Search Publications
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…
Gigaelectronvolt emission from a compact binary merger
Campana, Sergio; Salafia, Om Sharan; Giarratana, Stefano +9 more
An energetic γ-ray burst (GRB), GRB 211211A, was observed on 11 December 20211,2. Despite its long duration, typically associated with bursts produced by the collapse of massive stars, the observation of an optical-infrared kilonova points to a compact binary merger origin3. Here we report observations of a significant (more …
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 …
A stellar stream remnant of a globular cluster below the metallicity floor
Mucciarelli, Alessio; Fouesneau, Morgan; Sestito, Federico +23 more
Stellar ejecta gradually enrich the gas out of which subsequent stars form, making the least chemically enriched stellar systems direct fossils of structures formed in the early Universe1. Although a few hundred stars with metal content below 1,000th of the solar iron content are known in the Galaxy2-4, none of them inhabit g…
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…
X-ray detection of a nova in the fireball phase
Wilms, Jörn; Haberl, Frank; Rauch, Thomas +17 more
Novae are caused by runaway thermonuclear burning in the hydrogen-rich envelopes of accreting white dwarfs, which leads to a rapid expansion of the envelope and the ejection of most of its mass1,2. Theory has predicted the existence of a `fireball' phase following directly on from the runaway fusion, which should be observable as a shor…
A white dwarf accreting planetary material determined from X-ray observations
Wheatley, Peter J.; Gänsicke, Boris T.; Veras, Dimitri +4 more
The atmospheres of a large proportion of white dwarf stars are polluted by heavy elements1 that are expected to sink out of visible layers on short timescales2,3. This has been interpreted as a signature of ongoing accretion of debris from asteroids4, comets5 and giant planets6. This scenario …
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<…