Search Publications
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.…
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…
Observations of a Magellanic Corona
Fox, Andrew J.; Wakker, Bart P.; Lehner, Nicolas +6 more
The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) are the closest massive satellite galaxies of the Milky Way. They are probably on their first passage on an infalling orbit towards our Galaxy1 and trace the continuing dynamics of the Local Group2. Recent measurements of a high mass for the LMC (Mhalo…
Localized thermonuclear bursts from accreting magnetic white dwarfs
Knigge, C.; de Martino, D.; Done, C. +16 more
Nova explosions are caused by global thermonuclear runaways triggered in the surface layers of accreting white dwarfs1-3. It has been predicted4-6 that localized thermonuclear bursts on white dwarfs can also take place, similar to type-I X-ray bursts observed in accreting neutron stars. Unexplained rapid bursts from the binar…
A 62-minute orbital period black widow binary in a wide hierarchical triple
Kulkarni, S. R.; Duev, Dmitry A.; Riddle, Reed +30 more
Over a dozen millisecond pulsars are ablating low-mass companions in close binary systems. In the original `black widow', the eight-hour orbital period eclipsing pulsar PSR J1959+2048 (PSR B1957+20)1, high-energy emission originating from the pulsar2 is irradiating and may eventually destroy3 a low-mass companion. …
Resolving the H I in damped Lyman α systems that power star formation
Rigby, Jane R.; Sharon, Keren; Rizzi, Luca +10 more
Reservoirs of dense atomic gas (primarily hydrogen) contain approximately 90 per cent of the neutral gas at a redshift of 3, and contribute to between 2 and 3 per cent of the total baryons in the Universe1-4. These `damped Lyman α systems'—so called because they absorb Lyman α photons within and from background sources—have been studied…
Binarity of a protostar affects the evolution of the disk and planets
Bergin, Edwin A.; Harsono, Daniel; Jørgensen, Jes K. +3 more
Nearly half of all stars similar to our Sun are in binary or multiple systems1, which may affect the evolution of the stars and their protoplanetary disks during their earliest stages. NGC 1333-IRAS2A is a young, Class 0, low-mass protostellar system located in the Perseus molecular cloud2. It is known to drive two bipolar ou…
A dense 0.1-solar-mass star in a 51-minute-orbital-period eclipsing binary
Kulkarni, S. R.; Riddle, Reed; Dhillon, V. S. +24 more
Of more than a thousand known cataclysmic variables (CVs), where a white dwarf is accreting from a hydrogen-rich star, only a dozen have orbital periods below 75 minutes1-9. One way to achieve these short periods requires the donor star to have undergone substantial nuclear evolution before interacting with the white dwarf10-14
Extended far-ultraviolet emission in distant dwarf galaxies
Gogoi, Rupjyoti; Saha, Kanak; Combes, Francoise +3 more
Blue compact dwarf (BCD) galaxies are low-luminosity (absolute K-band magnitude, MK > −21 mag)1, metal-poor (1/50 ≤ Z/Z⊙ ≤ 1/2, where Z is the metallicity in terms of the solar metallicity Z⊙)2, centrally concentrated3 galaxies with bright clumps of star formation4. Co…
X-ray astronomy comes of age
Wilkes, Belinda J.; Schartel, Norbert; Santos-Lleo, Maria +1 more
The Chandra X-ray Observatory (Chandra) and the X-ray Multi-Mirror Mission (XMM-Newton) continue to expand the frontiers of knowledge about high-energy processes in the Universe. These groundbreaking observatories lead an X-ray astronomy revolution: revealing the physical processes and extreme conditions involved in producing cosmic X-rays in obje…