Check out some of the key space launches 2025, scheduled to dominate headlines next year
Category: space – Page 64
The Cosmic Owl: Astronomers discover a peculiar galaxy merger
An international team of astronomers reports the detection of a peculiar merger of two similar ring galaxies that morphologically resemble an owl’s face. The discovery of this galaxy merger, dubbed the “Cosmic Owl,” is presented in a research paper published June 11 on the arXiv preprint server.
Galaxy mergers play a crucial role in the evolution of galaxies. These events redistribute the gas around galaxies, impact the stellar kinematics, transform galaxy morphology, and eventually lead to effective stellar mass assembly.
Some galaxy mergers lead to the formation of collisional ring galaxies (CRGs), which are relatively rare as only a few hundred of them have been detected in the local universe. Rings in such galaxies are created when one galaxy passes directly through the disk of another in a nearly head-on collision, causing gas and stars to be shocked outward into a circular or near-circular pattern.
Highly charged muonic ions observed in gas-phase experiment for first time
An international team of researchers, including members from the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU, WPI), has directly observed “highly charged muonic ions,” a completely new class of exotic atomic systems, in a gas-phase experiment for the first time. The study was published online on June 16 in Physical Review Letters.
The observation highlights the capabilities of advanced superconducting transition-edge-sensor (TES) microcalorimeters in revealing previously inaccessible atomic phenomena.
Normal atoms consist of a nucleus and bound electrons and are electrically neutral. However, when many electrons are removed, the atom becomes highly charged. These charged atoms, known as highly charged ions, are valuable tools for research across various fields, including fundamental physics, nuclear fusion, surface science, and astronomy.
By measuring gases around young stars, astronomers unlock major clues to planet formation
An international team of scientists led by astronomers from the University of Wisconsin–Madison has produced the most accurate measurement of the gases swirling around young stars and how their mass changes over time. The discovery joins many pieces of a puzzle that may reveal which kinds of planets form—rocky Earth-types, gas giants like Jupiter, or balls of ice in the Neptune mold—as star systems mature.
Dramatic stretch in quantum materials confirms 100-year-old prediction
Research from the University of St Andrews has set a new benchmark for the precision with which researchers can explore fundamental physics in quantum materials. The work has implications extending from materials science to advanced computing, as well as confirming a nearly 100-year-old prediction.
The researchers explored magnetoelastic coupling, which is the change in the size or shape of a material when exposed to a magnetic field. It is usually a small effect, but one that has technological consequences.
A team from the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of St Andrews has now discovered that this effect is remarkably large in a case where one wouldn’t have expected it—in a transition metal oxide. Oxides are a chemical compound containing at least one oxygen atom and one other element in its chemical formula. High-temperature superconductors are one of the most prominent examples of a transition metal oxide.
