New discoveries Mysterious Activity Detected in Galaxy M83

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Peering into the heart of a supernova, ALMA maps a huge cloud of dust

Thirty years ago, astronomers saw a star exploding in a nearby galaxy. Now, using ALMA, they have imaged the huge cloud of dust that resulted from the explosion. When a building collapses, it produces a large dust cloud. That’s because buildings are made of stone. The dust is just...

New insight in birth of stellar twins

Many stars in the Milky Way galaxy are actually twins – two stars that were born at the same time. Sometimes, such stellar twins form a ‘close binary’: they orbit each other at a small mutual distance. But astronomers have also discovered many ‘wide binaries’, where the twin stars...

Chaotic magnetic fields pose no obstacle to star birth

Have you ever seen how a magnet creates patterns in a sprinkling of iron filings? Every material that conducts electricity (like iron) responds to magnetic forces. In the universe, magnetic fields are important, too. They strongly influence the motions of gas particles. Little wonder then that magnetic fields also...

Why does this monster galaxy keep on forming new stars

Sometimes, scientists are like little children. They always ask ‘why?’. That’s because they want to understand everything they see. A lot of ‘why questions’ have already been answered, like ‘why is the sky blue?’ and ‘why is the sun hot?’. But many remain. So when astronomers discovered a distant...

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