Space: Structures and Features
Published

Long-term liquid water also on non-Earth-like planets?      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Liquid water is an important prerequisite for life to develop on a planet. As researchers report in a new study, liquid water could also exist for billions of years on planets that are very different from Earth. This calls our currently Earth-centred idea of potentially habitable planets into question.

Space: Structures and Features
Published

Flicker from the dark: Reading between the lines to model our galaxy's central black hole      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Researchers have shown in a single model the full story of how gas travels in the center of the Milky Way -- from being blown off by stars to falling into the black hole.

Space: Structures and Features Space: The Solar System
Published

Martian meteorite upsets planet formation theory      (via sciencedaily.com) 

A new study of an old meteorite contradicts current thinking about how rocky planets like the Earth and Mars acquire volatile elements such as hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and noble gases as they form.

Space: Structures and Features Space: The Solar System
Published

Dead star's cannibalism of its planetary system is most far-reaching ever witnessed      (via sciencedaily.com) 

The violent death throes of a nearby star so thoroughly disrupted its planetary system that the dead star left behind -- known as a white dwarf -- is sucking in debris from both the system's inner and outer reaches, astronomers report.

Space: Structures and Features
Published

Astronomers find evidence for most powerful pulsar in distant galaxy      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Astronomers using data from the VLA Sky Survey have discovered one of the youngest known neutron stars -- possibly as young as only 14 years. The dense remnant of a supernova explosion was revealed when bright radio emission powered by the pulsar's powerful magnetic field emerged from behind a thick shell of debris from the explosion.

Space: Exploration Space: Structures and Features
Published

NASA telescope to help untangle galaxy growth, dark matter makeup      (via sciencedaily.com) 

NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will study wispy streams of stars that extend far beyond the apparent edges of many galaxies. Missions like the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes would have to patch together hundreds of small images to see these structures around nearby galaxies in full. Roman will do so in a single snapshot. Astronomers will use these observations to explore how galaxies grow and the nature of dark matter.

Space: Structures and Features
Published

Scientists on the hunt for planetary formation fossils reveal unexpected eccentricities in nearby debris disk      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Astronomers have imaged the debris disk of the nearby star HD 53143 at millimeter wavelengths for the first time, and it looks nothing like they expected. Based on early coronagraphic data, scientists expected ALMA to confirm the debris disk as a face-on ring peppered with clumps of dust. Instead, the observations took a surprise turn, revealing the most complicated and eccentric debris disk observed to date.

Space: Structures and Features
Published

Astronomers discover a multiplanet system nearby      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Astronomers discovered a multiplanet system just 33 light-years from Earth, making it one of the closest known multiplanet systems. The system likely hosts at least two terrestrial, Earth-sized planets.

Space: Exploration Space: Structures and Features
Published

The tarantula's cosmic web: Astronomers map violent star formation in nebula outside our galaxy      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Astronomers have unveiled intricate details of the star-forming region 30 Doradus, also known as the Tarantula Nebula, using new observations from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). Now we can see the nebula in a new light, with wispy gas clouds that provide insight into how massive stars shape this region.

Space: Structures and Features
Published

To find a planet, look for the signatures of planet formation      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Finding forming planets is a tough but important job for astronomers: Only three planets have ever been discovered caught in the process of forming, and the most recent of these was found just weeks ago.

Space: Structures and Features
Published

Wandering star disrupts stellar nursery      (via sciencedaily.com) 

New study finds star-forming cloud's magnetic field is curiously twisted. Researchers believe a newborn star moved into another young star's stellar envelope to form a binary star system. The interloper shifted the cloud's dynamics, twisting its magnetic field. The new findings provide insight into binary star formation and how magnetic fields influence the earliest stages of developing stars.

Space: Structures and Features Space: The Solar System
Published

Simulations reveal hydrodynamics of planetary engulfment by expanding star      (via sciencedaily.com) 

A new study using hydrodynamical simulations reveals the forces acting on a planet when it is swallowed by an expanding star. The results show that the interactions of a substellar body (a planet or brown dwarf) with the hot gas in the outer envelope of a sun-like star can lead to a range of outcomes depending on the size of the engulfed object and the stage of the star's evolution. The dynamics and possible outcomes of planetary engulfment are poorly understood, but it is thought to be a relatively common fate for planetary systems.

Space: Structures and Features
Published

Astronomers may have detected a 'dark' free-floating black hole      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Astronomers have discovered what may be a free-floating black hole by observing the brightening of a more distant star as its light was distorted by the object's strong gravitational field -- so-called gravitational microlensing.

Space: Exploration Space: Structures and Features
Published

Ground-breaking number of brown dwarfs discovered      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Brown dwarfs, mysterious objects that straddle the line between stars and planets, are essential to our understanding of both stellar and planetary populations. However, only 40 brown dwarfs could be imaged around stars in almost three decades of searches. An international team has directly imaged a remarkable four new brown dwarfs thanks to a new innovative search method.

Paleontology: Dinosaurs
Published

Europe's largest land predator unearthed on the Isle of Wight      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Palaeontologists have identified the remains of one of Europe's largest ever land-based hunters: a dinosaur that measured over 10m long and lived around 125 million years ago.

Paleontology: Dinosaurs
Published

Bizarre meat-eating dinosaur joins 'Rogues' Gallery' of giant predators from classic fossil site in Egypt's Sahara Desert      (via sciencedaily.com) 

The fossil of a still-unnamed species provides the first known record of the abelisaurid group of theropods from a middle Cretaceous-aged (approximately 98 million years old) rock unit known as the Bahariya Formation, which is exposed in the Bahariya Oasis of the Western Desert of Egypt.

Space: Structures and Features Space: The Solar System
Published

Particle accelerator region revealed inside a solar flare      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

A new study offers direct evidence showing where near-light speed particle acceleration occurs inside the largest explosion known in the solar system, the solar flare.

Space: Structures and Features
Published

Yoyo stars responsible for off-center bubbles      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Astronomers have developed a new code to simulate the formation of a cluster of baby stars. Comparison with the well-known real case of the Orion Nebula shows that its off-center bubble of ionized gas was caused by a massive star that was pushed out of the newborn cluster but is now falling back in.

Space: Structures and Features
Published

Detecting new particles around black holes with gravitational waves      (via sciencedaily.com) 

Clouds of ultralight particles can form around rotating black holes. A team of physicists now show that these clouds would leave a characteristic imprint on the gravitational waves emitted by binary black holes.

Space: Structures and Features
Published

Colossal collisions linked to solar system science      (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

A new study shows a deep connection between some of the largest, most energetic events in the universe and much smaller, weaker ones powered by our own Sun.