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Category: space – Page 2

High-velocity molecular clouds in M83 provide new insight into how galaxies evolve

A new result from the molecular gas survey in the Southern Pinwheel Galaxy M83 using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) Telescope reveals a discovery of 10 high-velocity clouds composed of molecular gas, moving at velocities significantly different from M83’s overall rotation, an indication that the influx of these gases—which help to form stars—are from outside the galaxy.

This survey is led by Jin Koda, professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy in the College of Arts and Sciences at Stony Brook University, who collaborated with Maki Nagata and Fumi Egusa, of the University of Tokyo, as well as an international team of astrophysicists. Their findings are published in The Astrophysical Journal.

Galaxies are primarily composed of stars and gas, with gas serving as the material for forming new stars. Through this process of star formation, galaxies evolve by converting gas into stars. It is estimated that without a supply of gas from external sources, the existing gas in a galaxy would be consumed within about 1 billion years and star formation would cease. The team’s finding on the of M83 provides new insight into how galaxies may evolve over millions and billions of years.

NASA announces Voyager 1’s stunning new discovery at the outer limits of our solar system

Voyager 1, launched in 1977, has been journeying through space for over four decades, now more than 14.9 billion miles away from Earth. Recently, this legendary probe made headlines once again by crossing an invisible border that separates our solar system from the vast expanse of interstellar space. What it discovered there has left scientists astounded—a “wall of fire” where temperatures soar to an unimaginable 54,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

If you have an old remote control at home, you’re sitting on a treasure: here’s how and why to reuse it

Since its launch, Voyager 1 has sent back breathtaking images of Jupiter, Saturn, and their moons. But its most daring journey began when it left the familiar territory of the planets behind and headed toward what is known as the heliopause. This is the vast boundary where the sun’s influence fades and the realm of interstellar space begins.

Clingy planets can trigger their own doom, Cheops and TESS suggest

Astronomers using the European Space Agency’s Cheops mission have caught an exoplanet that seems to be triggering flares of radiation from the star it orbits. These tremendous explosions are blasting away the planet’s wispy atmosphere, causing it to shrink every year.

This is the first-ever evidence of a “planet with a death wish.” Though it was theorized to be possible since the nineties, the flares seen in this research are around 100 times more energetic than expected.

The work is published in the journal Nature.

Heaviest tin isotopes provide insights into element synthesis

An international team of researchers, led by scientists from GSI/FAIR in Darmstadt, Germany, has studied r-process nucleosynthesis in measurements conducted at the Canadian research center TRIUMF in Vancouver. At the center of this work are the first mass measurements of three extremely neutron-rich tin isotopes: tin-136, tin-137 and tin-138. The results are published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

The high-precision measurements, combined with nucleosynthesis network calculations, help to better understand how are formed in the universe, especially through the rapid neutron capture process (the r-process) occurring in neutron star mergers.

The data reveal the neutron separation energy, which defines the path of the r-process on the nuclear chart. The study found unexpected changes in the behavior of tin nuclei beyond the magic neutron number N=82, specifically, a reduction in the pairing effect of the last two neutrons.

Sonic Booms in the Sky: How Scientists Use “Bolides” To Improve Planetary Defense

Faint booms from space help track incoming debris. But the path matters more than you think. Earth gains a little mass each year as space dust rains down from above, adding thousands of metric tons to the planet’s surface. In addition, roughly 50 tons of meteorites fall to Earth annually. Since t

AI-powered ChronoFlow uses stellar rotation rates to estimate stars’ ages

Figuring out the ages of stars is fundamental to understanding many areas of astronomy—yet, it remains a challenge since stellar ages can’t be ascertained through observation alone. So, astronomers at the University of Toronto have turned to artificial intelligence for help.

Their new , called ChronoFlow, uses a dataset of rotating stars in clusters and machine learning to determine how the speed at which a star rotates changes as it ages.

The approach, published recently in The Astrophysical Journal, predicts the ages of stars with an accuracy previously impossible to achieve with analytical models.