This find could unlock insights into dark matter and galaxy evolution.
Astronomers have discovered ‘Bullseye,’ a record-breaking galaxy with nine rings—six more than any other known galaxy.
Category: cosmology – Page 38
Model shows spinning neutron stars gain enormous magnetic fields
An international team of scientists has modeled the formation and evolution of the strongest magnetic fields in the universe.
Led by scientists from Newcastle University, University of Leeds and France, the paper was published in the journal Nature Astronomy. The researchers identified the Tayler-Spruit dynamo caused by the fall back of supernova material as a mechanism leading to the formation of low-field magnetars. This new work solves the mystery of low-field magnetar formation, which has puzzled scientists since low-field magnetar discovery in 2010.
The team used advanced numerical simulations to model the magneto-thermal evolution of these stars, finding that a specific dynamo process within the proto-neutron star can generate these weaker magnetic fields.
First-ever Detection of a Mid-Infrared Flare in SagittariusA*, the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole
Using the MIRI instrument onboard the James Webb Space Telescope, an international team of scientists made the first-ever detection of a mid-IR flare from Sagittarius A*, the supermassive blackhole at the heart of the Milky Way. In simultaneous radio observations, the team found a radio counterpart of the flare lagging behind in time. The paper is published on the arXiv preprint server.
Scientists have been actively observing Sagittarius A* (Sgr A)—a supermassive black hole roughly 4 million times the mass of the sun— since the early 1990s. Sgr A regularly exhibits flares that can be observed in multiple wavelengths, allowing scientists to see different views of the same flare and better understand how it emits light and how the emission is generated. Despite a long history of successful observations, and even imaging of the cosmic beast by the Event Horizon Telescope in 2022, one crucial piece of the puzzle— mid-infrared observations (Mid-IR)—was missing until now.
Infrared (IR) light is a type of electromagnetic radiation that has longer wavelengths than visible light, but shorter wavelengths than radio light. Mid-IR sits in the middle of the infrared spectrum, and allows astronomers to observe objects, like flares, that are often difficult to observe in other wavelengths due to impenetrable dust. Until the recent study, no team had yet successfully detected Sgr A*’s variability in the mid-IR, leaving a gap in scientists’ understanding of what causes flares, and questions about whether theoretical models are complete.
NASA Unveils a Hidden Universe of Supermassive Black Holes
NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, is the United States government agency responsible for the nation’s civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research. Established in 1958 by the National Aeronautics and Space Act, NASA has led the U.S. in space exploration efforts, including the Apollo moon-landing missions, the Skylab space station, and the Space Shuttle program.
An Extreme Black Hole Collision Just Proved Einstein Was Right
The Theory of Relativity, published in 1905 by Albert Einstein, postulated the existence of gravitational waves—oscillations of the space-time fabric—and more than a century later, we have irrefutable evidence of it. Now, a new study has managed to find clear indications of relativistic procession in the orbits of two colliding black holes.
What Is Dark Energy? The Hidden Force Driving the Universe Apart
Some scientists think that dark energy could be a sort of defect in the fabric of the universe itself; defects like cosmic strings, which are hypothetical one-dimensional “wrinkles” thought to have formed in the early universe.
Some scientists think that dark energy isn’t something physical that we can discover. Rather, they think there could be an issue with general relativity and Einstein’s theory of gravity and how it works on the scale of the observable universe. Within this explanation, scientists think that it’s possible to modify our understanding of gravity in a way that explains observations of the universe made without the need for dark energy. Einstein actually proposed such an idea in 1919 called unimodular gravity, a modified version of general relativity that scientists today think wouldn’t require dark energy to make sense of the universe.
Dark energy is one of the great mysteries of the universe. For decades, scientists have theorized about our expanding universe. Now, for the first time ever, we have tools powerful enough to put these theories to the test and really investigate the big question: “what is dark energy?”
Baffling discovery about the universe expanding defies our understanding of physics
A new study has revealed the universe is expanding too quickly for our current understanding of physics to explain.
The expansion of the universe is described using a unit of measurement called the Hubble constant. Determining the universe’s expansion rate has been a major point of intrigue since 1929, when Edwin Hubble first discovered that our universe is expanding.
The universe began with the Big Bang, a rapid expansion from an initial state of high density and pressure.