Science June 28, 2023

ALMA Digs Deeper into the Mystery of Planet Formation

An international research team used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to observe disks around 19 protostars with a very high resolution to search for the earliest signs of planet formation. This survey was motivated by the recent findings that planet formation may be well-underway in the more-evolved proto-planetary disks, but until now there had been no systematic study to search for signs of planet formation in younger protostellar systems.

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Science June 22, 2023

Molecular Filament Shielded Young Solar System from Supernova

A team led by Doris Arzoumanian at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan proposed a new explanation of how the Solar System acquired the amount of isotopes measured in meteorites while surviving the supernova shock.

Science June 20, 2023

Observations of High-Mass Star Seeds Defy Models

Astronomers have mapped 39 interstellar clouds where high-mass stars are expected to form. This large data set shows that the accepted model of low-mass star formation needs to be expanded to explain the formation of high-mass stars. This suggests the formation of high-mass stars is fundamentally different from the formation of low-mass stars, not just a matter of scale.

Science June 15, 2023

Unburying CIZA Galaxy Cluster

Now astronomers have used a newly upgraded world-leading radio telescope to unbury the radio emissions from a galaxy cluster known as CIZA1359. The signal has until now been buried in noise from a nearby foreground object.

Science June 7, 2023

Tracking Vanished Massive Stars by their Chemical Footprints

Astronomers have discovered a star on the outskirts of the Milky Way Galaxy with a chemical composition unlike anything they have ever seen. It matches theoretical expectations for the chemical footprint left behind by very massive, very early stars. This is the clearest evidence yet that the first stars included very massive stars. Models show such stars would not have left behind any other remnants, so a footprint like this is the best evidence that can be hoped for.

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Science May 18, 2023

First Observed Radio Waves from a Type Ia Supernova

For the first time, astronomers have observed radio waves emitted by a Type Ia supernova, a type of explosion originating from a white dwarf star. This provides important clues to understand how white dwarfs explode.

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Science May 15, 2023

Out of this World Control on Ice Age Cycles

A research team, composed of climatologists and an astronomer, have used an improved computer model to reproduce the cycle of ice ages (glacial periods) 1.6 to 1.2 million years ago. The results show that the glacial cycle was driven primarily by astronomical forces in quite a different way than it works in the modern age. These results will help us to better understand the past, present, and future of ice sheets and the Earth’s climate.

Science April 28, 2023

Superflare with Massive, High-Velocity Prominence Eruption

A team of Japanese astronomers used simultaneous ground-based and space-based observations to capture a more complete picture of a superflare on a star. The observed flare started with a very massive, high-velocity prominence eruption. These results give us a better idea of how superflares and stellar prominence eruptions occur.

Science April 27, 2023

Astronomers Image for the First Time a Black Hole’s Accretion Flow Together With a Powerful Jet

An international team of scientists has used new millimeter-wavelength observations to produce an image that shows, for the first time, both the ring-like structure that reveals the matter falling into the central black hole and the powerful relativistic jet in the prominent radio galaxy Messier?87.

Science April 14, 2023

Playing Hide and Seek with Planets

An international team of astronomers announced the first exoplanet discovered through a combined approach of direct imaging and precision measurements of a star’s motion on the sky. This new method promises to improve the efficiency of exoplanet searches, paving the way for the discovery of an Earth twin.