Telescopes

An ancient galaxy with a frantic star formation

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An article published in the journal “Nature” describes the mapping of a galaxy known as COSMOS-AzTEC-1 that showed peculiar characteristics. A team of astronomers used the ALMA radio telescope to study this starburst galaxy, a class in which there’s considerable star formation. COSMOS-AzTEC-1 is very far away so we see it as it was 12.4 million years ago and very massive and could be the progenitor of today’s large elliptical galaxies so this type of research could provide new information on their evolution.

NGC 3918 (Image ESA/Hubble and NASA)

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A new image captured by the Hubble Space Telescope shows the planetary nebula NGC 3918, nicknamed the “Blue Planetary” or “The Southerner”. Its shape in some ways reminds of an eye with special colors and seeing it is a lucky event because it will not last long in astronomical terms since this phase will end within a few tenth of millennia.

The Spitzer Space Telescope getting prepared (Photo NASA)

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On August 25, 2003, NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope was launched from Cape Canaveral on a Delta II rocket. Its primary mission lasted 2.5 years and its success led to a series of extensions even after it ran out of the liquid helium it had on board that was used to keep some instruments at very low temperatures, which determined the end of their use.

HuBi 1 (Image courtesy Guerrero, Fang, Miller Bertolami, et al., 2018, Nature Astronomy, tmp, 112. All rights reserved)

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An article published in the journal “Nature Astronomy” describes a research on the planetary nebula HuBi 1. Normally that kind of structure marks a phase of a star’s agony but in this case a team of researchers discovered an nebula that’s inside-out. Their conclusion is that the star at its center is going through a sort of rebirth process so we see it while it’s ejecting materials from its surface and creating a shock wave that excites the nebula’s materials.

The NGC 6334I star formation region studied at the highest possible frequencies for the ALMA radio telescope

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An article published in the journal “Astrophysical Journal Letters” presents the first results of a pilot program to investigate at the highest possible frequencies for the ALMA radio telescope. A team of researchers used the NGC 6334I star formation region within the Cat’s Paw Nebula as a target for observations in what is called band 10 detecting glycolaldehyde and a compact bipolar outflow containing heavy water and carbon monosulfide from the protostar MM1B.