Search Publications
A dusty compact object bridging galaxies and quasars at cosmic dawn
Marques-Chaves, R.; Magdis, G. E.; Colina, L. +18 more
Understanding how super-massive black holes form and grow in the early Universe has become a major challenge1,2 since it was discovered that luminous quasars existed only 700 million years after the Big Bang3,4. Simulations indicate an evolutionary sequence of dust-reddened quasars emerging from heavily dust-obscured starburs…
An early transition to magnetic supercriticality in star formation
Li, D.; Heiles, C.; Qian, L. +5 more
Magnetic fields have an important role in the evolution of interstellar medium and star formation1,2. As the only direct probe of interstellar field strength, credible Zeeman measurements remain sparse owing to the lack of suitable Zeeman probes, particularly for cold, molecular gas3. Here we report the detection of a magneti…
A dominant population of optically invisible massive galaxies in the early Universe
Elbaz, D.; Franco, M.; Shu, X. +9 more
Our current knowledge of cosmic star-formation history during the first two billion years (corresponding to redshift z > 3) is mainly based on galaxies identified in rest-frame ultraviolet light1. However, this population of galaxies is known to under-represent the most massive galaxies, which have rich dust content and/or old stella…
Galaxy growth in a massive halo in the first billion years of cosmic history
Bayliss, M. B.; Béthermin, M.; Murphy, E. J. +34 more
According to the current understanding of cosmic structure formation, the precursors of the most massive structures in the Universe began to form shortly after the Big Bang, in regions corresponding to the largest fluctuations in the cosmic density field. Observing these structures during their period of active growth and assembly—the first few hu…
A massive core for a cluster of galaxies at a redshift of 4.3
Béthermin, M.; Murphy, E. J.; Greve, T. R. +35 more
Massive galaxy clusters have been found that date to times as early as three billion years after the Big Bang, containing stars that formed at even earlier epochs1-3. The high-redshift progenitors of these galaxy clusters—termed `protoclusters'—can be identified in cosmological simulations that have the highest overdensities (greater-th…
The gravitationally unstable gas disk of a starburst galaxy 12 billion years ago
Yun, M. S.; Iono, D.; Kohno, K. +18 more
Galaxies in the early Universe that are bright at submillimetre wavelengths (submillimetre-bright galaxies) are forming stars at a rate roughly 1,000 times higher than the Milky Way. A large fraction of the new stars form in the central kiloparsec of the galaxy1-3, a region that is comparable in size to the massive, quiescent galaxies f…
A radio-pulsing white dwarf binary star
Gänsicke, B. T.; Dhillon, V. S.; Pala, A. F. +23 more
White dwarfs are compact stars, similar in size to Earth but approximately 200,000 times more massive. Isolated white dwarfs emit most of their power from ultraviolet to near-infrared wavelengths, but when in close orbits with less dense stars, white dwarfs can strip material from their companions and the resulting mass transfer can generate atomi…
Wind from the black-hole accretion disk driving a molecular outflow in an active galaxy
Veilleux, S.; Reynolds, C. S.; Tombesi, F. +3 more
Powerful winds driven by active galactic nuclei are often thought to affect the evolution of both supermassive black holes and their host galaxies, quenching star formation and explaining the close relationship between black holes and galaxies. Recent observations of large-scale molecular outflows in ultraluminous infrared galaxies support this qu…
Dense cloud cores revealed by CO in the low metallicity dwarf galaxy WLM
Brinks, Elias; Elmegreen, Bruce G.; Rubio, Monica +3 more
Understanding stellar birth requires observations of the clouds in which they form. These clouds are dense and self-gravitating, and in all existing observations they are molecular, with H2 the dominant species and carbon monoxide (CO) the best available tracer. When the abundances of carbon and oxygen are low compared with that of hydr…
Localized sources of water vapour on the dwarf planet (1)Ceres
Marston, Anthony; Müller, Thomas; Lee, Seungwon +10 more
The `snowline' conventionally divides Solar System objects into dry bodies, ranging out to the main asteroid belt, and icy bodies beyond the belt. Models suggest that some of the icy bodies may have migrated into the asteroid belt. Recent observations indicate the presence of water ice on the surface of some asteroids, with sublimation a potential…