Telescopes

Illustration of PSR B1957+20 and its companion

An article published in the journal “Nature” describes a high resolution observation of a pulsar cataloged as PSR B1957+20. A team of astronomers used data collected using the Arecibo radio telescope, obtaining one of the best results in the history of astronomy thanks to the presence of a trail of plasma left by a brown dwarf, a companion of the pulsar in a binary system. According to the astronomers, the lens effect generated suggests that it’s also the cause of fast radio bursts.

2015 BZ509

An article published in the journal “Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters” reports the discovery of an asteroid in an orbit near Jupiter’s which has a retrograde orbit, which means that it moves in the opposite direction of the solar system’s planets and most of its celestial bodies. Cataloged as 2015 BZ509, it was discovered in 2014 and the analysis of its orbit with a series of simulations led to the conclusion that it came from another solar system.

Orion A (Image courtesy NSF/S. Kong, J. Feddersen, H. Arce & CARMA-NRO Orion Survey team)

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.

The Ant Nebula (Image NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA))

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.

The galaxy cluster MACS J1149.5+2223 and in the inset the galaxy MACS1149-JD1

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.