Search Publications
Indications of stellar coronal mass ejections through coronal dimmings
Veronig, Astrid M.; Dissauer, Karin; Hudson, Hugh S. +3 more
Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are huge expulsions of magnetized matter from the Sun and stars, traversing space with speeds of millions of kilometres per hour. Solar CMEs can cause severe space weather disturbances and consumer power outages on Earth, whereas stellar CMEs may even pose a hazard to the habitability of exoplanets. Although CMEs ejec…
A non-energetic mechanism for glycine formation in the interstellar medium
van Dishoeck, E. F.; Kofman, V.; Ioppolo, S. +8 more
The detection of the amino acid glycine and its amine precursor methylamine on the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko by the Rosetta mission provides strong evidence for a cosmic origin of amino acids on Earth. How and when such molecules form along the process of star formation remains debated. Here we report the laboratory detection of glycine form…
A gravitationally lensed supernova with an observable two-decade time delay
Richard, Johan; Whitaker, Katherine E.; Brammer, Gabriel B. +5 more
When the light from a distant object passes very near to a foreground galaxy or cluster, gravitational lensing can cause it to appear as multiple images on the sky1. If the source is variable, it can be used to constrain the cosmic expansion rate2 and dark energy models3. Achieving these cosmological goals requires…
Transit detection of the long-period volatile-rich super-Earth ν2 Lupi d with CHEOPS
Charnoz, Sébastien; Guedel, Manuel; Gandolfi, Davide +75 more
Exoplanets transiting bright nearby stars are key objects for advancing our knowledge of planetary formation and evolution. The wealth of photons from the host star gives detailed access to the atmospheric, interior and orbital properties of the planetary companions. ν2 Lupi (HD 136352) is a naked-eye (V = 5.78) Sun-like star that was d…
Reconnection nanojets in the solar corona
Antolin, Patrick; Pagano, Paolo; Testa, Paola +2 more
The solar corona is shaped and mysteriously heated to millions of degrees by the Sun's magnetic field. It has long been hypothesized that the heating results from a myriad of tiny magnetic energy outbursts called nanoflares, driven by the fundamental process of magnetic reconnection. Misaligned magnetic field lines can break and reconnect, produci…
An extended halo around an ancient dwarf galaxy
Erkal, Denis; Jerjen, Helmut; Frebel, Anna +7 more
The Milky Way is surrounded by dozens of ultrafaint (<105 L⊙) dwarf satellite galaxies1-3. They are the remnants of the earliest galaxies4, as confirmed by their ancient5 and chemically primitive6,7 stars. Simulations8-10 suggest that these systems formed within extend…
The population of M dwarfs observed at low radio frequencies
Callingham, J. R.; Shimwell, T. W.; Vedantham, H. K. +12 more
Coherent low-frequency (≲200 MHz) radio emission from stars encodes the conditions of the outer corona, mass-ejection events and space weather1-5. Previous low-frequency searches for radio-emitting stellar systems have lacked the sensitivity to detect the general population, instead largely focusing on targeted studies of anomalously ac…
A unique hot Jupiter spectral sequence with evidence for compositional diversity
Fortney, Jonathan J.; Sing, David K.; López-Morales, Mercedes +11 more
The emergent spectra of close-in, giant exoplanets (`hot Jupiters') are expected to be distinct from those of self-luminous objects with similar effective temperatures because hot Jupiters are primarily heated from above by their host stars rather than internally from the release of energy from their formation1. Theoretical models predi…
A hidden population of high-redshift double quasars unveiled by astrometry
Shen, Yue; Oguri, Masamune; Lazio, Joseph +6 more
Galaxy mergers occur frequently in the early Universe1 and bring multiple supermassive black holes (SMBHs) into the nucleus, where they may eventually coalesce. Identifying post-merger-scale (that is, less than around a few kpc) dual SMBHs is a critical pathway to understanding their dynamical evolution and successive mergers2
A hot subdwarf-white dwarf super-Chandrasekhar candidate supernova Ia progenitor
Geier, S.; Heber, U.; Irrgang, A. +8 more
Supernovae Ia are bright explosive events that can be used to estimate cosmological distances, allowing us to study the expansion of the Universe. They are understood to result from a thermonuclear detonation in a white dwarf that formed from the exhausted core of a star more massive than the Sun. However, the possible progenitor channels leading …