Search Publications
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<…
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…