Search Publications
A fast-rotator post-starburst galaxy quenched by supermassive black-hole feedback at z = 3
Pérez-González, Pablo G.; Chevallard, Jacopo; Parlanti, Eleonora +23 more
The most massive galaxies in the Universe stopped forming stars due to the time-integrated feedback from central supermassive black holes (SMBHs). However, the exact quenching mechanism is not yet understood, because local massive galaxies were quenched billions of years ago. Here we present JWST/NIRSpec integral-field spectroscopy observations of…
Deciphering Lyman-α emission deep into the epoch of reionization
Pérez-González, Pablo G.; Santini, Paola; Grogin, Norman A. +18 more
During the epoch of reionization, the first galaxies were enshrouded in pristine neutral gas, with one of the brightest emission lines in star-forming galaxies, Lyman α (Lyα), expected to remain undetected until the Universe became ionized. Providing an explanation for the surprising detection of Lyα in these early galaxies is a major challenge fo…
A massive interacting galaxy 510 million years after the Big Bang
Santini, Paola; Castellano, Marco; Fontana, Adriano +26 more
James Webb Space Telescope observations have spectroscopically confirmed the existence of galaxies as early as 300 Myr after the Big Bang and with a higher number density than what was expected based on galaxy formation models and Hubble Space Telescope observations. Yet, most sources confirmed spectroscopically so far in the first 500 Myr have re…
JWST detection of a supernova associated with GRB 221009A without an r-process signature
Rest, Armin; Villar, V. Ashley; Yadavalli, S. Karthik +18 more
Identifying the sites of r-process nucleosynthesis, a primary mechanism of heavy element production, is a key goal of astrophysics. The discovery of the brightest gamma-ray burst (GRB) to date, GRB 221009A, presented an opportunity to spectroscopically test the idea that r-process elements are produced following the collapse of rapidly rotating ma…
Physical properties of asteroid Dimorphos as derived from the DART impact
Pajola, M.; Rossi, A.; Dotto, E. +39 more
On 26 September 2022, NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission successfully impacted Dimorphos, the natural satellite of the binary near-Earth asteroid (65803) Didymos. Numerical simulations of the impact provide a means to find the surface material properties and structures of the target that are consistent with the observed momentu…
A massive compact quiescent galaxy at z = 2 with a complete Einstein ring in JWST imaging
van Dokkum, Pieter; Conroy, Charlie; Brammer, Gabriel +2 more
One of the surprising results from the Hubble Space Telescope was the discovery that many of the most massive galaxies at redshift z ≈ 2 are very compact, having a half-light radius of only 1‑2 kpc. The interpretation is that massive galaxies formed inside out, with their cores largely in place by z ≈ 2 and approximately half of their present-day …
The metal-poor atmosphere of a potential sub-Neptune progenitor
Fortney, Jonathan J.; Désert, Jean-Michel; Petigura, Erik A. +12 more
Young transiting exoplanets offer a unique opportunity to characterize the atmospheres of freshly formed and evolving planets. We present the transmission spectrum of V1298 Tau b, a 23-Myr-old warm Jupiter-sized (0.91 ± 0.05 RJ, where RJ is the radius of Jupiter) planet orbiting a pre-main-sequence star. We detect a mostly cl…
Chemical tracers of a highly eccentric AGB-main-sequence star binary
Menten, K. M.; Pinte, C.; Sahai, R. +32 more
Binary interactions have been proposed to explain a variety of circumstellar structures seen around evolved stars, including asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars and planetary nebulae. Studies resolving the circumstellar envelopes of AGB stars have revealed spirals, disks and bipolar outflows, with shaping attributed to interactions with a companio…
Evidence for morning-to-evening limb asymmetry on the cool low-density exoplanet WASP-107 b
Fortney, Jonathan J.; Bell, Taylor J.; Line, Michael R. +8 more
The atmospheric properties of hot exoplanets are expected to be different between the morning and the evening limbs due to their global atmospheric circulation. Ground-based observations at high spectral resolution have detected this limb asymmetry in several ultra-hot (>2,000 K) exoplanets, but the prevalence of the phenomenon in the broader e…
An emission map of the disk-circumgalactic medium transition in starburst IRAS 08339+6517
Kacprzak, Glenn G.; Sandstrom, Karin M.; Chisholm, John +5 more
Most of a galaxy's mass is located beyond its stellar component, spread out to hundreds of kiloparsecs. This diffuse reservoir of gas, the circumgalactic medium, acts as the interface between a galaxy and the cosmic web that connects galaxies. We present kiloparsec-scale-resolution integral field spectroscopy of emission lines that trace cool ioni…