Astronomers have untangled a messy collision between two massive clusters of galaxies in which the clusters' vast clouds of dark matter have decoupled from the so-called normal matter. The two clusters each contain thousands of galaxies and are located billions of light-years away from Earth ..read more

Interest in Earth-like planets orbiting within the habitable zone of their host stars has surged, driven by the quest to discover life beyond our solar system. But the habitability of such planets, known as exoplanets, is influenced by more than just their distance from the star ..read more

Galaxy mergers play a crucial role in the cosmological evolution of galaxies. During galaxy merging, tidal torques can trigger the accretion and feedback of the central black holes in merging galaxies, forming dual active galactic nuclei (AGNs ..read more

Two recent studies published in The Astrophysical Journal discuss findings regarding solar flare properties and a new classification index and the sun's magnetic field, specifically what's called solar magnetic reconnection ..read more

Neutrinos have a quantum mechanical property called "flavor." This flavor can transform as neutrinos move through space. A major challenge is to keep track of both the physical movement of the neutrinos and their change of flavor in astrophysical systems such as core-collapse supernovae and neutron star mergers. The complicated arrangement and large number of neutrinos in these systems make it nearly impossible to follow all or even a subset of the neutrinos ..read more

An international team of astronomers has used more than 500 images from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope spanning two decades to detect seven fast-moving stars in the innermost region of Omega Centauri, the largest and brightest globular cluster in the sky. These stars provide compelling new evidence for the presence of an intermediate-mass black hole ..read more

The qualities and behavior of dark matter, the invisible "glue" of the universe, continue to be shrouded in mystery. Though galaxies are mostly made of dark matter, understanding how it is distributed within a galaxy offers clues to what this substance is, and how it's relevant to a galaxy's evolution ..read more

The nearest millisecond pulsar PSR J0437-4715 has a radius of 11.4 kilometers and a mass 1.4 times that of the sun. These are the results of precision measurements made by a team of researchers led by the University of Amsterdam (the Netherlands). The measurements reveal more about the composition and magnetic field of this neutron star. The researchers are publishing their findings in a series of scientific papers ..read more

A mysterious remnant from a rare type of supernova recorded in 1181 has been explained for the first time. Two white dwarf stars collided, creating a temporary "guest star," now labeled supernova (SN) 1181, which was recorded in historical documents in Japan and elsewhere in Asia. However, after the star dimmed, its location and structure remained a mystery until a team pinpointed its location in 2021 ..read more

Inelastic scattering off moving or oscillating density fluctuations leads to broadening of radio signals propagating in the solar corona and solar wind. Using an anisotropic density fluctuation model from the kinetic scattering theory for solar radio bursts, it is possible to deduce the plasma velocities (perpendicular to the line of sight) required to explain observations of spacecraft signal frequency broadening ..read more