Astronomy

Before the Romans captured Pompeii, the famous town was run by the Samnite people – and a dip in their public baths might have been an unpleasant experience

NASA astronaut and ISS leader Mike Fincke transferred station command to a Russian cosmonaut ahead of an unprecedented medical evacuation

Gas and dust flowing from stars can, under the right conditions, clash with a star's surroundings and create a shock wave. Now, astronomers using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (ESO's VLT) have imaged a beautiful shock wave around a dead star—a discovery that has left them puzzled. According to all known mechanisms, the small, dead star RXJ0528+2838 should not have such a structure around it. This discovery, as enigmatic as it's stunning, challenges our understanding of how dead stars interact with their surroundings.

Combining two kinds of quantum computing devices could be just the trick for taking better images of faint, faraway exoplanets

Combining two kinds of quantum computing devices could be just the trick for taking better images of faint, faraway exoplanets

This artist’s concept depicts a smaller white dwarf star pulling material from a larger star, right, into an accretion disk. Scientists used NASA’s IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarization Explorer) to study a white dwarf star and its X-ray polarization.

New research links same-sex behaviors in nonhuman primates to the evolution of complex social structures

A distant black hole shredded a companion star that got too close. The star was torn to pieces and the explosion was an extremely powerful event, more energetic than a supernova. At its peak, the energy released was 400 billion times brighter than the Sun.

For centuries, the principle of symmetry has guided physicists towards more fundamental truths, but now a slew of shocking findings suggest a far stranger idea from quantum theory could be a deeper driving force

For centuries, the principle of symmetry has guided physicists towards more fundamental truths, but now a slew of shocking findings suggest a far stranger idea from quantum theory could be a deeper driving force

Sexual behaviour among same-sex pairs is common in apes and monkeys, and a wide-ranging analysis suggests it does boost survival

Sexual behaviour among same-sex pairs is common in apes and monkeys, and a wide-ranging analysis suggests it does boost survival

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory has discovered the fastest-spinning asteroid ever over 500 meters in size.

The world’s most powerful supercomputers can now run simulations of billions of neurons, and researchers hope such models will offer unprecedented insights into how our brains work

The world’s most powerful supercomputers can now run simulations of billions of neurons, and researchers hope such models will offer unprecedented insights into how our brains work

The young, nearby star may be experiencing an episode of repeated, violent collisions within its forming planetary system.

The post Did Asteroids Collide Near Fomalhaut – Again?  appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Combining data from different telescopes is one of the best ways to get a fuller picture of far-off objects. Because telescopes such as Hubble (visible light), the James Webb Space Telescope (infrared), and the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (radio) each collect data in different wavelengths, they are able to capture distinct features of objects like galaxies that other telescopes cannot observe. A new paper by a large group of authors, headed by Andreas Faisst of Caltech, presented at the American Astronomical Society Meeting last week and published in The Astrophysical Journal Supplement tracks eighteen early galaxies in as broad of a spectrum as those instruments can collect, and most significantly found that they seem to “grow up” faster than expected.