, used the Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC), an instrument mounted on the Subaru Telescope of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) in Hawaii. Those quasars are powered by supermassive black holes and their study will help perfect our cosmological models.

Artistic concept of the Kepler-1658 system (Image courtesy Gabriel Perez Diaz/Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias)

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An article to be published in “The Astronomical Journal” offers evidence that confirms the existence of the exoplanet Kepler-1658b almost ten years after the detection of its first traces by NASA’s Kepler space telescope, which made it the first candidate discovered in its mission. A team of researchers led by Ashley Chontos, a student at the University of Hawaii, reviewed the data collected after that first detection also using the technique of astroseismology to confirm that the planet actually exists. The results were also presented in recent days at the Kepler/K2 Science Conference held in Glendale, California.

Artist's concept of star system with planets as spinning tops (Image NASA/JPL-Caltech, Sarah Millholland)

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An article published in the journal “Nature Astronomy” offers a solution to a mystery concerning a configuration of exoplanets pairs’ orbits discovered over the years by NASA’s Kepler space telescope. According to Sarah Millholland and Gregory Laughlin of the American Yale University, obliquity, which is the inclination between these planets’ axis and their orbit, is a key element to explain why those orbits are just outside the natural points of stability.

MMS5/OMC-3 (Image ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), Matsushita et al.)

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An article published in the journal “The Astrophysical Journal” reports the analysis that led to unveil the origin of two gas flows from the newborn star MMS5/OMC-3. A team of researchers used the ALMA radio telescope to study this situation which was a mystery because there are two very different flows since one is a slow outflow while the other is a fast jet and they concluded that they were formed independently in different parts of the gas disk surrounding the star.