Search Publications
Microlensing constraints on primordial black holes with Subaru/HSC Andromeda observations
Oguri, Masamune; More, Surhud; Takada, Masahiro +8 more
Primordial black holes (PBHs) have long been suggested as a viable candidate for the elusive dark matter. The abundance of such PBHs has been constrained using a number of astrophysical observations, except for a hitherto unexplored mass window of MPBH = [10-14, 10-9] solar masses. Here we carry out a dense-cadence…
Water vapour in the atmosphere of the habitable-zone eight-Earth-mass planet K2-18 b
Tsiaras, Angelos; Tinetti, Giovanna; Yurchenko, Sergey N. +2 more
In the past decade, observations from space and the ground have found water to be the most abundant molecular species, after hydrogen, in the atmospheres of hot, gaseous extrasolar planets1-5. Being the main molecular carrier of oxygen, water is a tracer of the origin and the evolution mechanisms of planets. For temperate, terrestrial p…
A sub-Neptune exoplanet with a low-metallicity methane-depleted atmosphere and Mie-scattering clouds
Deming, Drake; Désert, Jean-Michel; Knutson, Heather A. +15 more
With no analogues in the Solar System, the discovery of thousands of exoplanets with masses and radii intermediate between Earth and Neptune was one of the big surprises of exoplanet science. These super-Earths and sub-Neptunes probably represent the most common outcome of planet formation1,2. Mass and radius measurements indicate a div…
Magnetic field strengths of hot Jupiters from signals of star-planet interactions
Shkolnik, Evgenya L.; Cauley, P. Wilson; Llama, Joe +1 more
Evidence of star-planet interactions in the form of planet-modulated chromospheric emission has been noted for a number of hot Jupiters. Magnetic star-planet interactions involve the release of energy stored in the stellar and planetary magnetic fields. These signals thus offer indirect detections of exoplanetary magnetic fields. Here, we report t…
The natural history of `Oumuamua
Bannister, Michele T.; Guilbert-Lepoutre, Aurélie; Meech, Karen J. +12 more
The discovery of the first interstellar object passing through the Solar System, 1I/2017 U1 (`Oumuamua), provoked intense and continuing interest from the scientific community and the general public. The faintness of `Oumuamua, together with the limited time window within which observations were possible, constrained the information available on i…
Molecular clouds in the Cosmic Snake normal star-forming galaxy 8 billion years ago
Pérez-González, Pablo G.; Richard, Johan; Schaerer, Daniel +12 more
The cold molecular gas in contemporary galaxies is structured in discrete cloud complexes. These giant molecular clouds (GMCs), with 104-107 solar masses (M⊙) and radii of 5-100 parsecs, are the seeds of star formation1. Highlighting the molecular gas structure at such small scales in distant galaxies is…
Uniformly hot nightside temperatures on short-period gas giants
Dang, Lisa; Cowan, Nicolas B.; Keating, Dylan
Short-period gas giants (hot Jupiters) on circular orbits are expected to be tidally locked into synchronous rotation, with permanent daysides that face their host stars and permanent nightsides that face the darkness of space1. Thermal flux from the nightside of several hot Jupiters has been detected, meaning energy is transported from…
A 10,000-solar-mass black hole in the nucleus of a bulgeless dwarf galaxy
Gallo, Elena; Woo, Jong-Hak; Hodges-Kluck, Edmund +5 more
The motions of gas and stars in the nuclei of nearby galaxies have demonstrated that massive black holes are common1 and that their masses correlate with the stellar velocity dispersion σ★ of the bulge2-4. This correlation suggests that massive black holes and galaxies influence each other's growth5-7. D…
A kilometre-sized Kuiper belt object discovered by stellar occultation using amateur telescopes
Wada, T.; Usui, F.; Ichikawa, K. +7 more
Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) are thought to be remnants of the early Solar System, and their size distribution provides an opportunity to explore the formation and evolution of the outer Solar System1-5. In particular, the size distribution of kilometre-sized (radius = 1-10 km) KBOs represents a signature of initial planetesimal sizes whe…
Size diversity of old Large Magellanic Cloud clusters as determined by internal dynamical evolution
Dalessandro, E.; Beccari, G.; Mucciarelli, A. +5 more
The distribution of size as a function of age observed for star clusters in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is very puzzling: young clusters are all compact, while the oldest systems show both small and large sizes. This phenomenon is commonly interpreted as being due to a population of binary black holes driving a progressive expansion of cluste…