Search Publications
Non-gravitational acceleration in the trajectory of 1I/2017 U1 ('Oumuamua)
Chambers, Kenneth C.; Wainscoat, Richard J.; Weaver, Harold A. +14 more
'Oumuamua (1I/2017 U1) is the first known object of interstellar origin to have entered the Solar System on an unbound and hyperbolic trajectory with respect to the Sun. Various physical observations collected during its visit to the Solar System showed that it has an unusually elongated shape and a tumbling rotation state and that the physical pr…
Nearly all the sky is covered by Lyman-α emission around high-redshift galaxies
Inami, H.; Steinmetz, M.; Richard, J. +22 more
Galaxies are surrounded by large reservoirs of gas, mostly hydrogen, that are fed by inflows from the intergalactic medium and by outflows from galactic winds. Absorption-line measurements along the lines of sight to bright and rare background quasars indicate that this circumgalactic medium extends far beyond the starlight seen in galaxies, but v…
An absolute sodium abundance for a cloud-free `hot Saturn' exoplanet
Fortney, J. J.; Helling, Ch.; Burgasser, A. J. +20 more
Broad absorption signatures from alkali metals, such as the sodium (Na i) and potassium (K i) resonance doublets, have long been predicted in the optical atmospheric spectra of cloud-free irradiated gas giant exoplanets1-3. However, observations have revealed only the narrow cores of these features rather than the full pressure-broadene…
A candidate super-Earth planet orbiting near the snow line of Barnard's star
Rebolo, R.; Amado, P. J.; Caballero, J. A. +60 more
Barnard's star is a red dwarf, and has the largest proper motion (apparent motion across the sky) of all known stars. At a distance of 1.8 parsecs1, it is the closest single star to the Sun; only the three stars in the α Centauri system are closer. Barnard's star is also among the least magnetically active red dwarfs known2,3…
A population of luminous accreting black holes with hidden mergers
Lu, Jessica R.; Schawinski, Kevin; Sartori, Lia F. +11 more
Major galaxy mergers are thought to play an important part in fuelling the growth of supermassive black holes1. However, observational support for this hypothesis is mixed, with some studies showing a correlation between merging galaxies and luminous quasars2,3 and others showing no such association4,5. Recent obse…
A surge of light at the birth of a supernova
Cenko, S. B.; Zheng, W.; Smith, N. +18 more
It is difficult to establish the properties of massive stars that explode as supernovae. The electromagnetic emission during the first minutes to hours after the emergence of the shock from the stellar surface conveys important information about the final evolution and structure of the exploding star. However, the unpredictable nature of supernova…
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 clumpy and anisotropic galaxy halo at redshift 1 from gravitational-arc tomography
Tejos, Nicolas; Rigby, Jane R.; Barrientos, L. Felipe +6 more
Every star-forming galaxy has a halo of metal-enriched gas that extends out to at least 100 kiloparsecs, as revealed by the absorption lines that this gas imprints on the spectra of background quasars. However, quasars are sparse and typically probe only one narrow beam of emission through the intervening galaxy. Close quasar pairs and gravitation…
An evolving jet from a strongly magnetized accreting X-ray pulsar
Degenaar, N.; Wijnands, R.; Miller-Jones, J. C. A. +4 more
Relativistic jets are observed throughout the Universe and strongly affect their surrounding environments on a range of physical scales, from Galactic binary systems1 to galaxies and clusters of galaxies2. All types of accreting black hole and neutron star have been observed to launch jets3, with the exception of n…
A single population of red globular clusters around the massive compact galaxy NGC 1277
Beasley, Michael A.; Leaman, Ryan; Trujillo, Ignacio +1 more
Massive galaxies are thought to form in two phases: an initial collapse of gas and giant burst of central star formation, followed by the later accretion of material that builds up their stellar and dark-matter haloes. The systems of globular clusters within such galaxies are believed to form in a similar manner. The initial central burst forms me…