Parker Solar Probe data bolsters theories in long-running solar riddle

Data collected by NASA’s Parker Solar Probe bolsters theories previously put by University of Michigan researchers about one of the sun’s greatest mysteries—why its outer atmosphere is hotter than its fiery surface.

Two years ago, U-M engineers predicted when the probe would pass a constantly moving, invisible barrier in the sun’s upper atmosphere called the Alfven point. They also anticipated a strange phenomenon beyond that point, which heats elements to different temperatures.

Findings announced by NASA, contained in a trio of research papers, support the accuracy of both predictions. The data behind those studies expands what we know about the sun’s corona, helping hone predictive modeling to protect Earth’s power grid from potentially damaging solar activity—when the sun hurls gobs of its plasma at our planet.

“While we don’t know how the heating happens, we were able to predict where it happens, and now Parker Solar Probe has entered this zone of heating,” said Justin Kasper, U-M professor of climate and space sciences, a principal investigator for the Parker mission and first author of one of the papers appearing in Physical Review Letters.

“It’s hard to overstate how important this is for our understanding of space weather, as now we know the spacecraft will be able to see how heating happens in the corona. Imagine trying to predict weather patterns and finally being able to measure how the air is heating before a storm.”

Milky Way’s supermassive black hole in deepest images

These annotated images, obtained with the GRAVITY instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) between March and July 2021, show stars orbiting very close to Sgr A*, the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way. One of these stars, named S29, was observed as it was making its closest approach to the black hole at 13 billion kilometers, just 90 times the distance between the Sun and Earth. Another star, named S300, was detected for the first time in the new VLTI observations.  To obtain the new images, the astronomers used a machine-learning technique, called Information Field Theory. They made a model of how the real sources may look, simulated how GRAVITY would see them, and compared this simulation with GRAVITY observations. This allowed them to find and track stars around Sagittarius A* with unparalleled depth and accuracy. 
Credit: ESO/GRAVITY collaboration

The European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (ESO’s VLTI) has obtained the deepest and sharpest images to date of the region around the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. The new images zoom in 20 times more than what was possible before the VLTI and have helped astronomers find a never-before-seen star close to the black hole. By tracking the orbits of stars at the center of our Milky Way, the team has made the most precise measurement yet of the black hole’s mass.

ESO telescope images planet around most massive star pair to date

This image shows the most massive planet-hosting star pair to date, b Centauri, and its giant planet b Centauri b. This is the first time astronomers have directly observed a planet orbiting a star pair this massive and hot.   The star pair, which has a total mass of at least six times that of the Sun, is the bright object in the top left corner of the image, the bright and dark rings around it being optical artefacts. The planet, visible as a bright dot in the lower right of the frame, is ten times as massive as Jupiter and orbits the pair at 100 times the distance Jupiter orbits the Sun. The other bright dot in the image (top right) is a background star. By taking different images at different times, astronomers were able to distinguish the planet from the background stars.   The image was captured by the SPHERE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope and using a coronagraph, which blocked the light from the massive star system and allowed astronomers to detect the faint planet. 
Credit: ESO/Janson et al.

The European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) has captured an image of a planet orbiting b Centauri, a two-star system that can be seen with the naked eye. This is the hottest and most massive planet-hosting star system found to date, and the planet was spotted orbiting it at 100 times the distance Jupiter orbits the Sun. Some astronomers believed planets could not exist around stars this massive and this hot — until now.

“Finding a planet around b Centauri was very exciting since it completely changes the picture about massive stars as planet hosts,” explains Markus Janson, an astronomer at Stockholm University, Sweden and first author of the new study published online today in Nature.

Optical cavities could be key to next generation interferometers

A new concept has been developed that has the potential to assist new instruments in the investigation of fundamental science topics such as gravitational waves and dark matter.

The concept is described in a paper written by UK Quantum Technology Hub Sensors and Timing researchers at the University of Birmingham and published in Communications Physics, and a related patent application filed by University of Birmingham Enterprise.

It proposes a new method of using optical cavities to enhance atom interferometers – highly sensitive devices that use light and atoms to make ultra-precise measurements.

Although itself challenging to implement, the concept presents a method of overcoming substantial technological challenges involved in the pursuit of atom interferometers operating at extreme momentum transfer – a technique which would allow atoms to be placed into a quantum superposition over large distances.

This is key to enabling the sensitivities required for these devices to investigate signals from dark matter and gravitational waves. The exploration of dark matter, and the detection of gravitational waves from the very early Universe is key to developing our collective knowledge of fundamental physics.

The new paper, written by Dr Rustin Nourshargh, Dr Samuel Lellouch and colleagues from the School of Physics and Astronomy, describes how synchronization of the input pulses, to realize a spatially resolved circulating pulse within the optical cavity, can facilitate a large momentum transfer without the need for drastic improvements in available laser power.

Iron integral to the development of life on Earth, and the possibility of life on other planets

Early Earth on the left, had seas infused with life-enhancing iron, whereas Earth today, seen on the right, does not.
Image credit: Mark A. Garlick / markgarlick.com

Iron integral to the development of life on Earth – and the possibility of life on other planets

Researchers at the University of Oxford uncover the importance of iron for the development of complex life on Earth – which also may hint at the likelihood of complex life on other planets.

Iron is an essential nutrient that almost all life requires to grow and thrive. Iron’s importance goes all the way back to the formation of the planet Earth, where the amount of iron in the Earth’s rocky mantle was ‘set’ by the conditions under which the planet formed and went on to have major ramifications for how life developed. Now, scientists at the University of Oxford have uncovered the likely mechanisms by which iron influenced the development of complex life forms, which can also be used to understand how likely (or unlikely) advanced life forms might be on other planets. The work was published today in PNAS.

‘The initial amount of iron in Earth’s rocks is ‘set’ by the conditions of planetary accretion, during which the Earth’s metallic core segregated from its rocky mantle,’ says co-author Jon Wade, Associate Professor of Planetary Materials at the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford. ‘Too little iron in the rocky portion of the planet, like the planet Mercury, and life is unlikely. Too much, like Mars, and water may be difficult to keep on the surface for times relevant to the evolution of complex life.’

TESS discovers a planet the size of Mars but with the makeup of Mercury

Caption:An illustration of a red dwarf star orbited by an exoplanet.
Credits: NASA/ESA/G. Bacon (STScI)

Ultra-short-period planets are small, compact worlds that whip around their stars at close range, completing an orbit — and a single, scorching year — in less than 24 hours. How these planets came to be in such extreme configurations is one of the continuing mysteries of exoplanetary science.

Now, astronomers have discovered an ultra-short-period planet (USP) that is also super light. The planet is named GJ 367 b, and it orbits its star in just eight hours. The planet is about the size of Mars, and half as massive as the Earth, making it one of the lightest planets discovered to date.

Orbiting a nearby star that is 31 light years from our own sun, GJ 367 b is close enough that researchers could pin down properties of the planet that were not possible with previously detected USPs. For instance, the team determined that GJ 376 b is a rocky planet and likely contains a solid core of iron and nickel, similar to Mercury’s interior.

Due to its extreme proximity to its star, the astronomers estimate GJ 376 b is blasted with 500 times more radiation than what the Earth receives from the sun. As a result, the planet’s dayside boils at up to 1,500 degrees Celsius. Under such extreme temperatures, any substantial atmosphere would have long vaporized away, along with any signs of life, at least as we know it.

Lunar radar data uncovers new clues about moon’s ancient past

A full moon is pictured above the Earth's horizon as the International Space Station orbited 262 miles over the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Japan.
Credit: NASA

The dusty surface of the moon — immortalized in images of Apollo astronauts’ lunar footprints — formed as the result of asteroid impacts and the harsh environment of space breaking down rock over millions of years. An ancient layer of this material, covered by periodic lava flows and now buried under the lunar surface, could provide new insight into the Moon’s deep past, according to a team of scientists.

“Using careful data processing, we found interesting new evidence that this buried layer, called paleoregolith, may be much thicker than previously expected,” said Tieyuan Zhu, assistant professor of geophysics at Penn State. “These layers have been undisturbed since their formation and could be important records for determining early asteroid impact and volcanic history of the moon.”

The team, led by Zhu, conducted new analysis of radar data collected by China’s Chang’e 3 mission in 2013, which performed the first direct ground radar measurements on the moon.

The researchers identified a thick layer of paleoregolith, roughly 16 to 30 feet, sandwiched between two layers of lava rock believed to be 2.3 and 3.6 billion years old. The findings suggest the paleoregolith formed much faster than previous estimates of 6.5 feet per billion years, the scientists said.

Texas Astronomers Discover Strangely Massive Black Hole in Milky Way Satellite Galaxy

McDonald Observatory astronomers have found that Leo I (inset), a tiny satellite galaxy of the Milky Way (main image), has a black hole nearly as massive as the Milky Way's. Leo I is 30 times smaller than the Milky Way. The result could signal changes in astronomers' understanding of galaxy evolution. Credit: ESA/Gaia/DPAC; SDSS (inset) McDonald Observatory astronomers have found that Leo I (inset), a tiny satellite galaxy of the Milky Way (main image), has a black hole nearly as massive as the Milky Way's. Leo I is 30 times smaller than the Milky Way. The result could signal changes in astronomers' understanding of galaxy evolution.
Credit: ESA/Gaia/DPAC; SDSS (inset)

Astronomers at The University of Texas at Austin’s McDonald Observatory have discovered an unusually massive black hole at the heart of one of the Milky Way’s dwarf satellite galaxies, called Leo I. Almost as massive as the black hole in our own galaxy, the finding could redefine our understanding of how all galaxies — the building blocks of the universe — evolve. The work is published in a recent issue of The Astrophysical Journal.

The team decided to study Leo I because of its peculiarity. Unlike most dwarf galaxies orbiting the Milky Way, Leo I does not contain much dark matter. Researchers measured Leo I’s dark matter profile — that is, how the density of dark matter changes from the outer edges of the galaxy all the way into its center. They did this by measuring its gravitational pull on the stars: The faster the stars are moving, the more matter there is enclosed in their orbits. In particular, the team wanted to know whether dark matter density increases toward the galaxy’s center. They also wanted to know whether their profile measurement would match previous ones made using older telescope data combined with computer models.

KvarkenSat, the first small satellite in the Kvarken region

KvarkenSat is a joint small satellite between the Ostrobothnian provinces and Västerbotten, which is due to be launched into space in just over a year.

The design and implementation of the KvarkenSat small satellite is part of the 'New Space Digital Economy Innovation Center' project funded by the EU's Interreg Botnia-Atlantica programme, the Regional Council of Ostrobothnia and the province of Västerbotten. The project is abbreviated as KvarkenSpaceEco.

KvarkenSpaceEco is a project focusing on the new space economy, implemented by 10 universities and research institutes on both sides of the Kvarken. The actors in the project are involved in developing an ecosystem around space data and economy in the Kvarken region, as well as the Kvarken Space Center.

'The project will make space data available to the region's residents, companies, schools and other actors, as well as introduce them to the opportunities brought by the new space economy,' says the director responsible for the project, Professor Heidi Kuusniemi from the University of Vaasa.

In the KvarkenSpaceEco project, a ground station has been built on the university campus in Vaasa, which receives data transmitted by satellites and, in time, will control the region's own small satellite. The ground station will become part of the space data laboratory of the University of Vaasa to be built in the Technobothnia research center.

Origins of Earth’s water could be solved in space dust analysis

Meteorites on their way to earth and breaking through atmosphere.
Elements of this image furnished by NASA- earthmap for 3Drender

A key mystery about the origins of Earth’s water may have been solved after an international team of scientists uncovered persuasive new evidence pointing to an unlikely culprit—the Sun.

In a paper published in Nature Astronomy, a team of researchers, including two from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST), describe how analysis of dust grains from the surface of an ancient asteroid suggests that extraterrestrial dust grains from asteroids and comets carried water to the surface of the early Earth. The water in the grains is produced by space weathering, a process by which charged particles from the Sun, known as solar wind, altered the chemical composition of the grains to produce water molecules.

The finding could answer the longstanding question about the sources of the water that covers 70% of Earth’s surface—far more than any other rocky planet in our Solar System. Planetary scientists have been puzzled for decades over the source of Earth’s oceans. One theory suggests that comets and asteroids brought the water to the planet in the final stages of its formation 4.6 billion years ago.

Closest pair of supermassive black holes yet

Hi-Res Zoomable Left Image | Hi-Res Zoomable Right Image
This image shows close-up (left) and wide (right) views of the two bright galactic nuclei, each housing a supermassive black hole, in NGC 7727, a galaxy located 89 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Aquarius. Each nucleus consists of a dense group of stars with a supermassive black hole at its center. The two black holes are on a collision course and form the closest pair of supermassive black holes found to date. It is also the pair with the smallest separation between two supermassive black holes found to date — observed to be just 1600 light-years apart in the sky.    The image on the left was taken with the MUSE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) at the Paranal Observatory in Chile while the one on the right was taken with ESO's VLT Survey Telescope.  Credit: ESO/Voggel et al.; ESO/VST ATLAS team.
Acknowledgement: Durham University/CASU/WFAU

Using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT), astronomers have revealed the closest pair of supermassive black holes to Earth ever observed. The two objects also have a much smaller separation than any other previously spotted pair of supermassive black holes and will eventually merge into one giant black hole.

Located in the galaxy NGC 7727 in the constellation Aquarius, the supermassive black hole pair is about 89 million light-years away from Earth. Although this may seem distant, it beats the previous record of 470 million light-years by quite some margin, making the newfound supermassive black hole pair the closest to us yet.

Destroying Black Holes

Watch as eight stars skirt a black hole 1 million times the mass of the Sun in these supercomputer simulations. As they approach, all are stretched and deformed by the black hole’s gravity. Some are completely pulled apart into a long stream of gas, a cataclysmic phenomenon called a tidal disruption event. Others are only partially disrupted, retaining some of their mass and returning to their normal shapes after their horrific encounters.

These simulations are the first to combine the physical effects of Einstein’s general theory of relativity with realistic stellar density models. The virtual stars range from about one-tenth to 10 times the Sun’s mass.

The division between stars that fully disrupt and those that endure isn’t simply related to mass. Instead, survival depends more on the star’s density.

Scientists investigated how other characteristics, such as different black hole masses and stellar close approaches, affect tidal disruption events. The results will help astronomers estimate how often full tidal disruptions occur in the universe and will aid them in building more accurate pictures of these calamitous cosmic occurrences.

Source/Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Taeho Ryu (MPA) 
Video Music: "Lava Flow Instrumental" from Universal Production Music
Final Editing and Conversion: Scientific Frontline
Full Credits included in video

Secrets of planet formation take researchers on quest near and far

Students visit Bin Chen’s high pressure mineral
physics laboratory, learn from Robert Rapp.

From laboratory experiments to observations of young star systems, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa researchers are on a quest to understand how rocky planets like Earth form.

Planets form from disks of gas and dust that surround young stars. Previous research has shown that nearly all stars are born with such disks, and revealed hints of planet formation within them. Surveys for planets around other stars, termed “exoplanets,” have discovered that Earth-size and presumably rocky planets are common, and many stars have planets orbiting much closer to their host star than the Earth-Sun distance. But most of the steps between dust and planets are poorly understood, in part because they are obscured within the inner region of these proto-planetary disks.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) and NASA recently awarded a total of $1.3 million in three separate grants to teams of UH Mānoa scientists from the Department of Earth Sciences and Hawaiʻi Institute of Geophysics and Planetology in the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST), the Institute for Astronomy (IfA), and the Information and Computer Science Department (ICS) to explore this inner realm around other stars—and our Sun—in search of the secrets to planet formation.

SOEST Earth Sciences professor Eric Gaidos, lead investigator on two of the grants, explained, “the story of planet formation is like an epic movie, where we could watch only the dramatic opening scene and the happy ending, but missed everything between, leaving us guessing about the main characters, their roles and most of the plot.”

Simulations provide clue to missing planets mystery

A protoplanetary disk as observed by ALMA (left), and a protoplanetary disk during planetary migration, as obtained from the ATERUI II simulation (right). The dashed line in the simulation represents the orbit of a planet, and the gray area indicates a region not covered by the computational domain of the simulation.

Cerdit: Kazuhiro Kanagawa, ALMA(ESO/NAOJ/NRAO) 

Forming planets are one possible explanation for the rings and gaps observed in disks of gas and dust around young stars. But this theory has trouble explaining why it is rare to find planets associated with rings. New supercomputer simulations show that after creating a ring, a planet can move away and leave the ring behind. Not only does this bolster the planet theory for ring formation, the simulations show that a migrating planet can produce a variety of patterns matching those actually observed in disks.

Young stars are encircled by protoplanetary disks of gas and dust. One of the world’s most powerful radio telescope arrays, ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array), has observed a variety of patterns of denser and less dense rings and gaps in these protoplanetary disks. Gravitational effects from planets forming in the disk are one theory to explain these structures, but follow-up observations looking for planets near the rings have largely been unsuccessful.

Is New Finding an Asteroid or a Comet? It’s Both

Composite image of (248370) 2005 QN173 taken with Palomar Observatory’s Hale Telescope in California on July 12, 2021. The head, or nucleus, of the comet is in the upper left corner, with the tail stretching down and to the right, getting progressively fainter farther from the nucleus. Stars in the field of view appear as short dotted lines due to the apparent motion of Solar System objects against background stars and the process of adding together multiple images to increase the visibility of the tail. 
Credit: Henry H. Hsieh (PSI), Jana Pittichová (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

The newest known example of a rare type of object in the Solar System – a comet hidden among the main-belt asteroids – has been found and studied, according to a new paper by Planetary Science Institute Senior Scientist Henry Hsieh.

Discovered to be active on July 7, 2021 by the Asteroid Terrestrial-Impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) survey, asteroid (248370) 2005 QN137 is just the eighth main-belt asteroid, out of more than half a million known main-belt asteroids, confirmed to not only be active, but to have been active on more than one occasion. “This behavior strongly indicates that its activity is due to the sublimation of icy material,” said Hsieh, lead author of the paper “Physical Characterization of Main-Belt Comet (248370) 2005 QN173” that he presented at a press conference today at the 53rd annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences. “As such, it is considered a so-called main-belt comet, and is one of just about 20 objects that have currently been confirmed or are suspected to be main-belt comets, including some that have only been observed to be active once so far.

“248370 can be thought of as both an asteroid and a comet, or more specifically, a main-belt asteroid that has just recently been recognized to also be a comet. It fits the physical definitions of a comet, in that it is likely icy and is ejecting dust into space, even though it also has the orbit of an asteroid,” Hsieh said. “This duality and blurring of the boundary between what were previously thought to be two completely separate types of objects – asteroids and comets – is a key part of what makes these objects so interesting.”

Near-Earth Asteroid Might be a Lost Fragment of the Moon

An artist's impression of Earth quasi-satellite Kamo`oalewa near the Earth-moon system. Using the Large Binocular Telescope, astronomers have shown that it might be a lost fragment of the moon.
Addy Graham/University of Arizona

A near-Earth asteroid named Kamo`oalewa could be a fragment of our moon, according to a paper published today in Nature Communications Earth and Environment by a team of astronomers led by the University of Arizona.

Kamo`oalewa is a quasi-satellite – a subcategory of near-Earth asteroids that orbit the sun but remain relatively close to Earth. Little is known about these objects because they are faint and difficult to observe. Kamo`oalewa was discovered by the PanSTARRS telescope in Hawaii in 2016, and the name – found in a Hawaiian creation chant – alludes to an offspring that travels on its own. The asteroid is roughly the size of a Ferris wheel – between 150 and 190 feet in diameter – and gets as close as about 9 million miles from Earth.

Due to its orbit, Kamo`oalewa can only be observed from Earth for a few weeks every April. Its relatively small size means that it can only be seen with one of the largest telescopes on Earth. Using the UArizona-managed Large Binocular Telescope on Mount Graham in southern Arizona, a team of astronomers led by UArizona planetary sciences graduate student Ben Sharkey found that Kamo`oalewa's pattern of reflected light, called a spectrum, matches lunar rocks from NASA's Apollo missions, suggesting it originated from the moon.

New method to detect Tatooine-like planets validated

A new technique developed in part by University of Hawaiʻi astronomer Nader Haghighipour has allowed scientists to quickly detect a transiting planet with two suns.

Termed circumbinary planets, these objects orbit around a pair of stars. For years, these planets were merely the subject of science fiction, like Tatooine in Star Wars. However, thanks to NASA’s successful planet-hunting Kepler and Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) missions, a team of astronomers, including Haghighipour, have found 14 such bodies so far.

Kepler and TESS detect planets via the transit method, where astronomers measure the tiny dimming of a star as a planet passes in front of its host star, blocking some of the starlight. Usually, astronomers need to see at least three of these transits to pin down the planet’s orbit. This becomes challenging when there are two host stars.

“Detecting circumbinary planets is much more complicated than finding planets orbiting single stars. When a planet orbits a double-star system, transits of the same star don’t occur at consistent intervals,” explained Haghighipour. “The planet might transit one star, and then transit the other, before transiting the first star again, and so on.”

Black hole found hiding in star cluster outside our galaxy

This artist’s impression shows a compact black hole 11 times as massive as the Sun and the five-solar-mass star orbiting it. The two objects are located in NGC 1850, a cluster of thousands of stars roughly 160 000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a Milky Way neighbour. The distortion of the star’s shape is due to the strong gravitational force exerted by the black hole.   Not only does the black hole’s gravitational force distort the shape of the star, but it also influences its orbit. By looking at these subtle orbital effects, a team of astronomers were able to infer the presence of the black hole, making it the first small black hole outside of our galaxy to be found this way. For this discovery, the team used the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) instrument at ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile.  Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser
Hi-Res Zoomable Image

Using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT), astronomers have discovered a small black hole outside the Milky Way by looking at how it influences the motion of a star in its close vicinity. This is the first time this detection method has been used to reveal the presence of a black hole outside of our galaxy. The method could be key to unveiling hidden black holes in the Milky Way and nearby galaxies, and to help shed light on how these mysterious objects form and evolve.

This image shows NGC1850, a cluster of thousands of stars roughly
160 000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud.
Credit: ESO, NASA/ESA/M. Romaniello
Hi-Res Zoomable image and Full Caption

The newly found black hole was spotted lurking in NGC 1850, a cluster of thousands of stars roughly 160 000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a neighbor galaxy of the Milky Way.

“Similar to Sherlock Holmes tracking down a criminal gang from their missteps, we are looking at every single star in this cluster with a magnifying glass in one hand trying to find some evidence for the presence of black holes but without seeing them directly,” says Sara Saracino from the Astrophysics Research Institute of Liverpool John Moores University in the UK, who led the research now accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. “The result shown here represents just one of the wanted criminals, but when you have found one, you are well on your way to discovering many others, in different clusters.”

This first “criminal” tracked down by the team turned out to be roughly 11 times as massive as our Sun. The smoking gun that put the astronomers on the trail of this black hole was its gravitational influence on the five-solar-mass star orbiting it.

Gamma ray discovery could advance understanding of UFOs’ role in the evolution of galaxies

Black holes can launch extremely powerful winds, so they’re not eating everything. They are like powerful vacuum cleaners that eject some of the dirt that gets near it instead of sucking in everything. These ejections, which are tsunami-like winds, are made of highly ionized gas. When they interact with the interstellar medium, they create powerful shock waves. – Marco Ajello, an associate professor in Clemson College of Science’s Department of Physics and Astronomy who is co-leading the study.

Using data gathered by the Large Area Telescope onboard NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and a stacking technique combining signals too weak to be observed on their own, researchers detected gamma rays from UFOs in several nearby galaxies for the first time, providing a basis for scientists to understand what happened in our own Milky Way galaxy.

UFOs are ultra-fast outflows — powerful winds launched from very near supermassive black holes that scientists believe play an important role in regulating the growth of the black hole itself and its host galaxy.

Clemson University scientists’ collaborative research is published in The Astrophysical Journal. Partners include the College of Charleston, the University of Chicago, and a host of other researchers who are part of the Fermi-LAT Collaboration, which includes hundreds of scientists from 12 countries. “Gamma rays from Fast Black-Hole Winds” outlines the detection of gamma-ray emission from UFOs launched by supermassive black holes.

Black holes of ‘all shapes and sizes’ in new gravitational-wave catalog

An international team of researchers, including Northwestern University astrophysicists, has released the largest-ever catalog of gravitational-wave events.

Of the 35 new events observed between November 2019 and March 2020, 33 were likely mergers between black holes of various shapes and sizes. The other two events were likely black holes merging with neutron stars — a much rarer event. Of these rare black hole and neutron star mergers, one event appears to show a massive black hole (about 33 times the mass of our sun) merging with a very low-mass neutron star (about 1.17 times the mass of our sun). This is one of the lowest-mass neutron stars ever detected.

Since the first gravitational-wave detection in 2015, astrophysicists have detected a total of 90 events. By calculating the masses of the merging objects, astrophysicists can better understand how stars live and die and what makes them collapse into black holes versus neutron stars upon death.

Christopher Berry

“Only now are we starting to appreciate the wonderful diversity of black holes and neutron stars,” said Christopher Berry, a key member of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) Scientific Collaboration (LSC). “Our latest results prove that they come in many sizes and combinations. We have solved some long-standing mysteries but uncovered some new puzzles too. Using these observations, we are closer to unlocking the mysteries of how stars — the building blocks of our universe — evolve.”

The research is now available online, with two accompanying papers forthcoming. The team includes researchers from the LSC, the Virgo Collaboration and the Kamioka Gravitational Wave Detector (KAGRA) project.

An expert in gravitational-wave parameter estimation, Berry is a lecturer at the University of Glasgow