Search Publications
Cassini Imaging of Jupiter's Atmosphere, Satellites, and Rings
Dones, Luke; West, Robert A.; Porco, Carolyn C. +21 more
The Cassini Imaging Science Subsystem acquired about 26,000 images of the Jupiter system as the spacecraft encountered the giant planet en route to Saturn. We report findings on Jupiter's zonal winds, convective storms, low-latitude upper troposphere, polar stratosphere, and northern aurora. We also describe previously unseen emissions arising fro…
A Young White Dwarf Companion to Pulsar B1620-26: Evidence for Early Planet Formation
Richer, Harvey B.; Hansen, Brad M.; Stairs, Ingrid H. +2 more
The pulsar B1620-26 has two companions, one of stellar mass and one of planetary mass. We detected the stellar companion with the use of Hubble Space Telescope observations. The color and magnitude of the stellar companion indicate that it is an undermassive white dwarf (0.34 +/- 0.04 solar mass) of age 480 × 106 +/- 140 × 106
Radio Emission from an Ultraluminous X-ray Source
Kaaret, Philip; Zezas, Andreas; Corbel, Stephane +1 more
The physical nature of ultraluminous x-ray sources is uncertain. Stellar-mass black holes with beamed radiation and intermediate black holes with isotropic radiation are two plausible explanations. We discovered radio emission from an ultraluminous x-ray source in the dwarf irregular galaxy NGC 5408. The x-ray, radio, and optical fluxes as well as…
Geminga's Tails: A Pulsar Bow Shock Probing the Interstellar Medium
Caraveo, P. A.; Bignami, G. F.; Mereghetti, S. +5 more
We report the X-ray Multimirror Mission-Newton European Photon Imaging Camera observation of two elongated parallel x-ray tails trailing the pulsar Geminga. They are aligned with the object's supersonic motion, extend for ~2', and have a nonthermal spectrum produced by electron-synchrotron emission in the bow shock between the pulsar wind and the …
The Sun and Heliosphere at Solar Maximum
Krupp, N.; Balogh, A.; Geiss, J. +9 more
Recent Ulysses observations from the Sun's equator to the poles reveal fundamental properties of the three-dimensional heliosphere at the maximum in solar activity. The heliospheric magnetic field originates from a magnetic dipole oriented nearly perpendicular to, instead of nearly parallel to, the Sun's rotation axis. Magnetic fields, solar wind,…
Galaxy Disruption in a Halo of Dark Matter
Forbes, Duncan A.; Brodie, Jean P.; Beasley, Michael A. +2 more
The relics of disrupted satellite galaxies have been found around the Milky Way and Andromeda, but direct evidence of a satellite galaxy in the early stages of disruption has remained elusive. We have discovered a dwarf satellite galaxy in the process of being torn apart by gravitational tidal forces as it merges with a larger galaxy's dark matter…
Doubly Ionized Carbon Observed in the Plasma Tail of Comet Kudo-Fujikawa
Feldman, Paul D.; Raymond, John C.; Povich, Matthew S. +6 more
Comet C/2002 X5 (Kudo-Fujikawa) was observed near its perihelion of 0.19 astronomical unit by the Ultraviolet Coronagraph Spectrometer aboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory spacecraft. Images of the comet reconstructed from high-resolution spectra reveal a quasi-spherical cloud of neutral hydrogen and a variable tail of C+ and C…