According to a new study from the University of California, Irvine University, white dwarfs are the life of planets that have produced a warmer surface environment than a warmer surface environment formed within a habitable zone or within a habitable zone. It may provide a suitable environment.
The drainage ability to orbit the habitable zone of the white dwarf may have more Clement states to compensate for the cooling and dimming of the host star over time. Image credit: David A. Aguilar/CFA.
This study included the University of California Irvine Astronomer. Aokawa Shield Coworkers compared the climate of the water world with an Earth-like atmosphere composition orbiting in habitable zones of two different types of stars: the white d star and the main sequence K-Dwarf star Kepler-62.
Using a 3D global climate computer model, normally used to study the Earth's environment, they say that despite similar stellar energy distributions, the explanet of the white d star is far more than the Kepler-62 deplanet I discovered it was warm.
“White dwarf stars may emit some heat from residual nuclear activity into the outer layer, but they no longer exhibit fusion at their core,” Dr. Shields said.
“For this reason, we don't take into account much of the ability of these stars to host habitable exoplanets.”
“Our computer simulations suggest that if rocky planets exist in orbit, these planets may have more habitable real estate on their surface than previously thought. ”
The White Dwarf habitable zone is much closer to the stars compared to other star settlements, such as Kepler-62.
The authors emphasized that this would result in a much faster rotation period (10 hours) for the white dwarf exoplanet, and that Kepler 62's exoplanet has a 155-day rotation period.
Both planets can be trapped in synchronous orbits with permanent daysides and permanent nightsides, but the rotation of the super-fast white dwarf planets extends the circulation of clouds around the planet.
The much slower 155-day orbital period of the Kepler-62 planet contributes to large dayside liquid cloud masses.
“Synchronous rotation of exoplanets in habitable zones of normal stars like Kepler 62 creates more cloud covers on Earth's dayside, reflecting incoming radiation away from the Earth's surface. I expect that,'' Dr. Shields said.
“That's usually good for planets orbiting near the inner edge of the star's habitable zone, where you can cool off a bit, rather than losing the ocean in a runaway greenhouse.”
“But for a planet orbiting straight in the middle of a habitable zone, that's not a very good idea.”
“The planet orbiting Kepler-62 has so many clouds that it is covered in clouds, sacrificeing valuable habitable surface area in the process.”
“On the other hand, planets orbiting the white dwarf spin so fast that they hardly have cloudy time during the day, so they retain more heat and work in their advantage.”
Less liquid clouds and the strong greenhouse effect on the Nightside creates a warmer state on the white dwar planet compared to the Kepler-62 planet.
“These results suggest that the once thought to be lifeless, white d star stellar environment could present a new pathway for exoplanet and astrobiology researchers to pursue. I'm doing that,” Dr. Shields said.
“With powerful observational capabilities online to assess exoplanet atmospheres and astrobiology, such as those related to the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, we are now studying a whole new class of whole new classes. You can enter a new stage of being. The world around the stars that was previously not announced.”
Aokawa L. Seals et al. 2025. Increased surface temperature of the habitable white dwarf world compared to the main sequence exoplanet. APJ 979, 45; doi: 10.3847/1538-4357/AD9827
Astronomer using Immersed lattice infrared flash device (IGRINS) Gemini South Telescope devices looked at Wasp-121B, one of the most widely studied Ultra Hot Jupiter.
The artist's illustration indicates Wasp-121B, an alien world that has lost magnesium and iron gas from the atmosphere. Image credit: NASA / ESA / J. OLMSTED, STSCI.
WASP-121B, discovered by astronomers using Wasp-South Survece in 2016, is 1.87 times that of Jupiter, 1.18 times large.
The host star, WASP-121 (TYC 7630-352-1) is an active F6 main sequence star about 1.5 times the size of the sun.
The WASP-121 system is about 881 light-years away to the puppy constellation.
WASP-121B is a so-called “hot jupiter” and takes only 1 for three days to get on WASP-121 on track. As it is very close to the parent's star, as it approaches, the gravity of the star begins to tear.
Astronomers estimate that the temperature of the planet is about 2,500 degrees (Hana 4,600 degrees), which is enough to boil some metals.
The new Iglin observation results have revealed something unexpected about the WASP-121B formation history.
With these observations, Peter Smith and his colleagues at the Arizona State University, for the first time, measured the ratio of passenger rocks and ice using a single instrument.
“Gemini South using IGRINS has actually measured individual chemical existence more accurately than even achieving a space -based telescope,” said Smith.
The spectroscopic data indicates that the WASP-121B has a high ratio of rock and ice, and indicates that excessive rocky materials have been accumulated during the formation.
This suggests a planet formed in the area of the protranetary disk that is too hot for the ice to condense.
“Our measurement means that this typical view must be reconsidered and the planetary formation model needs to be revisited,” Smith said.
Astronomers also discovered a remarkable feature of the WASP-121B atmosphere.
“The climate of this planet is extreme, not the earth's climate,” Smith said.
Since the planet daySide is very hot, elements that are generally considered “metal” evaporate in the atmosphere and can be detected by the spectroscopic method.
The strong wind blows these metals into the permanent night side of the planet. There, it is cool enough to condense and rain. This is an effect observed on Wasp-121B in the form of calcium rain.
“The sensitivity of our device can be used to examine the subtle wind speed by examining various areas, altitude, and long terms using these elements, revealing how dynamic this planet is. You can do it, “said Smith.
Peter CB Smith et al。 2025. Roasted marshmallow program with Gemini South Igulin. II. WASP-121 B has a ratio of superstar C/O and impact resistance and volatility. AJ 168, 293; DOI: 10.3847/1538-3881/AD8574
Using observations from the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers found that at a time when the Universe was half its current age, a single galaxy behind the galaxy cluster Abel 370 had a redshift of 0.725 (Dragon We identified a star with more than 40 microlenses in an arc (called an arc).
In this Hubble image of Abell 370, the host galaxy in which 44 stars were discovered appears several times. Image credit: NASA.
“This groundbreaking discovery demonstrates for the first time that it is possible to study large numbers of individual stars in distant galaxies,” said Fengwu Sun, a postdoctoral researcher at the Harvard University & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. the doctor said.
“Previous studies using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope discovered about seven stars, and now we have the ability to resolve them in a way that was previously impossible. ”
“Importantly, observing larger numbers of individual stars will also help us better understand the dark matter in the lens surfaces of these galaxies and stars. i didn't understand.”
In the study, Sun and his colleagues analyzed web images of a galaxy known as Dragon Arc, which lies along the line of sight from Earth behind a massive galaxy cluster called Abel 370.
Through gravitational lensing, Abel 370 stretches the Dragon Arc's characteristic spiral into an elongated shape. It is a hall of mirrors as big as the universe.
Astronomers carefully analyzed the color of each star in the Dragon Arc and discovered that many of them were red supergiants. This is in contrast to previous discoveries that primarily identified blue supergiants.
The researchers say this difference in star types highlights the unique ability of Webb observations at infrared wavelengths to reveal stars even at low temperatures.
“When we discovered these individual stars, we were actually looking for background galaxies that were magnified by galaxies within this giant cluster,” Dr. Sun said.
“But when we processed the data, we found that there were many what appeared to be individual star points.”
“It was an exciting discovery because it was the first time we had been able to see so many individual stars so far away.”
“We know more about red supergiants in our local galactic neighborhood, because they are closer and we can take better images and spectra, and sometimes even break up stars. It’s from.”
“Knowledge gained from studying red supergiants in the local universe can be used in future studies to interpret what happens next to red supergiants during the early stages of galaxy formation.”
Most galaxies, including the Milky Way, contain tens of billions of stars. In nearby galaxies, such as the Andromeda galaxy, astronomers can observe stars one by one.
But in galaxies that are billions of light years away, their light has to travel billions of light years to reach us, so stars appear mixed together, which explains how galaxies form and evolve. This has been a long-standing challenge for scientists who study it.
“To us, very distant galaxies usually look like diffuse, blurry clumps,” says Dr. Yoshinobu Fudamoto, an astronomer at Chiba University.
“But in reality, those clumps are made up of so many individual stars that our telescopes can't resolve them.”
of findings Published in a magazine natural astronomy.
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Yuya Fudamoto others. Identified over 40 gravitationally expanded stars in the galaxy at redshift 0.725. Nat Astronpublished online on January 6, 2025. doi: 10.1038/s41550-024-02432-3
Using data from ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) and the Keck Telescope, astronomers detected a binary star system in the S star cluster near Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. I discovered it. This is the first time that a binary star has been discovered near a supermassive black hole.
This image shows the location of binary star D9 orbiting Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. Image credit: ESO / Peißker et al. / S. Guizard.
Sagittarius A* is orbited by fast stars and dusty objects collectively known as the S cluster.
Binary star systems (two stars gravitationally bound to each other around a common center of mass) are predicted to exist within the S cluster, but have not been detected so far.
Previous studies have suggested that such stars are unlikely to be stabilized by their interactions with Sagittarius A*.
“Black holes are not as destructive as we think,” says Florian Peisker, an astronomer at the University of Cologne.
“Our findings show that some binaries can temporarily thrive even under disruptive conditions.”
The newly discovered binary star, named D9, is estimated to be just 2.7 million years old.
Due to the strong gravity of the nearby black hole, it will probably merge into a single star within just a million years, a very short time for such a young system.
“This only provides a short window on the cosmic timescale for observing such binary star systems, but we succeeded,” said Dr. Emma Bordier, also from the University of Cologne. Ta.
“The D9 system shows clear signs of gas and dust surrounding the star, suggesting it may be a very young system that must have formed near a supermassive black hole. ” said Dr. Michal Zajacek. Astronomer at Masaryk University and the University of Cologne.
The most mysterious of the S clusters are the G objects, which behave like stars but look like clouds of gas and dust.
It was while observing these mysterious objects that the research team discovered a surprising pattern in D9.
“This result sheds new light on what the mysterious G-objects are,” the authors said.
“They may actually be a combination of binaries that have not yet merged and leftover material from stars that have already merged.”
“Planets often form around young stars, so this discovery allows us to speculate about their existence,” Dr. Pisker said.
“It seems like it’s only a matter of time before planets are detected at the center of the galaxy.”
a paper This discovery was published in today’s magazine nature communications.
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F. Peisker others. 2024. A binary star system in the S star cluster near the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*. Nat Commune 15, 10608; doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-54748-3
According to a team of astronomers from the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics at the University of Potsdam, the XX triangular star, a bright K0 giant star in a binary star system located in the constellation Triangulum, exhibits chaotic, aperiodic star point behavior. That’s what it means. and Konkoli Observatory.
XX A star spot on the surface of the constellation Triangulum. Image credits: HUN-REN RCAES / Zs. Kushvari, MOME / Á. Radovani, AIP / K. Strassmeyer.
“Among the things that can be observed from a spatially resolved solar disk are the number, size and morphology of sunspots, their growth and decay, and their movement in latitude and longitude,” said lead author and director of the Leibniz Institute for Astronomy. said Professor Klaus Strassmeyer. Potsdam Astrophysics and Potsdam University, and their colleagues.
“Such spots are also seen on other stars and are called star spots.”
“We use indirect surface imaging techniques to invert the spectral line profile into an image of the stellar surface.”
“Typically we only get occasional snapshots of spots on a star’s surface, but the spots change systematically over time, and like the Sun, only then can we learn about the internal dynamos and structure of the target in question. Well known.”
“We chose the XX triangular star, one of the most speckled stars in the sky, for a more sustained application of Doppler imaging.”
XX triangle It is located about 640 light years away in the constellation Triangulum.
The star, also known as XX Tri or HD 12545, has a mass only 10% more than the Sun, a radius 10 times the Sun’s radius, and an effective temperature of 4630 K.
It has a rotation period of 24 days, which is synchronized with the orbital period of the binary star system.
XX Trigonum has previously been shown to contain a gigantic star spot with physical dimensions equivalent to 10,000 times the area of the largest group of spots ever seen on the Sun, and 10 times the size of the projected solar disk. It had been discovered in
Professor Strassmeier and his co-authors took 99 separate images of the star using an indirect surface imaging technique called Doppler imaging.
“A dark spot on the star’s surface caused its optical center (a point that essentially represents the star’s ‘center of light’) to shift by up to 24 microarcseconds, which is less than the radius of the star’s visible disk. This corresponds to approximately 10%,” they said. Said.
“These changes occur because the dark spots reduce the brightness of certain areas of the star, shifting the perceived center of light slightly.”
“However, unlike the sun’s predictable activity cycles, the displacements of these photocenters did not follow a periodic pattern. This is a largely chaotic and probably aperiodic pattern, very different from the solar dynamo. This suggests that it is a dynamo.”
“This phenomenon also highlights challenges in detecting exoplanets, as spot-induced fluctuations in the optical center can mimic or mask small movements caused by orbiting planets, which could impose substantial limitations on the detection of such exoplanets by astronomical observations.”
of findings appear in the diary nature communications.
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KG Strassmeyer others. 2024. XX Long-term Doppler images of triangular stars show chaotic aperiodic dynamos. Nat Commune 15, 9986; doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-54329-4
For the first time ever, scientists have successfully captured images of stars outside our galaxy. The images show a massive red supergiant star named WOH G64, located 160,000 light-years away. This star is in the process of shedding its outer layers, a sign that it may soon undergo a massive supernova explosion.
“This star, WOH G64, is incredibly unique, and we may witness significant changes that could lead to its explosive end,” said Dr. Jacco Van Loon, co-author of the study and director of the Kiel Observatory.
Located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy at the edge of the Milky Way, this star is of particular interest to researchers. Only 25 objects in the Milky Way have been closely studied in such detail, making this discovery even more significant.
With the help of the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) at the European Southern Observatory in Chile, researchers were able to capture detailed images of WOH G64. The presence of a dust cocoon around the red supergiant star suggests the emission of gas and dust, possibly from the star itself or a companion star.
Despite the challenges posed by the distance of stars from Earth, advancements in technology and research have allowed scientists to observe and learn more about these celestial bodies. Understanding the final stages of a star’s life, such as before a supernova, can provide insights into the production of chemical elements.
About our experts:
Dr. Darren Baskill is a lecturer in astronomy and physics at the University of Sussex. With over 25 years of experience in the field of astronomy, he specializes in public education about space-related topics.
This image, taken by ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer’s GRAVITY instrument, shows the red supergiant star WOH G64. Image credit: ESO / Onaka others., doi: 10.1051/0004-6361/202451820.
WOH G64 is located in the constellation Shira, about 160,000 light years away.
The star, also known as IRAS 04553-6825, 2MASS J04551048-6820298, or TIC 30186593, is part of the Large Magellanic Cloud, one of the smaller galaxies orbiting the Milky Way.
WOH G64 is approximately 2,000 times larger than the Sun and is classified as a red supergiant star.
“We discovered an egg-shaped cocoon that tightly surrounds this star,” said Dr. Keiichi Onaka, an astrophysicist at Andres Bello University.
“We’re excited because this could be related to the rapid ejection of material from a dying star before it explodes into a supernova.”
“Astronomers have taken zoomed-in images of and characterized about two dozen stars in our Milky Way galaxy, but countless other stars exist in other galaxies. and were so far away that it was very difficult to observe one of them in detail.
Artist’s reconstruction of the red supergiant star WOH G64. Image credit: ESO/L. Calçada.
Dr. Onaka and his colleagues have been interested in WOH G64 for a long time.
In 2005 and 2007, they used VLTI to learn more about the star’s properties and continued their research in the years since. However, the actual appearance of this star remained elusive.
To achieve the desired photos, it was necessary to wait for the development of VLTI’s second generation equipment. gravity.
After comparing the new results with other previous observations of WOH G64, they were surprised to find that the star had become fainter over the past decade.
Professor Gerd Weigert, an astronomer at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, said: “We found that this star has undergone significant changes over the past 10 years, and this is a rare opportunity to witness the life of a star in real time.” he said. .
During the final stages of their lives, red supergiant stars like WOH G64 shed their outer layers of gas and dust in a process that lasts thousands of years.
Dr Jacco van Loon, director of the Kiel Observatory at Kiel University, said: “This star is one of the most extreme of its kind and any dramatic changes could bring it closer to an explosive demise. ” he said.
“These ejected materials may also be responsible for the dimming and the unexpected shape of the dust cocoon around the star,” the astronomers said.
The new image shows the cocoon elongating, surprising researchers who had expected a different shape based on previous observations and computer models.
They believe that the cocoon’s egg-like shape could be explained by the star’s molting or the influence of an as-yet-undiscovered companion star.
As the star dims, it becomes increasingly difficult to take other close-up photos, even VLTI.
Nevertheless, in the future, an update of the telescope’s instruments is planned. Gravity+I promise to change this soon.
“Similar follow-up observations using ESO’s instruments will be important for understanding what is happening inside this star,” said Dr. Onaka.
of the team paper Published in a magazine astronomy and astrophysics.
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Kento Ohnaka others. 2024. Image of the innermost circumstellar environment of the red supergiant star WOH G64 in the Large Magellanic Cloud. A&A 691, L15; doi: 10.1051/0004-6361/202451820
Left: Image of star WOH G64 taken with the Very Large Telescope Interferometer in Chile. Right: Artist’s impression of the star
ESO/K. Onaka et al., L. Calçada
Astronomers have taken the first detailed pictures of a star in another galaxy more than 160,000 light-years away. This giant star may be showing signs that it’s only a few years away from exploding, but we’ve never seen it in detail before.
The largest stars we know of are red supergiants, which are stars that have run out of hydrogen fuel in their cores. Instead, the shell of hydrogen gas surrounding the core burns, causing the star’s volume to expand significantly.
One of the largest red supergiants that we know of is WOH G64, also known as a giant star. It is 1540 to 2575 times larger than the Sun and resides in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. The star has attracted the attention of astronomers since it was discovered in the 1970s, but its distance has made it difficult to study it in detail.
now, jacko van loon and colleagues from Keele University in the UK used the Very Large Telescope Interferometer in Chile’s Atacama Desert to take close-up pictures of WOH G64. The interferometer is a collection of four individual telescopes linked together to function as if they were 200 telescopes in one. meter telescope. “In this image, you can see details similar to what you would see in an astronaut walking on the moon,” Van Loon said. “You can’t see it with a normal telescope aimed at the moon.”
The image, taken using infrared light, shows a bright ball of gas and dust, exhaled by the star and now surrounding it in a dense cocoon, at temperatures above 1,000 degrees Celsius (1,832 degrees Fahrenheit). “This is a structure that we really didn’t expect to see,” Van Loon said. “We expected to have a star in the middle.”
The star appears dimmer than when it was last observed, so the gas and dust likely appeared relatively recently, Van Loon said. It may have been created by a star blowing away its outer layers, and astronomers have never seen it in a red supergiant.
If that happens, and the process is similar to that seen in similar stars called blue supergiants, it could be a sign that the star will take decades or even years to explode. I don’t know. “If we can watch this star explode, we will be able to learn much more about the star before it explodes,” Van Loon said.
“Being able to reconstruct an image of this object at such a great distance is technically quite impressive,” he says. paul krauser At the University of Sheffield, UK.
But it’s difficult to say with certainty whether the observed gases and dust, and the accompanying dimming of the brightness, are signs of an impending explosion. “Stars like this object are well known to be highly volatile,” Krauser said. “It’s simply what happens in these objects where there’s a dense, slow outflow that doesn’t go very far from the star. They’re well known to be dust factories.”
Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are millisecond-long events detected from beyond the Milky Way. The radiative properties of FRBs favor magnetars as their source, as evidenced by FRB-like outbursts from the Milky Way's magnetars and the star-forming nature of FRB host galaxies. However, the process that generates the FRB source remains unknown. FRBs are more likely to occur in massive star-forming galaxies, according to a new study. The study also suggests that magnetars, whose magnetic fields are 100 trillion times stronger than Earth's, are often formed when two stars merge and later explode in a supernova.
This photo montage shows the Deep Synoptic Array-110 antenna used to locate and determine the location of Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs). Above the antenna are several images of the FRB's host galaxy appearing in the sky. These galaxies are very large and challenging models to describe FRB sources. Image credit: Annie Mejia/California Institute of Technology.
“Magnetars' immense power output makes them one of the most fascinating and extreme objects in the universe,” said lead author Kriti Sharma, a graduate student at Caltech.
“Little is known about what causes magnetars to form during the extinction of massive stars. Our work helps answer this question.”
To search for FRBs, Sharma and his colleagues used Deep Synoptic Array-110 (DSA-110) at the Owens Valley Radio Astronomical Observatory near Bishop, California.
To date, this sprawling radio array has detected 70 FRBs and located their specific source galaxies (only 23 other FRBs have been located by other telescopes). is).
In the current study, the researchers analyzed 30 of these local FRBs.
“DSA-110 more than doubles the number of FRBs containing known host galaxies, which is what we built the array for,” said Dr. Vikram Ravi of the California Institute of Technology.
FRBs are known to occur in galaxies that are actively forming stars, but the authors were surprised to find that FRBs are more frequent in massive star-forming galaxies than in low-mass star-forming galaxies. I've found that this tends to happen.
This alone was interesting because astronomers had previously thought that all types of active galaxies generate FRBs.
Armed with this new information, they began pondering what the results revealed about the Fed.
Metals in our universe (elements manufactured by stars) take time to accumulate over the course of the universe's history, so large galaxies tend to be rich in metals.
The fact that FRBs are more common in these metal-rich galaxies means that the magnetars from which they originate are also more common in these types of galaxies.
Stars rich in metals (astronomical terminology for elements heavier than hydrogen or helium) tend to be larger than other stars.
“Over time, as the galaxy grows, successive generations of stars evolve and die, enriching the galaxy with metals,” Dr. Ravi said.
Additionally, massive stars that can go supernova and become magnetars are more commonly found in pairs.
In fact, 84% of massive stars are binaries. So when one massive star in a binary swells with extra metal content, that extra material is pulled into its partner, which facilitates the eventual merger of the two stars.
These merging stars will have a combined magnetic field that is larger than the magnetic field of a single star.
“Stars with more metallic content swell, promoting mass transfer and eventually reaching mergers, resulting in even more massive stars with a total magnetic field greater than what any individual star would have.” is formed,” Sharma said.
In summary, since FRBs are preferentially observed in massive, metal-rich star-forming galaxies, magnetars (which are thought to cause FRBs) are also probably located in metal-rich environments that promote the merger of two stars. It is thought that it is formed by.
Therefore, this result suggests that magnetars in the universe originate from the remains of stellar mergers.
In the future, the team plans to use the DSA-110 and eventually the DSA-2000, an even larger wireless array to be built in the Nevada desert and expected to be completed in 2028, to connect more FRBs and their We would like to track the location of the occurrence.
“This result is a milestone for the entire DSA team. Many of the authors of this paper helped build DSA-110,” said Dr. Ravi.
“And the fact that DSA-110 is so good at localizing FRBs bodes well for the success of DSA-2000.”
K. Sharma others. 2024. Preferential occurrence of fast radio bursts in massive star-forming galaxies. nature 635, 61-66; doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-08074-9
The neutron star in X-ray binary system 4U 1820-30 rotates 716 times per second, the fastest rate ever observed, according to an analysis of data collected by NASA’s Neutron Star Internal Composition Explorer (NICER). It is one of the rotating celestial bodies. 2017 and 2022.
Artist’s depiction of the X-ray binary star system 4U 1820-30 at the center of globular cluster NGC 6624. Image credit: NASA.
4U 1820-30 It is located approximately 26,000 light years from Earth in the constellation Sagittarius.
This X-ray binary star system is part of a metal-rich globular cluster called NGC6624.
It consists of two stars: a neutron star and a white dwarf companion. The latter orbits a neutron star every 11 minutes, making it the star system with the shortest known orbital period.
The 4U 1820-30 typically displays short bursts of X-rays that last only 10 to 15 seconds. This is likely due to the ignited helium-rich fuel burning out quickly on the surface.
“Due to its strong gravity, the neutron star pulls matter away from its companion star,” said Dr. Gaurava Jaisawal of DTU Space and colleagues.
“When enough material accumulates on the surface, a violent thermonuclear explosion occurs on the neutron star, similar to an atomic bomb.”
Astronomers observed 4U 1820-30 using NASA’s NICER X-ray telescope mounted outside the International Space Station.
“While studying thermonuclear explosions from this system, we discovered significant oscillations, caused by the neutron star rotating around its central axis at an astonishing speed of 716 times per second. “This suggests that the
“If future observations confirm this, the 4U 1820-30 neutron star would be one of the fastest rotating objects ever observed in the universe, rivaled by a star called PSR J1748-2446. There will only be another neutron star.”
From 2017 to 2021, NICER detected 15 thermonuclear X-ray bursts from 4U 1820-30.
This was one of the bursts that exhibited symptoms known as “thermonuclear burst oscillations,” which occur at a frequency of 716 Hz.
These bursts of oscillations match the rotational frequency of the neutron star itself, meaning it is rotating around its axis at a record speed of 716 times per second.
“During the burst, the neutron star becomes up to 100,000 times brighter than the Sun and releases an enormous amount of energy,” said DTU space researcher Dr. Jerome Cheneves.
“We are therefore working on very extreme events, and studying them will provide new insights into the existing life cycles of binary star systems and the formation of elements in the universe.”
Gaurava K. Jaisawal others. 2024. A comprehensive study of the 4U 1820-30 thermonuclear X-ray burst by NICER: accretion disk interactions and candidate burst oscillations. APJ 975, 67; doi: 10.3847/1538-4357/ad794e
NGC1386 is a spiral galaxy located 53 million light years away in the constellation Eridanus.
This image of NGC 1386 combines data from VST and ALMA. Image credits: ESO / ALMA / National Astronomical Observatory of Japan / NRAO / Prieto others. / Deep investigation of Fornax.
Dr. Almudena Prieto of the Canarias Institute for Astronomy and colleagues observed the central region of NGC 1386 as part of an experiment. PARSEC projecta parsec-scale multiwavelength survey of the nearest galactic center.
“Stars often form in star clusters, which are collections of thousands of stars that originate from giant clouds of molecular gas,” the astronomers said.
“The blue ring at the center of this galaxy is ripe with star clusters filled with young stars.”
To examine this ring in more detail, Dr. Prieto and his co-authors used data from ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.
The data shows that these clusters all formed around the same time 4 million years ago.
“This is the first time that synchronous star formation has been observed in a galaxy containing mainly old stars,” the researchers said.
They used the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) to uncover further secrets of NGC 1386.
“The new images show numerous gas clouds as golden rings, ready to form a second wave of young stars,” the scientists said.
“But we still have to wait five million years for these to emerge.”
“Even though it is old, NGC 1386 continues to rejuvenate,” the researchers added.
of findings Published in September 2024. Royal Astronomical Society Monthly Notices.
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Almudena Prieto others. 2024. PARSEC's view of star formation at the galactic center: from primordial clusters to star clusters in early-type spirals. MNRAS 533 (1): 433-454;doi: 10.1093/mnras/stae1822
V404 Cygnus, an X-ray binary star that hosts a low-mass black hole, has a wide echelon with a tertiary companion at least 3,500 astronomical units (AU) away from the inner binary, according to MIT astrophysicists. It is said to be part of a triple star.
V404 Cygni is located approximately 7,800 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus.
This system first attracted attention more than 80 years ago, during the 1938 nova explosion.
Another eruption occurred in 1989 and was discovered by the Japanese X-ray satellite Ginga and high-energy instruments aboard the Mir space station.
The 1989 explosion, known as Nova Cygnus 1989, was pivotal in the study of black holes.
Until then, astronomers had known of only a handful of objects that could be black holes, and V404 Cygnus was one of the most likely candidates.
V404 Cygnus is known to host a central stellar-mass black hole in the act of consuming a small star that spirals very close to the black hole every 6.5 days. This is a configuration similar to most binary star systems.
But new research suggests there's a second star orbiting the black hole, albeit much further away.
“Most black holes are thought to be formed by violent explosions of stars, but this discovery helps cast doubt on that,” said Kevin Burge, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Ta.
“This system is very interesting for the evolution of black holes, and also raises the question of whether triples exist.”
Artist's impression of V404 Cygnus: The central black hole (black dot) is consuming a nearby star (orange object on the left), while the second star (white flash at the top) is far away orbiting a distance of Image credit: Jorge Lugo.
Burge and his colleagues estimate that the third companion star orbits the V404 Cygnus black hole every 70,000 years.
The fact that black holes appear to exert a gravitational pull on distant objects raises questions about the origins of black holes themselves.
Black holes are thought to be formed by violent explosions of dying stars. This is a process known as a supernova, in which a star releases a huge amount of energy and light in one final burst before collapsing into an invisible black hole.
But the team's findings suggest that if the newly observed black hole had originated from a typical supernova, the energy released before it collapsed would have kicked loosely bound objects around it. It suggests that it might have been.
So the second outer star shouldn't be hanging around yet.
Instead, the authors believe that the V404 Cygnus black hole formed through a more gentle process of direct collapse, in which the star simply collapsed and formed the black hole without a final, dramatic flash. I think it might be.
Such a benign origin poses little impediment to loosely bound, distant objects.
Because V404 Cygnus contains a very distant star, this suggests that the black holes in this system were born through a more gradual, direct collapse.
And while astronomers have observed more violent supernovae for centuries, this triple system may be the first evidence of a black hole formed from this more gentle process.
In addition to providing clues about the black hole's origin, the outer star also revealed the age of the system.
Astrophysicists observed that the outer star happened to be in the process of becoming a red giant, a stage that occurs at the end of a star's life.
Based on this star's evolution, they determined that the outer star was about 4 billion years old.
Considering that the neighboring stars were born at about the same time, they conclude that the components of the binary star are also 4 billion years old.
“This has never been done before with old black holes,” Dr. Burge says.
“Thanks to this discovery, we now know that V404 Cygnus is part of a triple star. It may have formed by direct collapse, and it formed about 4 billion years ago.”
of findings Published in this week's magazine nature.
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KB barge others. The black hole low-mass X-ray binary V404 Cygnus is part of a wide triple. naturepublished online October 23, 2024. doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-08120-6
Betelgeuse, also known as Alpha Orionis or Alpha Ori, is the second closest red supergiant star to Earth. From November 2019 to March 2020, the star experienced a historic diminution in visible brightness. Its apparent magnitude is usually between 0.1 and 1, but around February 7-13, 2020, its visual brightness decreased to magnitude 1.6. This event is called the Great Fading of Betelgeuse. A new study shows that the observed dimming is probably caused by an invisible companion star orbiting Betelgeuse. The companion, named Alpha Ori B, or Betelbuddy, acts like a snowplow as it orbits Betelgeuse, pushing light-blocking dust out of the way and making Betelgeuse appear temporarily brighter.
Graphic depiction of Betelgeuse and Betel Buddy. Image credit: Lucy Reading-Ikanda/Simons Foundation.
Betelgeuse, the second brightest star in the constellation Orion, is an 8 million-year-old red supergiant star about 724 light-years from Earth.
With a radius about 1,400 times larger than the Sun, Betelgeuse is one of the largest known stars.
It is also one of the brightest stars known, emitting more light than 100,000 suns.
The star is nearing the end of its life, and when it explodes, the event will be bright enough to be visible during the day for several weeks.
Astronomers can predict when Betelgeuse will explode by effectively “checking the pulse.”
This is a variable star, meaning it brightens and dims, pulsating like a heartbeat.
Betelgeuse has two heartbeats. One pulsates on a timescale of slightly longer than a year, and the other on a timescale of about 6 years.
One of these heartbeats is Betelgeuse's fundamental mode, a pattern of brightening and dimming unique to the star itself.
If a star's fundamental mode is its long-scale pulse, Betelgeuse could be ready to explode sooner than expected.
However, if the fundamental mode is that short-scale heartbeat, as some studies have suggested, then that longer heartbeat is a phenomenon called long secondary period.
In that case, this long brightening and dimming would be caused by something outside the star.
Scientists still don't know exactly what causes the long secondary period, but one leading theory is that the star has a companion star orbiting it and flying through the cosmic dust produced and ejected by the star. A secondary period occurs when the
The displaced dust changes the amount of starlight that reaches Earth, changing the star's apparent brightness.
Astrophysicist Jared Goldberg of the Flatiron Institute and his colleagues are investigating whether other processes, such as stirring inside the star or periodic changes in the star's strong magnetic field, could have caused the long secondary periods. was investigated.
After combining data from direct observations of Betelgeuse with sophisticated computer models that simulate the star's activity, the researchers concluded that Betelgeuse was the most likely explanation.
“We've eliminated all possible inherent variables as to why it brightens and dims the way it does,” Dr. Goldberg said.
“The only hypothesis that seems compatible is that Betelgeuse has a companion star.”
The authors have not yet determined exactly what Betelbadi is, but they assume it is a star with up to twice the mass of the Sun.
“Other than giving us constraints on mass and orbit, it's hard to say what the companion star actually is,” said Dr. Meridith Joyce, an astronomer at the University of Wyoming.
“A Sun-like star is the most likely type of companion star, but it's not definitive.”
Next, the team will try to take images of Bethelvadi with telescopes, as visibility may open around December 6, 2024.
“Since our results are based on inference rather than direct detection, we need to confirm that Betelbadi actually exists,” said Dr. László Molnár, an astronomer at the Konkoli Observatory.
“So we are currently working on an observation proposal.”
Jared A. Goldberg others. 2024. Betelgeuse's companion: Binary stardom as the origin of Alpha Orionis' long secondary period. APJin press. arXiv: 2408.09089
Named after the otherworldly sounds these tree frogs make, Boufis The rainforests of Madagascar are expanses, some of which remind us of the sounds of technological equipment from fictional works. Star Trek Scientists have named seven new species in honor of the fictional captain of a spaceship. Bufis Khaki, bofis picardi, Bofis Siskoi, Boufis Janeyae, bofis archery, bofis pickay and bofis barnamae.
bofis picardi a male paratype from Anara, Madagascar. Image credit: Vences others., doi: 10.3897/vz.74.e121110.
There are currently 80 described species. Boufis It is the most unique genus of the Malagasy Comoran endemic family. Mantelidae.
Members of this genus are tree frogs with relatively generalized reproductive behavior, usually laying eggs in stream or pond water where tadpoles develop.
Many Boufis species are very vocal, with males emitting loud and clear advertising calls.
“Seven newly discovered species of Hyla genus” Boufis “Frogs, which are found throughout the rainforests of Madagascar, use a special bird-like whistle to communicate with other frogs,” said Professor Miguel Wences of the Technical University of Braunschweig and colleagues.
“The sound of these whistles reminded our team: Star Trek similar whistle-like sound effects are frequently used. ”
“That’s why we named our frogs after Kirk, Picard, Cisco, Janeway, Archer, Burnham and Pike – seven of the most iconic captains of science fiction.”
“These frog calls don’t just sound like movie sound effects. Star Trek But finding them often requires quite a trek,” said Dr. Mark Schaerts, a researcher at the Natural History Museum of Denmark at the University of Copenhagen.
“While some species are found in areas accessible to tourists, finding some of these species requires extensive expeditions to remote forest fragments and mountain peaks. It was.”
“We believe that here lies the true meaning of scientific discovery and exploration, and that it is based in the spirit of: Star Trek”
For fans of Star Trek, Boufis The call may remind you of the so-called “Boardsman’s Whistle” or the sound from a device called a “tricorder.” To others, it may sound like a bird or an insect.
Dr. Jörn Köhler, senior curator of vertebrate zoology at the Hesse State Museum in Darmstadt, said: “If the frog is just croaking like the European frogs we’re familiar with, it’s likely that it’s coming from a nearby river. “It might not have been audible over the sound of the rushing water.”
“Their high-pitched trills and whistles stand out above all the noise.”
“Due to their appearance, these frogs have traditionally been confused with similar species, but each species produces a distinctive high-pitched whistle, which helps distinguish them from each other and from other frogs. I did.”
This finding is reported in the following article: paper in diary vertebrate zoology.
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M. Vances others. 2024. The Communicator’s Whistle: A Journey Through Taxonomy Bufis mallogesensis This complex reveals seven new morphologically enigmatic tree frogs (Amphibians: Anura: Mantelidae) from Madagascar. vertebrate zoology 74: 643-681;doi: 10.3897/vz.74.e121110
Boophis pikei, a new species of frog from Madagascar
Miguel Vances (CC-BY-SA 4.0)
Deep in the forests of Madagascar, researchers have discovered seven new species of frogs and named them after characters. star trek.
“The frog sounds are very reminiscent of the series' iconic futuristic sound effects,” he says. Mark D. Schertz At the Natural History Museum of Denmark.
Bufis mallogesensis A small brownish frog found in the damp forests of Madagascar. The animal was first described in 1994, but over time, researchers began to wonder if this puppy-eyed amphibian was actually more than one species. I did.
To find out, Schatz and his colleagues collected as much data as possible from a variety of individuals. B. mallogesensis Collected over 30 years. They recorded and analyzed the frogs' calls, compared their physical characteristics, and sequenced their DNA.
Their results showed that what was previously thought to be one species of frog is actually eight different species. Physically, they look almost identical, Schertz says. “The main difference is in the sounds they make. Their piercing, high-pitched whistle calls differ in pitch and timing of the whistle.” DNA sequencing also shows genetic differences, making them different It was confirmed that it is a species.
Male frogs attract females with bird-like calls, but because these newly named species live near rivers, they have evolved high-pitched whistles to make their calls stand out from the noise of flowing water. Mr. Schertz thinks so. However, much about the lives of these frogs remains a mystery.
one of the species is named Boufis Khaki, In honor of James T. Kirk. Other members are named after Jean-Luc Picard, Benjamin Sisco, Kathryn Janeway, Jonathan Archer, Michael Burnham, and Christopher Pike.
“We wanted to honor captains who lead teams on missions of exploration and discovery,” says Schatz. “This may also serve as a reminder of how much discovery still remains on Earth before we set our sights on the stars.”
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to walk into a sweaty, dusty club on a desert planet from Star Wars? What would be played on the radio in a casino on a planet like Las Vegas? What do Tatooine’s merchants and villains listen to when they’re not working on moisture farms or fighting off Tusken Raiders? Cody Matthew Johnson’s life these past few years has been spent pondering such questions. The composer and artist has previously worked in video game music, including Devil May Cry, Resident Evil, Bayonetta, and the cult indie Akira Kurosawa’s sidescroller Trek to Yomi. Surely is credited to. However, in Ubisoft’s Star Wars Outlaws, he was tasked with creating music for a shady criminal organization.
“While the scope of musical expression within the world was limited in the original trilogy, this was an opportunity to legitimately explore the music of the time on a broader scale,” Johnson said. It was offered for his work in The Outlaws. “Creating bar music in the style of the original trilogy has its own set of ‘rules’, and while this game is certainly set in that era, we have was only encouraged. slightly Inspired by the cantina music from the original trilogy.”
We’re all familiar with John Williams’ 1977 Cantina Band music (unfortunately, the genre was commonly known as “jazz”), but it’s mainstream. Matthew Johnson digs deeper, exploring the dirt under the fingernails of Star Wars dunces and getting a real feel for the culture of those forgotten by the Empire and too demoralized to join the Rebellion. There was a need. He had to make different music for a world we were already familiar with.
Cody Matthew Johnson, composer, songwriter, producer of Star Wars Outlaws Photo: Knocking Bird
“The galaxy is vast, typically with thousands (some say millions) of planets, and the last 40 years of in-universe music have only scratched the surface of the possibilities., was not only about the main character Kay Vess and what she listens to, but also the underworld subcultures she exists in, such as Toshara, Akiba, Tatooine, and Kijimi. Not only music, but also music. created By that subculture.”
The result is a full album’s worth of tracks, over an hour long, and more than 10% of all diegetic or “in-universe” Star Wars music ever created. To my ears, Songs from the Underworld has elements of ELO, Bonobo, Snarky Puppy, Kraftwerk, and Ry Cooder. It bounces between genres and utilizes weird and wonderful instrumentation. Matthew Johnson is just as happy to use the didgeridoo as he is the guitar, which is not surprising considering he is a trained ethnomusicologist.
“All kinds of sounds, textures and instruments were on the table: spider monkeys, seals, vintage carbon phone microphones, cimbalom, yair tambour, furushi, shakuhachi, gamelan arranged on a drum set…” he says of this Maxima. Let’s talk about rhythm. “I searched every nook and cranny for inspiration to best represent these worlds, and every once in a while, I heard the sounds of gamelan, trash cans, didgeridoos, and kazoos being smashed together.” Just right For the outlaws of Star Wars.”
Matthew Johnson was “making it hard on himself” to avoid having “funny alien music” playing in every den of scum and villains where the player controls Kay Vess. He seriously considered and thought about the sounds of instruments within the world that the inhabitants of these worlds could physically play. He describes “the tonal elements of different instruments, the emotions and symbolic meanings they evoke, and how they can be combined to create instruments that may have been created or inspired by the world’s natural resources and cultures.” I had to think about whether I could create sound.
“I heard the gamelan, trash can, didgeridoo and kazoo being smashed together.” It’s just right”… Star Wars Outlaws. Photo: Ubisoft
For example, he explains in great detail that the sympathetic, resonant buzz of the sitar, the aggressive attack of the drumsticks of the saz and bouzouki, must be considered in conjunction with the playing style of the nylon-string guitar and charango of flamenco. I’m doing it. All these incredibly special sounds combine to give you a unique melodic instrumental sound that you would get on a desert planet. This is also the case with the track “If These Sands Could Speak.”
To create the collaborative spirit and “all in this together” attitude at the heart of so much alternative underground music, Matthew Johnson needed a band. “The joy of life is being able to collaborate with friends,” he explains. “It was a dream gig for everyone involved in this project, including musicians, engineers and instrument designers.The joy of playing and creating music is something we all share. That’s why we decided to dedicate our lives to this. Projects like Star Wars Outlaws combine my background as a record producer, performing musician, recording artist, and video game composer. , the perfect instrument for making music feel It’s like having a party.”
That’s right. The diegetic music in Star Wars Outlaws complements the equally great original score by Wilbert Roget II, providing some great musical ebbs and flows rarely seen in open-world games. The score is designed to be heard by you, the player. The music on the radio and in the bar is for Kay Vess. I think Outlaws is one of the best examples of how in-game music can add texture and depth, even to a world with as much history and lore as Star Wars.
“‘The Outlaws’ is the perfect vessel to show how music can reveal narrative information without literally conveying it,” says Johnson. “As Kay walks down the hallway and turns a corner, she hears the faint sound of a reverbed subwoofer hitting a kick drum. As she approaches the door at the end of the hallway, more musical elements can be heard. When Kei opens the door, music floods her body, and there’s a band on stage, dancing patrons, dim neon lights, and two stories of fog throughout. An underground nightclub has appeared.
“Even before they arrive at the club, the music, and equally importantly the implementation of music into the game itself, reveals a lot about our setting to the player.”
Songs from the Underworld is one of my favorite albums of the year so far. For me, it gives me a sense of what it’s like to be planetside in Star Wars, what it’s like to actually put yourself in the shoes of characters who live and breathe different atmospheres.
Star Wars Outlaws is available now on PS5, Xbox One, and PC. the song of the underworld Available on Spotify.
Artist’s impression of Barnard’s b, a planet orbiting around Barnard’s star
ESO/M.Kornmesser
Barnard’s star, one of the Sun’s closest neighbors, appears to have at least one planet orbiting around it, and possibly three more that require further confirmation.
Astronomers have been searching for planets around Barnard’s star, 5.96 light-years away, since the 1960s. Barnard’s star is the next closest star to us after the three stars in the Alpha Centauri star system.
In 2018, researchers claimed to have discovered a planet at least three times the size of Earth called Barnard Star B, but subsequent analysis revealed that the apparent planet’s signal was actually a larger-than-expected star. Turns out it was caused by activity. .
now, Jonay González Hernández Researchers at the Canary Islands Institute of Astrophysics have announced the discovery of a new Barnard star b, which has about 40 percent the mass of Earth.
The planet is much closer to its star than any other planet in our solar system, completing an orbit in just over three Earth days. This also means that its surface temperature is around 125°C (257°F), too hot for liquid water or life to exist.
Using an instrument called Espresso on the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile, González Hernández and his team observed tiny wobbles in Barnard’s star’s position caused by the orbiting planet’s gravity. I discovered this star.
They also found evidence of three more planets orbiting the star. However, the signal wasn’t strong enough to be certain, so more observations will be needed to confirm that.
“These detections are very tricky and always difficult because there is stellar activity, the magnetic field of the star that rotates with the star,” he says. Rodrigo Fernando Diaz at the National University of San Martin, Argentina. González Hernández and his team have thoroughly checked whether the observations are from a planet, but there could always be “unknown unknowns,” Fernando Díaz said. says. To really confirm this, he says, data from other telescopes is needed, which could take years of observations.
An exoplanet with at least half the mass of Venus orbits Barnard's Star, the closest single star to the Sun, once every 3.15 days.
Artist's impression of Bernard B. Image credit: ESO / M. Kornmesser.
Barnard's Star is a 10 billion year old red dwarf star located in the constellation Ophiuchus.
At a distance of about 6 light years, it is the second closest star to the Sun after the Alpha Centauri triple star system.
The star, also known as Gliese 699 or GJ 699, is much smaller than the Sun and is classified as an M3.5 dwarf.
Despite the prospect of a “super-Earth” with a mass 3.2 times that of Earth in 2018, no planets have ever been confirmed to orbit this star.
The new exoplanet discovery is the result of five years of observations using the ESPRESSO instrument of ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) at the Paranal Observatory in Chile.
“We were always confident that we would find something, even if it took a long time,” said Dr. Jonay González Hernández, an astronomer at the Canarias Astronomical Institute.
The newly discovered planet, named Barnard b, is about 20 times closer to Barnard's star than Mercury is to the Sun.
It orbits its parent star in 3.15 Earth days and has a surface temperature of about 125 degrees Celsius (257 degrees Fahrenheit).
“Bernard B is one of the lowest-mass exoplanets known, and one of the few exoplanets known to have less mass than Earth,” said Dr. González-Hernández. Ta.
“But this planet is too close to its host star, closer than the habitable zone.”
“Even though this star is about 2,500 degrees cooler than the Sun, it's still too hot to support liquid water on its surface.”
In addition to the confirmed planet, astronomers also discovered hints of three more exoplanet candidates orbiting the same star.
However, additional observations are required to confirm these candidates.
“We need to continue observing this star to confirm other candidate signals,” said Dr. Alejandro Suárez Mascareño, also from the Canarias Astronomical Institute and co-author of the study.
“But the discovery of this planet, along with previous discoveries such as Proxima b and Proxima d, shows that our cosmic backyard is full of low-mass planets.”
Bernard B's findings were published in a. paper in diary astronomy and astrophysics.
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JI Gonzalez Hernandez others. 2024. A sub-Earth mass planet orbiting Barnard's star. A&A 690, A79; doi: 10.1051/0004-6361/202451311
The movement of bubbling gas on the surface of R Doradus
ALMA (ESO/National Astronomical Observatory of Japan/NRAO)/W. Breming
A giant bubble of hot gas more than 75 times the size of our sun has been observed on the surface of a nearby star, and researchers say this could lead to improved computer simulations of the sun.
Wouter Flemings He and his colleagues from Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, were looking at R Doradus, a star 178 light-years away from Earth and 350 times the mass of the Sun, in hopes of better understanding how material is ejected from old stars.
Vlemmings says they booked time at the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) observatory in Chile — which only gets one in seven applications — and there they collected a single snapshot observation.
The first two attempts were hampered by weather conditions on Earth, and only the third met the stringent quality standards set out in the researchers' Observatory Time application, but this led to the accumulation of multiple images that Vlemmings says were in fact all usable, allowing the team to plot movement over time.
Not only was this the first time such a bubble had been observed in detail outside the solar system, but the image was shaped like a kind of flip-book, allowing the researchers to measure not only its size but also its speed. “That was a bonus,” Flemings says. “We hadn't planned for it, and certainly didn't expect it to all work out that way. [this way].”
They also discovered that giant gas bubbles, more than 100 million kilometres wide, were rising to the surface and then sinking back into the star's interior at a faster rate than expected.
Nuclear fusion reactions inside the star create convection currents, which cause bubbles of hot gas to rise to the surface, then cool and sink back to the core. This process is thought to eject material that escapes the star's gravity and spreads out into space to form new stars and planets. At least in R Doradus, this process appears to be happening three to four times faster than expected, with bubbles forming and disappearing over the course of about a month.
Areas around R Doradas
ESO/Digital Sky Survey 2
Stellar convection has been modeled in computers before, but those models appear to be a bit flawed because the motion isn't nearly as fast as observed in the real world, Vlemings said.
“These bubbles are moving a little faster than expected, so it seems like we're missing something,” he says. “For a long time in our field, the models have basically been ahead of the observations, but we've never really had the observations to test whether those models are correct.”
Doradus R has not been the subject of much study because it's only visible from the Southern Hemisphere, and historically most of the large radio telescopes have been in the Northern Hemisphere. But that's changed with ALMA, Vlemmings says. Because ALMA produces such comprehensive data, he hopes to find even more remnants. Researchers hope to observe similar stars next year to see if the phenomenon can be found in other places.
Astronomers have discovered six new worlds that look like planets but formed like stars. These so-called “rogue worlds” are between five and 15 times the mass of Jupiter, and one of them may even host the beginnings of a miniature solar system.
Ray Jayawardene Using the James Webb Space Telescope, a researcher from Johns Hopkins University in Maryland and his colleagues discovered these strange worlds in the NGC 1333 star cluster. Despite being planet-sized, none of these worlds orbit a star. This indicates that they likely formed by the collapse of a cloud of dust and gas, similar to how stars like our Sun are born. These objects that form like stars but are not massive enough to sustain the fusion of hydrogen are called brown dwarfs, or failed stars.
“In some ways, the most shocking thing is what we didn't find,” Jayawardene says. “Even though we had the sensitivity to do so, we couldn't find anything with a mass less than five times that of Jupiter.” This may indicate that brown dwarfs can't form at lower masses — that is, they are the smallest objects that can form like stars.
From their observations, the researchers found that about 10 percent of the objects in NGC 1333 are made up of brown dwarfs — a much higher number than expected based on star formation models — and that additional processes, such as turbulence, may be driving the formation of these nomadic planets.
One of the brown dwarfs is particularly unusual, with a ring of dust around it similar to the ones that formed the planets in our solar system. At about five times the mass of Jupiter, it's the smallest planet with such a ring ever found and may mark the beginning of a strange, shrunken planetary system around a dysfunctional star.
“From the miniature world around these objects, [brown dwarf] “It will glow mostly in the infrared, with a very reddish glow, and over hundreds of millions of years it will gradually fade away and become invisible,” Jayawardene says. As the brown dwarf fades, any planets that form around it will freeze out completely, darkening the entire system and making it a less than promising world for searching for life.
noOstalgia is a strange thing, it can appear out of nowhere like a TIE fighter and hit you in the gut, leaving you confused and in pain. An hour into Star Wars Outlaws, I never expected to be emotionally overwhelmed by a simple quest to buy spare parts from a group of Jawas. But then I got in my speeder and rode out into the Dune Sea, and I saw their vehicles, black and huge, in the low sun. And I saw those little guys running around repairing droids. And I was transported back to when I was 12 years old, watching Star Wars on VHS in the living room, eating Monster Munchies my mom bought me, repeating lines with Luke. Ubisoft’s epic adventure is full of moments like this, and they saved my life many times.
All Pre-release talk You hear a lot about this not being a typical Ubisoft open world game, but Star Wars Outlaws is a lot like a typical Ubisoft open world game. You play as Kay Vess, a city thief who has been living quietly off her cunning until a lucrative heist goes wrong and she steals a spaceship and crashes it on the remote moon of Tshara. From here, she must survive while working for and at odds with the many criminal organizations in the galaxy, building a reputation as a skilled mercenary and thief. From here, it’s a familiar storyline. You’re soon given the main story quest, dozens of optional minor tasks, and the opportunity to take on various smuggler and rogue side jobs, usually traveling somewhere to get or blow things up. It’s like Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, or Watch Dogs. It’s Star Wars: Busy Work Strikes Back.
Star Wars Outlaws cleverly weaves in Star Wars culture. Photo: Ubisoft
But there’s also an important difference: here, you’ll be aided by your beloved pet Nix, who you can dispatch to distract guards, fetch useful objects, or crawl through tight spaces to unlock doors. Nix is adorable, and adds emotional depth and danger to Cay’s lonely life. But more importantly, the game expertly weaves Star Wars lore into the mix, with the buildings you invade being beautifully recreated Imperial research facilities, destroyed Republic starships, and vile Hutt fortresses, all filled with intricate visual and narrative details drawn from the original film trilogy. Everywhere you go, fans will find a treat: familiar droids, bits of history, and beloved spaceships. The streets of Mos Eisley are patrolled by Stormtroopers in their monstrous vehicles. Dewback.
The planets you visit aren’t huge explorable territories. Most have big cities and a few square miles of open terrain. But that’s ok. There’s plenty to discover, from Hutt treasure vaults in the valleys of Tatooine to pirate camps in the swampy forests of Akiva. Sadly, the speeder bikes handle badly and are like trying to traverse an alien planet on a beat-up old Honda 125. Equally unwieldy are the space flight sections, which are reminiscent of No Man’s Sky. The planets’ orbits are densely populated with abandoned spaceships, TIEs and pirate fighters that you can loot. You can rescue ships in distress or perform cargo pickup missions, but the flight simulation never quite matches up to the classic LucasArts space combat titles.
So much to discover…Star Wars Outlaws. Photo: Ubisoft
Most of the aboveground quests involve a combination of parkour (climbing pipes and cliffs painted yellow, although you can turn off the paint) and stealth, sneaking through steel corridors, passing walls of flashing buttons and beeping computer displays, destroying alarm panels, and silently taking down enemies. It’s basic, and at times it comes closer to Spider-Man’s Mary Jane missions, which can be frustratingly slow compared to Dishonored’s systemic complexity. As you progress, however, you’ll encounter different experts who can unlock new skills that allow you to move more quietly or use cool stealth toys like smoke grenades, making infiltration much more fun. You also have a very configurable laser gun with different modes that can be unlocked. You can temporarily pick up other weapons, but I like that Kay sticks to a Han Solo-style pistol. You can’t beat a good blaster by your side.
At its core, it’s a cheesy story that’s grown from a myth of street kids making it big into something a bit more interesting. As Kay recruits a raiding party that includes the laser-scarred battle droid ND-5, he forges friendships that both elevate and contrast the heist plan. Clashes with the Rebels also call into question the ethics of their war and their methods. There are great moments where it’s clear the designers took inspiration not only from Star Wars itself, but also from directors George Lucas reveres, John Ford and Akira Kurosawa.
Some may be nostalgic for the legends of the Jedi or EA’s Fallen Order and Jedi Survivor titles. Outlaws is definitely for Solo fans, not Skywalker fans, but it does feature some really compelling new characters. It gives most fans of the movies what they want, and they’ll get to geek out with things like the EG-6 power droid and the X-34 landspeeder. Chadra Fan Sitting at the bar in the cantina 😅 I’ve been wandering around for hours looking for this item and have rarely been disappointed.
If this Was Compared to Assassin’s Creed or Far Cry titles, this one falls into the so-so category: reasonably fun, a little frustrating at times, and chock-full of overused tropes of the open-world genre, but the Star Wars license grabs the game by the Corellian trousers time and time again, dragging it into thrilling territory. For the better part of the 40 or so hours I played, I felt like a 12-year-old again, feeling a little confused and giddy, but also blissfully familiar, enjoying every moment.
Despite recent progress, the question of what controls the star formation efficiency in galaxies remains one of the most debated in astrophysics. According to the dominant view, star formation is controlled by turbulence and feedback, with a star formation efficiency of 1-2% per local free-fall time. In an alternative scenario, the star formation rate in the Galactic disk is proportional to the mass of dense gas above a critical density threshold. In a new study, astrophysicists from Université Paris-Sacra show that Michael Mattern and his colleagues aimed to distinguish between the two images with high-resolution observations. Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) tracks dense gas and young stars in a comprehensive sample of 49 nearby dense molecular clouds.
This composite image shows RCW 106, a star-forming region in the southern constellation Norma, about 12,000 light-years from Earth. The image overlays a red map of dense gas taken by APEX’s ArTéMiS camera on top of an optical image taken by ESO’s VLT Survey Telescope. Image credit: ESO / M. Mattern others.
Understanding what controls the efficiency of star formation in galactic giant molecular clouds is a fundamental unsolved problem in star formation research.
The star formation rate at multiple scales in galaxies is known to be strongly correlated with the mass of available molecular gas.
Overall, star formation is observed to be a very inefficient process.
“The glowing red clouds seen in the image above indicate regions of dense gas where new stars are being born in the RCW 106 region,” the astronomers said in a statement.
“But only 1 percent of this gas actually forms stars, and we don’t know why this percentage is so low.”
“We know that star formation occurs when regions of these giant clouds of cold gas come together and eventually collapse, and new stars are born. This happens at a critical density.”
“But beyond that density, could even more stars be formed in even denser regions? And could this help explain the 1% mystery?”
Their new results suggest that this is not the case: the dense regions are not efficient for star formation.
According to the team, this can probably be explained by these dense clouds breaking up into filaments and nuclei from which stars form, but many questions remain.
“Our results suggest that the star formation efficiency does not increase as the density passes a critical threshold, supporting a scenario in which the star formation efficiency in dense gas is nearly constant,” the researchers said.
“However, measurements of star formation efficiency tracked by young class I stars in nearby clouds are inconclusive, as they are consistent with both the existence of a density threshold and its dependence on density above the threshold.”
“Overall, we suggest that the efficiency of star formation in dense gas is determined primarily by the physics of filament fragmentation into protostellar cores.”
M. Mattern others2024. Understanding star formation efficiency in dense gas: Initial results from the ArTéMiS CAFFEINE survey. A&Ain press; arXiv: 2405.15713
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About 10 minutes into the latest preview build of Ubisoft’s upcoming open-world adventure Star Wars Outlaws, protagonist Kay Vess enters Milogana, a densely populated, dilapidated city on the desolate moon of Tshara. It’s surrounded by a mix of sandstone shacks and metallic sci-fi buildings, packed with flickering computer panels, neon signs, and holographic advertisements. Exotic aliens lurk in quiet corners, and an R2 droid passes by, muttering to itself. Nearby, a cantina features a suspicious patron peeking out from a smoky doorway, and a darkened gambling hall stands nearby.
As you explore, a robotic voice reads Imperial propaganda over a loudspeaker, and stormtroopers patrol the city checking IDs. To this lifelong Star Wars fan, at least, these scenes perfectly capture the aesthetic and atmosphere of the original trilogy. Like A New Hope itself, this is a promising beginning.
“We did our homework,” says voiceover director Navid Cavalli. “We looked to the original films as well as George Lucas’s own inspirations: Akira Kurosawa, World War II films like The Dam Busters, and spaghetti westerns. Great care was taken to maintain tonal consistency in the original trilogy. We needed this to feel like it had high stakes, light-hearted humor, emotional tension, character development and a hero’s journey.”
Outlaws, due to launch on August 30th, has been in development at Massive Entertainment for about five years. In 2018, the studio held an event to announce The Division 2, and at some point that night, then-CEO David Polfeldt stepped outside to talk quietly with a senior Disney official. Over cocktails, the two discussed a possible collaboration. “The first presentation was in February 2020, after we released The Division 2,” says creative director Julian Gerighty. “We had a small team of people – concept artists and game designers – and we went to San Francisco with a very short pitch deck based on three concepts: Star Wars, an open world, and a baddie story.”
Set in the years between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, The Outlaws follows ambitious city thief Kay as he rallies a crew to pull off the biggest heist of his life in order to pay off the huge bounty on his head. [the appeal of Star Wars] “He wasn’t a Jedi farm boy or a cranky old space wizard,” says Gerrity, “he was a cool guy surfing the galaxy with his best friend and the most iconic spaceship. I really focused on these archetypal characters and what they could do in terms of gameplay.”
In Outlaws, players are free to explore and roam at least five major worlds, from Tatooine to stormy Akiva to glitzy Kantonica, home to the casino city of Kanto Bight featured in The Last Jedi. Throughout Cay’s journey, she encounters crime organizations from across the Star Wars canon, including the brutal Pikes, the Hutts, the shady Crimson Dawn, and the samurai-esque Asiga. Completing missions for organizations earns credits and reputation points, unlocking more lucrative jobs and new areas of the map. Joining one gang means alienating another, but there’s an opportunity to set crime bosses at odds or even betray one another.
So perhaps the emphasis on space villains tempted the team to make a Han Solo game? Gerrity shakes his head. “We always wanted a character that wasn’t Han Solo,” he says. “Han is the coolest guy in the galaxy. Cay is a city thief who gets caught up in a bad deal and gets catapulted from place to place like a pinball, and suddenly he’s negotiating with Jabba the Hutt… We did a lot of casting, but Hanberly Gonzalez’s character was the final piece of the puzzle. Her voice, her acting, her approach to the character on the page was such a huge influence.”
The focus on gangster intrigue is what inspired the game to be situated within the Star Wars timeline, an idea that came from Lucasfilm. “We were looking for the right moment to define the gameplay and to be able to go to cool, interesting places and meet interesting characters,” says Steve Blank, director of franchise content and strategy at Lucasfilm. “So we found a place that had a lot of opportunity to tell an underworld story. Organized crime is rampant as the Empire turns its attention to the Rebel Alliance. Jabba the Hutt is at the height of his power.”
At a press event in Los Angeles earlier this month, I played the story’s main quest, set on Tshara, where Kay must steal top-secret information from a computer in the sprawling mansion of Pyke crime lord Gorak. It’s a large, multi-floor environment riddled with guards. You can either charge straight in with blaster fire, or hack doors as you work your way through a network of ventilation ducts, backrooms, and sneaky passageways. I also visited Kimiji, an ice planet ruled by the Ashigas, a blind swordsman-like alien race. My mission is to meet with a safecracker, but I’m being pursued by an assassin. It’s an atmospheric place to explore, with temple-like towers towering above frozen cobblestone streets, snow flurries in the sky, and a small group of shady thugs huddling around a pale orange noodle shop.
A restaurant with delicious noodles…Star Wars Outlaws. Photo: Ubisoft
Although this is a Massive Entertainment game, it feels unmistakably Ubisoft. The stealth, the combat, the balance between story and side quests all contain elements borrowed from Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and Watch Dogs. You watch enemy patrols, take down targets one by one using a variety of special abilities, and then escape. There are further borrowings from other action-adventures, such as Kay’s ability to slow down time to target multiple enemies before firing multiple volleys with a blaster, a clear homage to Max Payne and Red Dead Redemption.
It’s fun to think about exactly how to use all the toys available to you in such a large, densely designed location. But the big question is: what’s new and what’s different? Apart from the Star Wars license, there are three elements that distinguish Outlaws from other Ubisoft adventures. First, there’s Nix, Kay’s constant companion. This is a cute little creature that follows you everywhere and gives you access to parts of the environment that you can’t. You can also command him to attack or distract guards, or pick up items or dropped ammo. This is especially useful during gunfights. “Nix was inspired by our pet,” says Navid Khavari. “My wife and I don’t know how we would have survived COVID without cats, so I think it feels very natural. He acts like a dog.
Outlaws also does away with Ubisoft’s typical skill trees and points in favor of a more natural alternative: Expert Missions have you quest for powerful specialists, granting you new abilities and upgrading your weapons and speeder bikes.
A masterpiece… “Star Wars Outlaws.” Photo: Ubisoft
And then, of course, there’s space travel; you can hop off-planet at any time, and the transition happens in one seamless sequence. You’re then free to fly around your current system, fighting TIE fighters or scavenging space debris before making a hyperspace jump to a new planet. Flying is simple, and dogfights rely heavily on the lock-on feature to automatically track down your enemies. It’s a lot more arcadey than the great X-Wing and Tie-Fighter games of yore. Still, it’s a unique thrill to get an enemy ship in your sights and blast it to smithereens accompanied by the legendary Ben Burtt-esque sound effects.
I’ve only seen a few hours of the game so far, but there’s still so much to discover. I’m hoping that the missions and side quests will delve deeper into Star Wars lore and move further away from the typical Assassin’s Creed or Far Cry fare. I’m curious to see how populated and detailed the planets are away from the major hubs. I’d love to encounter Jawa transports, secret Imperial bases, and terrifying monsters that will spend a thousand years trying to devour me. This element of stumble-through discovery in the Star Wars universe is something the team has clearly thought about.
“We knew we needed to allow the player freedom, which is very much part of how Star Wars works,” says Cavalli. “We created a tonal blueprint that drew from both The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, and blended that with all of the characters and vendors in the story so that they all felt like they were part of the same journey. It took us a while to realize this, but Star Wars is particularly well-suited for an open-world game, which is why fans, myself included, have been clamoring for it for so long.”
No turning point in the history of the universe surpasses the birth of the first stars. As stars flickered into existence some 200 to 400 million years after the Big Bang, the energy they emitted ripped apart the atoms of the gas that had cooled the universe, reheating it in a process called reionization. Then, as the stars burned out and died, they created a cocktail of chemical elements that prepared the universe to give rise to galaxies, planets, and eventually life itself.
It's no wonder astronomers are itching to get a glimpse of this first generation of stars. To start with, they were spectacular: huge and blisteringly bright, thought to be 300 times more massive and 10 times hotter than the Sun. But observing them could also tell us a lot about the mysterious early stages of the Universe, particularly how the universe came to be flooded with supermassive black holes in an incredibly short space of time.
Now we may finally be on the brink. Earlier this year, astronomers reported that the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), by fixing its excellent field of view on the outer edges of very distant galaxies, may already have seen evidence of the first stars. “The observations we can now make really expand our knowledge,” says Hannah Ubler of the University of Cambridge.
The signal may turn out to be a false alarm, but what's interesting right now is that other researchers are starting to look at different features of the light from the early universe, even suggesting that it might be the first stars.
Serpens Nebula: A row of jets appears as red streaks in the upper left corner
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Klaus Pontoppidan (NASA-JPL), Joel Green (STScI)
Astronomers have captured a star alignment: New images from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) show jets emanating from a young star lining up in a straight line, finally proving a phenomenon that has long been suspected but never before been observed.
As a giant gas cloud collapses and begins to form stars, its rotation accelerates — similar to how an ice skater pulls their arms in closer to their body to spin faster. This rotation causes a disk of dust and gas to form around the young star at the cloud's center, feeding the cloud itself.
Strong magnetic fields in the disk send jets of material along the star's rotation axis, which can be used to measure the young star's rotation direction. The JWST image of the Serpens Nebula, about 1,400 light-years away, shows 12 baby stellar clumps. All the jets are pointing in roughly the same direction..
“Astronomers have long assumed that when clouds collapse and stars form, the stars tend to rotate in the same direction,” he said. Klaus Pontoppidan At NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California statement“But we've never seen it so directly before.”
The new observations suggest that these stars all inherit their rotation from the same long string of gas. Over time, this rotation may change as the stars interact with each other and other space objects. This is evident from the fact that another group of younger, possibly older, stars in the same image of the Ophiuchus Nebula do not have aligned jets.
Barsoni othersTwin disks and jets erupting from a pair of young stars in WL20. Image credit: NSF / NRAO / B. Saxton / NASA / JPL-Caltech / Harvard-Smithsonian CfA.
WL20 It is located in the Rho Ophiuchus Molecular Cloud Complex, more than 400 light years from Earth.
“What we found was absolutely surprising,” said Dr Mary Barthony, lead author of the study.
“We've known about the WL20 system for some time, but what caught our attention was that one of the stars in the system appeared to be much younger than the others.”
“Using MIRI and ALMA together, we were able to see that this one star is actually two stars next to each other.”
“Each of these stars was surrounded by a disk, and each disk emitted a jet parallel to the others.”
ALMA and Webb's MIRI observe very different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Used together, they allowed astronomers to discover these hidden twins in the stellar system's radio and infrared wavelengths: ALMA found the disk, and MIRI found the jet.
They analyzed archived ALMA data to reveal the composition of the disk, and MIRI data to reveal the chemical composition of the jet.
They also analyzed high-resolution images, revealing the size of the massive disk – about 100 times the distance between Earth and the Sun.
“Without MIRI we would never have known these jets even existed, which is amazing,” Dr Barthony said.
“ALMA's high-resolution observations of the disks surrounding the two newly observed stars reveal the structure of the disks.”
“Someone looking at this ALMA data and not knowing there are twin jets would think it's a big edge-on disk with a hole in the middle, rather than two edge-on disks and two jets. That's pretty remarkable.”
Combining multi-wavelength data from ALMA and Webb revealed the complex processes involved in the formation of several stellar systems.
“We plan to take advantage of ALMA's future upgrades, such as the broadband sensitivity upgrade, to continue unlocking the mysteries surrounding the birth of stars and planetary systems,” the researchers said.
At an estimated distance of 140 parsecs (457 light years), the L-type subdwarf star CWISE J124909+362116.0 (J1249+36 for short) has a total velocity of at least 600 km/s, exceeding the local galactic escape velocity. Remarkably, the star may have been ejected from a globular cluster in the outer reaches of the Milky Way sometime in the past 10 to 30 million years.
A simulation of the hypothetical J1249+36 white dwarf binary ends with the white dwarf star exploding in a supernova. Image courtesy of Adam Makarenko / WM Keck Observatory.
The star immediately stood out as its speed across the sky was initially estimated to be around 600 km/s.
This speed is fast enough for the star to escape the gravity of the Milky Way, making it a potential hypervelocity star.
To better understand the properties of J1249+36, Professor Adam Burgasser of the University of California, San Diego, and his colleagues used the W. M. Keck Observatory to measure its infrared spectrum.
These data revealed that the object is a rare L-type subdwarf star, a class of stars with an extremely low mass and temperature.
Spectral data and imaging data from multiple ground-based telescopes allowed the team to precisely measure J1249+36's position and velocity in space, and predict its orbit within the Milky Way galaxy.
“What makes this source so interesting is that its speed and orbit suggest it is moving fast enough to escape the Milky Way,” Professor Burgasser said.
The researchers focused on two scenarios to explain J1249+36's unusual orbit.
In the first scenario, J1249+36 was originally a low-mass companion to a white dwarf.
If a companion star is in a very close orbit with a white dwarf, it can transfer mass, causing periodic explosions called novae. If the white dwarf gathers too much mass, it can collapse and explode as a supernova.
“In this type of supernova, the white dwarf is completely destroyed, so the companion star is freed to fly away at the orbital velocity it was originally moving at, plus a bit of a supernova blast,” Prof Burgasser said.
“Our calculations show that this scenario holds true. However, because the white dwarf no longer exists and the remnants of the explosion that probably occurred millions of years ago have already dissipated, we have no conclusive evidence that this is its origin.”
In the second scenario, J1249+36 was originally a member of a globular cluster, a tightly bound group of stars that is immediately recognizable by its distinctive spherical shape.
The centers of these clusters are predicted to contain black holes with a wide range of masses.
These black holes can also form binary systems, and such systems prove to be great catapults for any star that happens to get too close to them.
“When a star encounters a black hole binary, the complex dynamics of this three-body interaction can cause the star to be thrown out of the globular cluster,” said Dr Kyle Kremer, an astronomer at the University of California, San Diego.
The scientists ran a series of simulations and found that, on rare occasions, these types of interactions can cause low-mass subdwarf stars to be ejected from globular clusters and follow orbits similar to the one observed in J1249+36.
“This is a proof of concept, but we don't actually know which globular cluster this star is from,” Dr Kremer said.
“By tracking J1249+36 back in time, we find that it lies in a very crowded part of the sky that may be hiding undiscovered star clusters.”
To determine whether one of these scenarios, or some other mechanism, can explain J1249+36's orbit, the team wants to take a closer look at its elemental composition.
For example, the explosion of a white dwarf star could produce heavy elements that could pollute J1249+36's atmosphere as they escape.
Stars in the Milky Way's globular clusters and satellite galaxies also have unique presence patterns that could shed light on the origins of J1249+36.
“We're basically looking for a chemical fingerprint that will pinpoint exactly what system this star came from,” says Roman Gerasimov, also of the University of California, San Diego.
“Whether J1249+36's high-speed movement is the result of a supernova, a chance encounter with a black hole binary, or some other scenario, its discovery offers astronomers a new opportunity to learn more about the history and dynamics of the Milky Way.”
Astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope discovered a giant asteroid impact around Beta Gactris, the second brightest star in the constellation Scorpio.
Chen othersBeta Pictoris has a dynamic circumstellar environment, suggesting that periods of active collisions could produce large dust clouds that could blow through the planetary system and increase dust accretion to the giant planets Beta Pictoris b and c. Image credit: Roberto Molar Candanosa / Johns Hopkins University / Lynette Cook / NASA.
Beta Pictoris is an A5 type star located in the constellation Pictoris, approximately 63 light years from Earth.
The star has a mass about 1.8 times that of the Sun and is only 20 million years old.
It contains a circumstellar disk of gas and dust, numerous comet-like objects, and two giant planets, Beta Pictoris b and Beta Pictoris c.
Beta Pictoris b is a gas giant with a mass about 9-13 times that of Jupiter. It orbits its parent star at a distance of 9.8 astronomical units (AU) and completes one revolution around its parent star every 22 years.
Beta Pictoris c has a mass 8.2 times that of Jupiter and is located quite close to its star, orbiting it at a distance of 2.7 AU with an orbital period of about 1,200 days.
“Beta Pictoris is at an age where terrestrial planetary belt planet formation is still ongoing due to giant asteroid impacts, so what we're seeing here is essentially how rocky planets and other objects are forming in real time,” said Dr Christine Chen, an astronomer at Johns Hopkins University.
By comparing the new data with data from the Webb Space Telescope in 2004 and 2005, Dr Chen and his colleagues found a significant change in the energy characteristics emitted by the dust particles around Beta Pictoris.
Webb's detailed measurements allowed the researchers to track the composition and size of dust particles in the very region that Spitzer had previously analyzed.
The researchers focused on heat given off by crystalline silicates – minerals commonly found around young stars, on Earth and other celestial bodies – and found no trace of the particles observed in 2004 and 2005.
“This suggests that a catastrophic collision occurred between the asteroid and another object about 20 years ago, shattering the asteroid into microscopic dust particles smaller than pollen or powdered sugar,” Dr Chen said.
“We believe the dust is the same as that first observed in Spitzer data in 2004 and 2005.”
“The best explanation given by Webb's new data is that we have in fact witnessed the aftermath of a rare catastrophe between large, asteroid-sized objects, completely changing our understanding of this solar system.”
The new data suggests that dust dispersed outward by radiation from the system's central star can no longer be detected.
Initially, dust near the star heated up and emitted thermal radiation that Spitzer's instruments identified.
Now, as the dust cools away from the star, it no longer emits its thermal properties.
When Spitzer collected its previous data, scientists assumed that small objects abrading the ground would stir up the dust and steadily replenish it over time.
But Webb's new observations showed that the dust had disappeared and not been replaced.
“The amount of dust kicked up is about 100,000 times the size of the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs,” Dr Chen said.
debtFor nearly 15 years, I used to fly to Los Angeles every June to cover E3, the massive video game conference where major games and consoles were unveiled for the first time, from PlayStation to Wii U, from Fallout 4 to Final Fantasy VII Remake. However, due to the pandemic, E3 was canceled this year and replaced by a series of loosely connected events: Summer Game Fest, organized by The Game Awards’ Jeff Keighley, the Xbox Game Showcase, and the indie-led event Day of the Devs. It all kicks off tomorrow, June 6th.
Publishers like Ubisoft and Devolver are hosting their own broadcasts, while other E3 regulars like EA and Square-Enix are absent. Live Show From leading games and entertainment website IGN – I worked there during the height of E3 in the early 2010s, when companies would rent studios and broadcast basically all of their announcements over four consecutive days. What’s basically happened is that it seems like we still get as much gaming news as we get at E3, but now it’s much more spread out and crammed into one weekend instead of a week-long conference.
In short, it’s all a bit chaotic right now, but I’m on a plane to Los Angeles just like the old days, so I’ll do my best to play and cover as many interesting games as I can. If you’re looking to follow events other than E3 over the weekend, here are five things to keep an eye on (and where to watch them).
It’s a two-hour live showcase hosted by Keighley from LA’s YouTube Theatre. Based on my previous experience with both SGF and the Game Awards, it’s going to be a series of blockbuster trailers interspersed with very tepid, very rehearsed conversations with developers. It’ll be an endurance test, but with all the big names in the video game industry in attendance, including Capcom, 2K Games, and PlayStation, there should be at least two major game announcements and it should be worth watching. Straight afterwards, for those staying up late in the UK, the Day of the Devs indie showcase (4pm PST/midnight BST) and Devolver Direct broadcast (5pm PST/1am BST) will showcase the satire and independent spirit of the games industry, dispelling any corporate chic.
If you’re looking for a cozy gaming vibe, this is the place. Farming simulators, dating games, anything with cats and frogs. I get a lot of emails from Pushing Buttons readers asking where to find non-violent, approachable games, and this is the place. In past years, this showcase has proven to be long-lasting enough to get cloyingly cute, and with over 70 games on display, it’s quite possible that will be the case in 2024 as well, but the wholesome intention behind it makes up for it for me.
Looks promising… Star Wars Outlaws. Photo: Ubisoft
Xbox Games Showcase – Sunday, June 9th9am PST / 5pm BST
I’m very interested to see how the rather embattled Xbox division will fare this year, having pushed through the Activision/Blizzard/King mega-merger last year and then made the very unpopular decision to close down some of their studios. With a new version of Xbox on the horizon, the Game Pass strategy seems to be shifting, and Microsoft now owning a lot of developers, should There’s no shortage of games to premiere, with the sequel to the Call of Duty Black Ops series (above), due to launch this year, also premiering shortly thereafter.
PC releases tend not to get as much attention in the games media as console releases, so this will be a most exciting showcase for a readership that loves real-time strategy, 4x, Moba, team-based FPS games, CRPGs, and other genre acronyms that accompany PC-exclusive games. Organized by venerable magazine PC Gamer, the event is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year.
Ubisoft Forward – Monday, June 1012pm PST / 8pm BST
Ubisoft’s lineup this year is promising, with the new Assassin’s Creed game set in feudal Japan and the promising Star Wars Outlaws alone being enough to keep me entertained for an hour, but I Mario vs Rabbids Kingdom Battle 2017 Edition Shigeru Miyamoto made an appearance, Rabbids creative director Davide Soliani got emotional, and it wouldn’t be E3 without a slightly embarrassing “Just Dance” performance.
What to Play
One of the best… Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree. Photo: FromSoftware
I have two long-distance flights coming up, so it’s time to get serious. Elden Ring On Steam – Fortunately, the best game of 2022 (and in fact one of the best fantasy games of all time) runs great on a portable PC console. Shadow of the Elder TreeThe expansion is out on June 20th and is small enough to be considered a mini-sequel. The good news for those of you who haven’t finished Elden Ring yet, like me, is that you don’t have to finish the game to the end before the expansion comes out, but you’ll still get to enjoy the brutal yet exhilarating rhythm of the combat (and Substantial We’ll be looking back at the game’s history before taking on a new challenge later this month.
Available on: PC, PlayStation 4/5, Xbox Estimated play time: 60+ hours (expansion will take at least another 15-20 hours)
Now on TV… Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth. Photo: SEGA
Amazon Prime Unexpectedly Live-action television series It’s based on the fantastic cult-favorite crime drama game, Like a Dragon (pictured above).
Sony’s State of Play showcase last week technically kicked off a summer of gaming-related announcements. Gamesradar There is an overview Highlights from the trailer Astro Botstarring an adorable little white robot who serves as PlayStation’s best mascot, is a playful mix of platforming, puzzles, and action that’s great fun.
In news that’s too depressing for me to even think about, IKEA plans to pay its employees the minimum wage. Virtual Roblox Store You wanted the metaverse? Here’s the metaverse. Working at IKEA for minimum wage. But now. Not real.
Actor and developer Abubakar Salim recently released his debut game, Tales of Kenzera: Zau, with his studio Surgent. made a statement He talks about the targeted racist harassment he and his team suffered, part of a resurgence of the anti-woke culture wars that have resurfaced this year in the games industry and beyond. “There’s always going to be a reason why diverse stories can’t exist. These exclusionary rules keep piling up, and the goalposts keep shifting, until I, my studio, and people like us just sit back, shut up, and accept the fact that we’re outsiders. And I won’t,” he says.
Neutron stars typically spin quickly, taking just a few seconds or even a fraction of a second to complete one revolution around their axis, but one neutron star labeled ASKAP J1935+2148 bucks this rule, emitting radio signals at a relatively slow interval of 53.8 minutes.
Artist's impression of a neutron star. Image courtesy of Sci.News.
“We're used to extreme examples when studying radio-emitting neutron stars, so the discovery of such a compact star that is still emitting radio waves despite rotating slowly was unexpected,” said Professor Ben Stappers, from the University of Manchester.
“This new generation of radio telescopes demonstrates that pushing the boundaries of our search space will reveal surprises that will shake up our understanding.”
At the end of their lives, massive stars use up all their fuel and undergo a spectacular explosion called a supernova.
What remains is a stellar remnant called a neutron star, which consists of trillions of neutrons packed into an extremely dense sphere with a mass 1.4 times that of the Sun, packed into a radius of just 10 km.
Astronomers detected an unexpected radio signal from ASKAP J1935+2148 that traveled about 16,000 light-years to Earth.
The nature of its radio emission and the rate of change of its rotation period suggest that it is a neutron star, but further study is needed to confirm what this object is.
“This discovery relied on the complementary capabilities of the ASKAP and MeerKAT telescopes, combined with our ability to probe these objects on timescales of minutes, and examine how their radiation changes from second to second,” said Dr Kaustubh Rajwade, an astronomer at the University of Oxford.
“Such synergies can shed new light on how these compact objects evolve.”
ASKAP J1935+2148 was detected by CSIRO's ASKAP radio telescope in the Wadjari Yamatji region of Western Australia.
“What's interesting is that this object exhibits three different radiation states, each with completely different properties to the others,” said Dr Manisha Caleb, an astronomer at the University of Sydney.
“The MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa played a key role in distinguishing between these states.”
“If the signals had not come from the same point in the sky, it would be hard to believe that it was the same object producing these different signals.”
“Until the arrival of these new telescopes, the dynamic radio sky was relatively unexplored,” said Professor Tara Murphy, from the University of Sydney.
“Now we can look deeply and frequently see a variety of unusual phenomena.”
“These events give us insight into how physics works in extreme environments.”
This discovery paper In the journal Natural Astronomy.
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M. Caleb othersA radio transient phenomenon in which the radiation state switches with a period of 54 minutes. Nat AstronPublished online June 5, 2024; doi: 10.1038/s41550-024-02277-w
Astronomers Multi-unit spectroscopic probe The (MUSE) instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile has imaged Propride, an externally illuminated protoplanetary disk around a young star, at 177-341 W. Orion Nebula.
This VLT/MUSE image shows propylid 177-341 W. Image courtesy of ESO / Aru others., doi: 10.1051/0004-6361/202349004.
Young stars are surrounded by a disk of gas and dust that gives rise to planets.
If another very bright and massive star is nearby, its light can heat up the young star’s disk and strip it of some of its material.
“Protoplanetary disks made of gas and dust emerge as a result of star formation processes and are the birth sites for planetary systems,” explained ESO astronomer Marie-Rees-Al and her colleagues.
“The evolutionary path of a protoplanetary disk and its ability to form planets depend on the surrounding environment, and we expect disks to undergo rapid changes in the presence of massive stars.”
“In massive clusters close to OB stars, ultraviolet (UV) radiation can cause the disk to photoevaporate externally, significantly reducing its size, mass, and lifetime.”
Astronomers used the MUSE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope to observe 177-341W and 11 other dwarf stars in the Orion Nebula Cluster, about 400 parsecs away from the Sun.
“The stars encroaching on 177-341 W’s disk drop out of the frame after passing the upper right corner,” the researchers said.
“When that radiation collides with the material around the young star, it creates the bright bow-like structures we see in yellow.”
“The tail extending from the star toward the lower left corner is material being dragged away from 177-341 W by a star outside the field of view.”
“The colours displayed in this image represent different elements, including hydrogen, nitrogen, sulphur and oxygen,” the researchers added.
“But this is only a small part of the total data collected by MUSE. MUSE actually takes thousands of images simultaneously in different colors and wavelengths.”
a paper The findings have been published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.
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M.-L. Al others2024. A kaleidoscope of irradiated disks: Propride MUSE observations of the Orion Nebula Cluster. I. Sample presentation and size of the ionization front. A&Ain press; doi: 10.1051/0004-6361/202349004
Astronomers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have discovered very old stars in the Milky Way’s halo, a cloud of stars that covers the entire disk of our galaxy. These objects formed between 12 and 13 billion years ago, when the first galaxies were beginning to form. Researchers believe that each star once belonged to its own dwarf galaxy, which was later absorbed into the larger but ever-growing Milky Way, making them known as small accreting star systems (SASS). It’s called a star.
Artist’s concept of the Milky Way galaxy. Image credit: Pablo Carlos Budassi / CC BY-SA 4.0.
“Given what we know about galaxy formation, these oldest stars should definitely exist,” says MIT professor Anna Froebel.
“They are part of our cosmic family tree. And now we have a new way to find them.”
As they discover similar SASS stars, Professor Froebel and his colleagues hope to use them as analogues of ultrafaint dwarf galaxies, which are thought to be some of the first living galaxies in the universe.
These galaxies remain intact today, but they are too distant and faint for astronomers to study in detail.
SASS stars may once have belonged to similar primitive dwarf galaxies, but they are now located within the Milky Way and are much closer, making them more accessible for understanding the evolution of ultrafaint dwarf galaxies. This could be the key.
“Now we can look for more brighter analogs in the Milky Way and study their chemical evolution without chasing these very faint stars,” Professor Froebel said.
The low chemical abundances of these stars suggest that they first formed between 12 and 13 billion years ago.
In fact, their low chemical signature was similar to what astronomers had previously measured for several ancient, ultra-dark dwarf galaxies.
Are the team’s star players from similar galaxies? And how did they come to exist in the Milky Way?
Based on a hunch, scientists studied the orbital patterns of stars and how they move across the sky.
The three stars are located in different locations throughout the Milky Way’s halo and are estimated to be about 30,000 light-years from Earth.
When astronomers used observations from ESA’s Gaia satellite to trace the movement of each star around the galaxy’s center, they noticed something strange. All three stars appeared to be in motion, compared to most of the stars in the main disk, which move like cars on a race track. Wrong way.
In astronomy, this is known as retrograde motion, and is information that the object was once accreted or pulled in from elsewhere.
“The only way to get a star wrong from other members is if you throw it the wrong way,” Professor Froebel says.
The fact that these three stars orbit in a completely different way than the rest of the galactic disk or halo, combined with the fact that their chemical abundances are low, suggests that these stars are actually It was strongly argued that it was ancient and once belonged to an earlier era, a small dwarf galaxy that fell into the Milky Way at a random angle and continued its stubborn orbit billions of years later.
The authors were interested in whether retrograde motion was a feature of other ancient stars in the halo that astronomers had previously analyzed, and they looked at the scientific literature and found similarly low strontium and barium contents, discovered 65 other stars that appear to be moving in retrograde motion as well. Galaxy flow.
“Interestingly, they are all traveling very fast, hundreds of kilometers per second, in opposite directions,” Professor Froebel said.
“They’re on the run! We don’t know why it happened, but this is the piece of the puzzle we need and we never expected it when we started.”
Researchers are keen to find other ancient SASS stars, and now have a relatively simple recipe for doing so. First, they look for stars with low chemical abundance, then track their orbital patterns for signs of retrograde motion.
Researchers hope this method will uncover a small but significant number of the universe’s oldest stars, out of the more than 400 billion stars in the Milky Way.
“I really enjoyed working with three female undergraduates. It was a first for me,” said Professor Froebel.
“This is just an example of the MIT way. It is. And anyone who says, ‘I want to participate,’ can do so, and good things happen.”
team’s paper Published in Royal Astronomical Society Monthly Notices.
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Hilary Diane Anders other. 2024. The oldest star with a small amount of neutron-capturing elements and originating from an ancient dwarf galaxy. MNRAS 530 (4): 4712-4729; doi: 10.1093/mnras/stae670
The night sky is a treasure trove of celestial wonders, and sometimes incredible events happen when no one is watching. Astronomers were thrilled when a satellite captured a rare explosion in space by chance, pointing in the right direction at the right time.
A massive eruption illuminated the galaxy known as M82, which is situated 12 million light-years away from Earth. Initially thought to be caused by a collision between two neutron stars, astronomers discovered that the explosion was actually the result of a superpowerful neutron star emitting an intense gamma-ray burst.
Neutron stars are the remnants of massive stars that exploded as supernovae, forming compact spheres with strong magnetic fields instead of collapsing into black holes.
The observed neutron star was identified as a magnetar due to its extremely powerful magnetic field, more than 10,000 times stronger than a typical neutron star. Magnetars are known to have the strongest magnetic fields in the universe and release energy through massive flares.
In November 2023, ESA’s INTEGRAL satellite accidentally detected an extragalactic flare which lasted only 10 seconds, triggering a gamma-ray burst alert that quickly reached astronomers worldwide.
Dr. Sandro Meleghetti, the lead author of the study published in the journal Nature, emphasized the significance of the burst coming from a nearby bright galaxy, and the subsequent observations failed to detect any visible light, X-ray, or gravitational wave signals.
This event confirmed the first magnetar flare outside the Milky Way, shedding light on the mysterious phenomena associated with these incredibly magnetic neutron stars.
Only three giant flares from galactic magnetars have been confirmed by scientists in the past 50 years, with the 2004 event being so powerful that it impacted Earth’s upper atmosphere akin to solar flares.
Brown dwarfs, often referred to as “failed stars,” are a fascinating type of celestial object. They are too large to be considered planets, yet too small to undergo the fusion process necessary to become fully-fledged stars.
One such brown dwarf, named WISEP J193518.59–154620.3 (or W1935 for short), is believed to be observable from Earth, especially towards the north and south poles. Astronomers suspect that it may exhibit an aurora similar to the mesmerizing aurora borealis, but on a much brighter scale.
Research featured in the journal Nature utilized NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to study W1935. This brown dwarf is relatively close to us in the galaxy, approximately 47 light-years away from Earth.
Upon pointing a space telescope the size of a tennis court towards the brown dwarf, researchers noticed a peculiar glow emanating from it.
“We were expecting to detect methane as it’s abundant in these brown dwarfs. However, instead of absorbing light, we found methane emitting light,” stated Dr. Jackie Faherty, the lead author of the study. “My initial reaction was, ‘What’s going on? Why is this object emitting methane?'”
Co-author Dr. Ben Burningham mentioned to BBC Science Focus that in the search for alien auroras in objects like W1935, astronomers traditionally focused on emissions from other gases found higher up in the object’s atmosphere.
“Methane emissions were not anticipated to be significant, but now it appears to be a significant factor,” he added.
Computer modeling of W1935 to elucidate the unusual methane emissions revealed a surprising temperature inversion, where the atmosphere gets warmer with increasing altitude. This phenomenon is common for planets orbiting stars but unexpected for an isolated object like W1935 without an apparent external heat source.
Further investigation led researchers to compare W1935 with Jupiter and Saturn from our solar system, which also exhibit methane emissions and temperature inversions.
The observed features in the solar system giants are attributed to auroras, luminous phenomena generated when energetic particles interact with the planet’s magnetic field and atmosphere.
Auroras are known to heat the upper atmosphere of planets, aligning with the researchers’ findings regarding W1935.
However, a missing element in the puzzle was the source of particles causing high-energy auroras in our solar system, which stem from the sun and travel as solar wind. Since W1935 is a rogue star without a host star, solar wind was ruled out as a possible explanation.
Scientists hypothesize that an undiscovered active satellite could be generating the alien aurora observed in W1935, akin to moons around Jupiter and Saturn that expel material into space enhancing the gas giants’ auroras.
“W1935 presents an intriguing expansion of solar system phenomena without any stellar illumination to clarify it,” Faherty remarked. “With Webb, we can delve into the chemistry and unravel the similarities or differences in auroral processes beyond our solar system.”
About our experts
Jackie Faherty is a senior scientist and education manager at the American Museum of Natural History, focusing on detecting and characterizing brown dwarfs and exoplanets. She advocates for increasing diversity in STEM fields through her unique outreach efforts.
Ben Burningham is an Associate Professor and Head of Outreach at the University of Hertfordshire, specializing in brown dwarfs, substellar objects, and superplanets. Burningham has contributed to research published in the Astrophysical Journal, Nature, and Astronomical Journal.
Using data from ESA’s Gaia mission, astronomers discovered a nearby binary system of massive stars orbiting a dormant star-derived black hole over a period of 11.6 years. The black hole’s estimated mass (33 solar masses) is significantly larger than all known stellar-mass black holes in the Milky Way and within the mass range of extragalactic black holes detected by gravitational waves.
Locations of the first three black holes discovered in the Milky Way by ESA’s Gaia mission. Image credit: ESA/Gaia/DPAC.
The binary star system in question is named Gaia BH3 and is located 1,926 light-years from Earth in the constellation Aquila.
Also known as Gaia DR3 4318465066420528000, LS II +14 13, and 2MASS J19391872+1455542, it consists of an old, very metal-poor giant star and a dormant stellar-mass black hole.
Gaia BH3 is the third dormant black hole discovered by ESA’s interstellar mapping satellite Gaia.
“This is the kind of discovery that only happens once in a research career,” said Dr. Pasquale Panuzzo, an astronomer at the CNRS and the Paris Observatory.
“So far, black holes this large have only been detected in distant galaxies by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA collaboration, thanks to observations of gravitational waves.”
The average mass of the known stellar-origin black holes in our galaxy is about 10 times the mass of the Sun.
Astronomers face the pressing problem of explaining the origin of black holes as large as Gaia BH3.
Our current understanding of how massive stars evolve and die does not immediately explain how this type of black hole could be born.
Most theories predict that as massive stars age, a significant portion of their material is shed by powerful winds. Eventually, it will be partially blown into space when it explodes as a supernova.
The remainder of the core shrinks further, becoming either a neutron star or a black hole, depending on its mass.
It is extremely difficult to explain a core large enough to eventually become a black hole 30 times the mass of the Sun. But the clues to solving this mystery may lie very close to Gaia BH3.
The star, which orbits Gaia BH3 at about 16 times the distance between the Sun and Earth, is quite unusual and is an ancient giant that formed during the first two billion years after the Big Bang, when our galaxy began to form. It’s a star.
It belongs to the family of galactic stellar halos, which move in the opposite direction to the stars in the galactic disk.
Its orbit indicates that the star was probably part of a small galaxy, or globular cluster, that was swallowed up by the Milky Way more than 8 billion years ago.
This companion star contains almost no elements heavier than hydrogen or helium, indicating that the massive star that became Gaia BH3 may also have been extremely poor in heavy elements.
For the first time, the theory that the massive black holes observed in gravitational wave experiments were created by the collapse of primordial massive stars lacking heavy elements has been confirmed.
These early stars may have evolved differently from the massive stars we see in our galaxy today.
The composition of the companion star can also reveal the formation mechanism of this surprising binary system.
“We were surprised that the chemical composition of the companion star is similar to that seen in older, metal-poor stars in the Milky Way,” said Dr. Elisabetta Cuffo, an astronomer at the CNRS and the Paris Observatory.
“There is no evidence that this star was contaminated by material ejected from the supernova explosion of the massive star that became BH3.”
“This may suggest that the black hole acquired a mate from another star system for the first time after its birth.”
of the team paper be published in a magazine astronomy and astrophysics.
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P. Panuzzo other. (Gaia collaboration). 2024. Gaia astronomical measurements prior to release discovered a dormant black hole with the mass of 33 solar masses. A&A, in press. doi: 10.1051/0004-6361/202449763
Astronomers using NASA/ESA/CSA’s James Webb Space Telescope have discovered a typical extremely metal-poor, star-forming, blue, compact dwarf galaxy in the constellation Ursa Major, I. Zwicki 18 (abbreviated). I took a stunning image of I Zw 18).
This web image shows I Zwicky 18, a blue, compact dwarf galaxy about 59 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. I Zwicky 18’s nearby companion galaxy can be seen at the bottom of the image. This companion star may be interacting with the dwarf galaxy and may have triggered the galaxy’s recent star formation. Image credits: NASA / ESA / CSA / Webb / Hirschauer other.
I Zw 18 It is located approximately 59 million light years away in the constellation Ursa Major.
This galaxy, also known as Mrk 116, LEDA 27182, and UGCA 166, discovered It was discovered in the 1930s by Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky.
At only 3,000 light years in diameter, it is much smaller than our own Milky Way galaxy.
I Zw 18 has experienced several bursts of star formation and has two large starburst regions at its center.
The wispy brown filaments surrounding the central starburst region are bubbles of gas heated by stellar winds and intense ultraviolet light emitted by hot, young stars.
“Metal-poor star-forming dwarf galaxies in the local universe are close analogs of high-redshift dwarf galaxies,” said Dr. Alec Hirschauer of the Space Telescope Science Institute and colleagues.
“Because the history of enrichment of a particular system tracks the accumulation of heavy elements through successive generations of stellar nucleosynthesis, low-abundance galaxies are likely to be more likely to be affected by a common phenomenon in the early Universe, including the global epoch of peak star formation. It mimics the astrophysical conditions where most of the cosmic star formation and chemical enrichment is expected to have taken place.”
“Thus, at the lowest metallicities, we may be able to approximate the star-forming environment of the time just after the Big Bang.”
“I Zw 18 is one of the most metal-poor systems known, with a measured gas-phase oxygen abundance of only about 3% of solar power production,” the researchers said. added.
“At a distance of 59 million light-years and with global star formation rate values measured at 0.13 to 0.17 solar masses per year, this laboratory is designed to support young stars in an environment similar to the one in which they were discovered. It’s an ideal laboratory for studying both the demographics and the demographics of stars that evolved in the very early days of the universe.”
Dr. Hirschauer and his co-authors used Webb to study the life cycle of I Zw 18 dust.
“Until now, it was thought that the first generation of stars began forming only recently, but the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope found “The dimmer and older red stars in the galaxy suggest that their formation began at least 1 billion years ago, and possibly 10 billion years ago,” the researchers said.
“Therefore, this galaxy may have formed at the same time as most other galaxies.”
“New observations by Webb reveal the detection of a set of dust-covered evolved star candidates. They also provide details about Zw 18’s two main star-forming regions. To do.”
“Webb’s new data suggests that major bursts of star formation in these regions occurred at different times.”
“The strongest starburst activity is now thought to have occurred more recently in the northwestern lobe of the galaxy compared to the southeastern lobe.”
“This is based on the relative abundance of young and old stars found in each lobe.”
Alec S. Hirschauer other. 2024. Imaging I Zw 18 with JWST: I. Strategy and first results for dusty stellar populations. A.J., in press. arXiv: 2403.06980
Alex Jamison’s veganism gained worldwide recognition after starring in the 2004 film Supersize Me, an influential Academy Award-nominated documentary exploring our fast food culture.
Originally working as a vegan, health-conscious private chef in New York, Jamison’s journey began after a discussion with her then-partner Morgan Spurlock (who directed and starred in the film). The film’s success propelled her to travel to 20 countries, secure a three-book deal, including Vegan Cooking for Dummies, grow a vegan recipe newsletter to over 25,000 subscribers, and land a $7,000 per hour speaking contract across the United States.
In 2012, she started experiencing cravings for non-vegan foods like burgers and salmon, which marked a significant shift from her strict vegan lifestyle. This change, influenced by her health and well-being, also sparked backlash within the vegan community she had once been a prominent figure in.
Alex Jamieson co-starred with ex-husband Morgan Spurlock in the 2004 film Supersize Me. Photo: Everett Collection Inc/Alamy
Her journey toward a plant-based diet began in 2000 due to health issues, leading her to quit her job and become a professional chef specializing in vegan cuisine. This transition defined her identity and kickstarted her career in the health and wellness industry.
By 2013, she made the difficult decision to publicly declare her departure from veganism, which triggered a backlash from the vegan community. Despite losing subscribers, speaking engagements, and facing negative reviews, she embraced her new journey and became a beacon for others struggling with the concept of strict veganism.
Now at 49, she continues to evolve, carving out a new path as a creative leadership coach, author, and activist, while openly admitting to incorporating meat into her diet. Her experience has made her more courageous and willing to embrace change in her life.
In a new paper in the journal Nature Machine Intelligence, leading computer scientists from around the world review recent advances in machine learning that are converging towards creating collective machine-learned intelligence. They propose that this convergence of scientific and technological advances will lead to the emergence of new types of AI systems that are scalable, resilient, and sustainable.
Saltoggio other. In other words, we will see the emergence of collective AI, where many artificial intelligence units, each able to continuously acquire new knowledge and skills, form a network and share information with each other.
Loughborough University Dr. Andrea Sortoggio and colleagues recognize striking similarities between collective AI and many science fiction concepts.
One example they give is Borg – a cybernetic life form that appears in the Star Trek universe that operates and shares knowledge through a linked collective consciousness.
However, unlike many science fiction stories, the authors envision that collective AI will bring major positive breakthroughs across a variety of fields.
“Instantaneous knowledge sharing across a collective network of AI units that can continuously learn and adapt to new data enables rapid response to new situations, challenges, and threats,” said Dr. Sortogeo.
“For example, in a cybersecurity environment, when one AI unit identifies a threat, it can quickly share knowledge and prompt a collective response, which helps the human immune system protect the body from external intruders. It’s the same as protecting it.”
“It could also lead to the development of disaster response robots that can quickly adapt to the situation they are dispatched to, and personalized medical agents that combine cutting-edge medical knowledge with patient-specific information to improve health outcomes. Yes, the potential applications are vast and exciting.”
Researchers acknowledge that there are risks associated with collective AI (such as the rapid spread of potentially unethical or illegal knowledge), but that AI units have their own objectives and independence from the collective. The authors emphasize the important safety aspect of their vision: to maintain
“This will enable democracy for AI agents and greatly reduce the risk of AI domination by a few large systems,” said Dr. Sortoggio.
After analyzing recent advances in machine learning, the authors concluded that the future of AI lies in collective intelligence.
The study focuses global efforts on enabling lifelong learning (where AI agents can extend their knowledge throughout their operational life) and developing universal protocols and languages that allow AI systems to share knowledge with each other. It became clear that it was.
This differs from current large-scale AI models such as ChatGPT, which have limited lifelong learning and knowledge sharing capabilities.
Such models are unable to continue learning because they acquire most of their knowledge during energy-intensive training sessions.
“Recent research trends are extending AI models with the ability to continuously adapt once deployed, allowing their knowledge to be reused in other models, and effectively recycling knowledge to increase learning speed and energy.” It’s about optimizing demand,” said Dr. Sortogeo.
“We believe that the currently dominant large-scale, expensive, non-sharable, non-lifetime AI models will be replaced by sustainable, evolving, and shared collections of AI units in the future. I don’t believe I will survive.”
“Thanks to communication and sharing, human knowledge has increased step by step over thousands of years.”
“We believe that similar movements are likely to occur in future societies of AI units that achieve democratic and cooperative collectives.”
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A. Saltoggio other. 2024. Collective AI with lifelong learning and sharing at the edge. nat mach intel 6, 251-264; doi: 10.1038/s42256-024-00800-2
Astronomers have known for decades that the powerful light emitted by massive stars can disrupt planetary disks of dust and gas that swirl around young stars, the cradles of planetary birth. However, important questions remained unanswered. How fast does this process occur and will there be enough material left to form a planet?
NASA/ESA/CSA Using the James Webb Space Telescope and the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), astronomers are now discovering the Orion Nebula, a nursery for stars, and specifically the protoplanetary disk named d203-506. I’m researching. Although it was confined to a small area, it exploded to an abnormally large size. This makes it possible to measure material loss rates with unprecedented precision.
bernet other. We observed the protoplanetary disk d203-506 illuminated by the far-ultraviolet rays of the Orion Nebula.Image credit: Berne other., doi: 10.1126/science.adh2861.
Young, low-mass stars are often surrounded by relatively short-lived protoplanetary disks of dust and gas, which are the raw materials for planet formation.
Therefore, the formation of gas giant planets is limited by processes that remove mass from the protoplanetary disk, such as photoevaporation.
Photoevaporation occurs when the upper layers of a protoplanetary disk are heated by X-rays or ultraviolet protons, raising the temperature of the gas and ejecting it from the system.
Because most low-mass stars form in clusters that also include high-mass stars, protoplanetary disks are expected to be exposed to external radiation and experience photoevaporation due to ultraviolet radiation.
Theoretical models predict that deep ultraviolet light creates a region of photodissociation, a region where ultraviolet photons projected from nearby massive stars strongly influence the gas chemistry on the surface of the protoplanetary disk. However, it has been difficult to observe these processes directly.
Dr. Thomas Howarth of Queen Mary University of London and his colleagues investigated the effects of ultraviolet irradiation using a combination of infrared, submillimeter wave, and optical observations of the protoplanetary disk d203-506 in the Orion Nebula using the Webb and ALMA telescopes.
By modeling the kinematics and excitation of the emission lines detected within the photodissociation region, they found that d203-506 loses mass rapidly due to heating and ionization by deep ultraviolet light.
According to the research team, the rate at which this mass is lost from d203-506 indicates that gas could be removed from the disk within a million years, suppressing the ability of gas giants to form within the system. It is said that there is.
“This is a truly exceptional case study,” said Dr Howarth, co-author of the paper. paper It was published in the magazine science.
“The results are clear: this young star is losing a staggering 20 Earth masses of material per year, suggesting that Jupiter-like planets are unlikely to form in this system.” .”
“The velocities we measured are in perfect agreement with theoretical models and give us confidence in understanding how different environments shape planet formation across the universe.”
“Unlike other known cases, this young star is exposed to only one type of ultraviolet light from a nearby massive star.”
“Because there is no 'hot cocoon' created by higher-energy ultraviolet light, the planet-forming material is larger and easier to study.”
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Olivier Verne other. 2024. Photoevaporation flow caused by far ultraviolet rays observed in a protoplanetary disk. science 383 (6686): 988-992; doi: 10.1126/science.adh2861
White dwarfs, known as “man-eating stars” by scientists, are not just a concept from a Stephen King novel set in space. They are born through the process of swallowing surrounding planets and asteroids, leaving visible scars.
Researchers have made a groundbreaking discovery in solving the mystery of these cannibal stars by finding traces of metal on the surface of one such white dwarf star for the first time ever.
“We’ve never seen anything like this before,” said study co-author John Landstreet, a professor at Western University in Canada. These findings are reported in the Astrophysics Journal Letter.
The white dwarf in question, WD 0816-310, is now the size of Earth and is the remnants of a star that was once as large as the Sun.
Using the Very Large Telescope (VLT) at the European Southern Observatory in Chile, researchers detected the concentrated metals on the scar of the cannibal star using the VLT’s FORS2 instrument, often referred to as the “Swiss Army Knife.”
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Experts believe that a planet or asteroid disintegrated as it neared the white dwarf, forming a ring of debris around the dead star. WD 0816-310 then consumed part of this debris ring, leaving behind traces of specific chemicals on its surface, akin to evidence of food theft around a child’s mouth.
Additionally, scientists observed variations in the strength of metal detections on the star as it rotated, resembling changes in the magnetic field.
It was discovered that the magnetic field drew these metallic elements into the man-eating star, concentrating them at its poles and creating a distinctive “scar” in those areas.
These observations provide valuable insights into the composition of exoplanets and shed light on how stars interact with planetary systems even after their “death,” showcasing that WD 0816-310 is not just a “man-eating” star but also a “zombie” star.
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