The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics 2020 with one half to Roger Penrose, University of Oxford, UK, “for the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general Read More …
An analysis of archival X-ray data from NASA’s Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer has revealed a clear separation between the characteristics of stellar-mass black holes and neutron stars, which is a consequence of the lack of the hard surface in the Read More …
The first massive galaxy groups in the Universe are predicted to have formed when the Universe was less than 4 billions years old (redshift > 2). Baryonic physics, like stellar and active galactic nuclei (AGN) feedback in this very active Read More …
Scientists with the Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (Insight-HXMT) team has performed extensive observations of the accreting X-ray pulsar GRO J1008-57 and has discovered a magnetic field of ~1 billion Tesla on the surface of the neutron star. This is the Read More …
Astronomers have used NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory to record material blasting away from the site of an exploded star at speeds faster than 20 million miles per hour. This is about 25,000 times faster than the speed of sound on Read More …
For a long time astronomers have puzzled over the lack of observations of compact objects with masses ranging from 2.5 up to 5 solar masses. This mysterious grey area is known as the ‘mass gap’: a range of masses apparently Read More …
Scientists have detected a mysterious gamma-ray heartbeat coming from a cosmic gas cloud. The inconspicuous cloud in the constellation Aquila is beating with the rhythm of a neighbouring precessing black hole, indicating a connection between the two objects, as the Read More …
The #AthenaNuggets 46 by Nathalie Degenaar deals with neutron stars and their magnetic fields. Under some circumstances, the magnetic field of the neutron star can be strong enough to disrupt the accretion disk and even perform as a propeller that expels Read More …
A binary black hole merger likely produced gravitational waves equal to the energy of eight suns. For all its vast emptiness, the universe is humming with activity in the form of gravitational waves. Produced by extreme astrophysical phenomena, these reverberations Read More …
Half of all the calcium in the universe—including the very calcium in our teeth and bones—was created in the last gasp of dying stars. Called “calcium-rich supernovae,” these stellar explosions are so rare that astrophysicists have struggled to find and Read More …
