Search Publications
A kilonova following a long-duration gamma-ray burst at 350 Mpc
Kilpatrick, Charles D.; Izzo, Luca; Smith, Nathan +32 more
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are divided into two populations1,2; long GRBs that derive from the core collapse of massive stars (for example, ref. 3) and short GRBs that form in the merger of two compact objects4,5. Although it is common to divide the two populations at a gamma-ray duration of 2 s, classification based …
A nearby long gamma-ray burst from a merger of compact objects
Troja, E.; Wollaeger, R. T.; Butler, N. R. +21 more
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are flashes of high-energy radiation arising from energetic cosmic explosions. Bursts of long (greater than two seconds) duration are produced by the core-collapse of massive stars1, and those of short (less than two seconds) duration by the merger of compact objects, such as two neutron stars2. A thir…
A highly magnified star at redshift 6.2
Mahler, Guillaume; Anderson, Jay; Broadhurst, Tom +26 more
Galaxy clusters magnify background objects through strong gravitational lensing. Typical magnifications for lensed galaxies are factors of a few but can also be as high as tens or hundreds, stretching galaxies into giant arcs1,2. Individual stars can attain even higher magnifications given fortuitous alignment with the lensing cluster. …
A very luminous jet from the disruption of a star by a massive black hole
Kulkarni, S. R.; Kilpatrick, Charles D.; Izzo, Luca +78 more
Tidal disruption events (TDEs) are bursts of electromagnetic energy that are released when supermassive black holes at the centres of galaxies violently disrupt a star that passes too close1. TDEs provide a window through which to study accretion onto supermassive black holes; in some rare cases, this accretion leads to launching of a r…
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…
Optical superluminal motion measurement in the neutron-star merger GW170817
Anderson, Jay; Lu, Wenbin; Mooley, Kunal P.
The afterglow of the binary neutron-star merger GW1708171 gave evidence for a structured relativistic jet2-6 and a link3,7,8 between such mergers and short gamma-ray bursts. Superluminal motion, found using radio very long baseline interferometry3 (VLBI), together with the afterglow light curve provided …
Black-hole-triggered star formation in the dwarf galaxy Henize 2-10
Schutte, Zachary; Reines, Amy E.
Black-hole-driven outflows have been observed in some dwarf galaxies with active galactic nuclei1, and probably play a role in heating and expelling gas (thereby suppressing star formation), as they do in larger galaxies2. The extent to which black-hole outflows can trigger star formation in dwarf galaxies is unclear, because…
UV absorption by silicate cloud precursors in ultra-hot Jupiter WASP-178b
Nikolov, Nikolay; Sing, David K.; Stevenson, Kevin B. +6 more
Aerosols have been found to be nearly ubiquitous in substellar atmospheres1-3. The precise temperature at which these aerosols begin to form in exoplanets has yet to be observationally constrained. Theoretical models and observations of muted spectral features indicate that silicate clouds play an important role in exoplanets between at…
A persistent ultraviolet outflow from an accreting neutron star binary transient
Díaz Trigo, M.; Altamirano, D.; Knigge, C. +31 more
All disc-accreting astrophysical objects produce powerful disc winds. In compact binaries containing neutron stars or black holes, accretion often takes place during violent outbursts. The main disc wind signatures during these eruptions are blue-shifted X-ray absorption lines, which are preferentially seen in disc-dominated `soft states'1,2<…
Shock cooling of a red-supergiant supernova at redshift 3 in lensed images
Filippenko, Alexei V.; Kelly, Patrick L.; Oguri, Masamune +6 more
The core-collapse supernova of a massive star rapidly brightens when a shock, produced following the collapse of its core, reaches the stellar surface. As the shock-heated star subsequently expands and cools, its early-time light curve should have a simple dependence on the size of the progenitor1 and therefore final evolutionary state.…