Galaxies

The galaxy MACS0416_Y1 seen by ALMA and Hubble (Image ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, Tamura, et al.)

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An article published in “The Astrophysical Journal” describes a study on the galaxy MACS0416_Y1. A team of researchers led by Professor Yoichi Tamura of the Japanese University of Nagoya used the ALMA radio telescope to observe a galaxy we see as it was about 13.2 billion years ago. The surprising discovery is the considerable amount of interstellar dust present within it, explained by two intense periods of star formation that took place around 300 million and 600 million years after the Big Bang with a quiet phase between them.

Surprising high-energy X-ray emissions from the Whirlpool Galaxy and its small companion

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An article published in “The Astrophysical Journal” presents an in-depth spectral analysis of the two active galactic nuclei and other X-ray sources of the two galaxies that form M51. A team of researchers used NASA’s NuSTAR space telescope to detect high-energy X-ray emissions, which can pass through the layers of dust and gas that orbit the two supermassive black holes at the center of the two galaxies that are interacting in an initial phase of a galactic merger. A surprise came from the emissions of a neutron star in the Whirlpool Galaxy, the larger of the pair.

A newborn star in a giant bubble in the Large Magellanic Cloud

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An article published in the journal “Nature” reports the discovery of a jet of materials from a young massive star in an area called LHA 120-N 180B, or simply N180 B, a star formation region in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. A team of researchers led by Anna McLeod used the MUSE instrument installed on the VLT in Chile to study the area and in particular the jet cataloged as HH 1177, the first of this type detected in visible light outside the Milky Way.

The dwarf galaxy Bedin 1 behind the globular star cluster NGC 6752 (Image ESA/Hubble, NASA, Bedin et al.)

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An article published in the journal “Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters” describes the discovery of the most isolated dwarf galaxy detected so far. A team of researchers led by Luigi Bedin of the Italian National Institute of Astrophysics examined observations of the star cluster NGC 6752 carried out with the Hubble Space Telescope for a study of white dwarfs finding a group of very ancient stars that turned out to be a dwarf galaxy that was nicknamed Bedin 1.

A measurement of the Hubble constant based on quasars suggests possible changes to cosmological models

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An article published in the journal “Nature Astronomy” describes the use of quasars as cosmic tracers to measure the expansion of the universe up to 12 billion years ago. Guido Risaliti of the University of Florence and Elisabeta Lusso of Durham University studied the X-ray and optical emissions of a number of quasars using the comparison between those emissions to accurately assess their distances. The results could explain the discrepancies between the different measurements carried out with other methods suggesting that the density of the mysterious dark energy isn’t constant over time.