news 2017

Seven Earth-sized exoplanets circle the ultracool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1, just 40 light-years from our own blue planet. Now an international team of scientists at the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland, MIT, and elsewhere, report that the outer planets in this system may still hold significant stores of water.

Astronomers have measured magnetic fields in a galaxy 4.6 billion light-years away - a big clue to understanding how magnetic fields formed and evolved over cosmic time. Hubble Space Telescope image of the gravitational lensing system in the new research. The background quasar is lensed by the foreground galaxy into images A and B. Image courtesy of Sui Ann Mao In an article published Aug.

ANN ARBOR-In the early universe, brilliant starburst galaxies converted vast stores of hydrogen gas into new stars at a furious pace. The energy from this vigorous star formation took its toll on many young galaxies, blasting away much of their hydrogen gas, tamping down future star formation. For reasons that remained unclear, other young galaxies were somehow able to retain their youthful star-forming power long after similar galaxies settled into middle age.

A high resolution image from the HiRISE camera onboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter of one of the new Martian araneiform (or "spider") locales outside of the South Polar Layered Deposits discovered by the Planet Four: Terrains volunteers. Image credit:  NASA/JPL/University of Arizona Armchair astronomers have helped Oxford University scientists discover landforms known as 'spiders' on parts of Mars where they were previously thought not to exist.

Scientists have detected the first X-rays from what appears to be a type Ia supernova, located inside the spiral-shaped galaxy ESO 336-G009, about 260 million light-years from Earth. Exploding stars lit the way for our understanding of the universe, but researchers are still in the dark about many of their features.

A Lancaster physicist has led an international study, based on data from the European Space Agency Mars Express orbiter , which throws new light on the interaction between the planet Mars and supersonic particles in the solar wind. As the energetic particles of the solar wind speed across interplanetary space, their motion is modified by objects in their path.

Very large yet faint galaxies have been found where no one would have expected them - in the middle of a giant galaxy cluster. Heidelberg astronomers discovered the extremely-low-density galaxies, known as ultra-diffuse galaxies, a find that is "both remarkable and puzzling", states Dr Thorsten Lisker.

This discovery gives weight to a theory that a white dwarf star devours material from its giant star companion until the white dwarf explodes as a supernova. Scientists from The Australian National University (ANU) and overseas have helped to solve the mystery of what causes exploding stars, which are used to measure the accelerating expansion of the Universe.

Astronomers using Caltech's Owens Valley Radio Observatory (OVRO) have found evidence for a bizarre lensing system in space, in which a large assemblage of stars is magnifying a much more distant galaxy containing a jet-spewing supermassive black hole. The discovery provides the best view yet of blobs of hot gas that shoot out from supermassive black holes.

An innovation providing key clues to how humans might manage forests and cities to cool the planet is taking flight. Cornell researchers are using drone technology to more accurately measure surface reflectivity on the landscape, a technological advance that could offer a new way to manage climate change.

The rotation rate of the Sun's core has been accurately measured for the first time. The Sun, which has been remarkably stable for the past 4.6 billion years, is held together by the almost perfect equilibrium between the force of gravity, which tends to cause it to collapse, and the pressure of the thermonuclear reactions in its core.

Lancaster physicists working on a major international experiment are a step closer to understanding conditions after the 'Big Bang' and mysteries of why there is so much matter in the universe. Researchers at the T2K (Tokai to Kamioka - which involves sending neutrinos 295 km through the earth across Japan) experiment have discovered that the symmetry between matter and antimatter may be violated for neutrino oscillations.

Media releases, information for representatives of the media Media Relations (E) Neutrinos and antineutrinos, sometimes called ghost particles because difficult to detect, can transform from one type to another. The international T2K Collaboration announces a first indication that the dominance of matter over antimatter may originate from the fact that neutrinos and antineutrinos behave differently during those oscillations.

University of Queensland researchers have joined an international team of more than 400 scientists from 26 institutions to create the most accurate measurement ever made of dark matter structure in the universe. UQ School of Mathematics and Physics Cosmologist Professor Tamara Davis said the Dark Energy Survey showed a stunning map of the distribution of dark matter.

The theory that dark matter and dark energy make up most of the cosmos has been confirmed by extremely accurate measurements from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) collaboration involving UCL scientists. The findings verify that only 4% of the universe is made of ordinary matter, 26% is in the form of mysterious dark matter and space is filled with an unseen dark energy, which is causing the accelerating expansion of the universe and makes up 70%.

The Dark Energy Survey's primary instrument, the 570-megapixel Dark Energy Camera, is mounted on the Blanco Telescope in Chile. UChicago, Argonne and Fermilab scientists are members of international Dark Energy Survey collaboration. Imagine planting a single seed and, with great precision, being able to predict the exact height of the tree that grows from it.

Berkeley Lab is a member of the Dark Energy Survey collaboration. New measurements - made possible by the 570-megapixel Dark Energy Camera in Chile - of the amount and "clumpiness" of dark matter in the present-day cosmos were made with a precision that rivals that of inferences from the early universe by a space telescope, the European Space Agency's Planck observatory.

For the past four years, as part of a project called the Dark Energy Survey , a team of scientists from around the globe has aimed one of the world's most powerful digital cameras towards the sky with the hopes of answering fundamental questions about the universe.

Many rock stars don't like to play by the rules, and a cosmic one is no exception. A team of astronomers has discovered that an extraordinarily bright supernova occurred in a surprising location. This "heavy metal" supernova discovery challenges current ideas of how and where such super-charged supernovas occur.

An important type of molecule that helps produce complex organic material has been detected within Titan's hazy upper atmosphere by a UCL-led team as part of the international Cassini-Huygens mission. In the study, published in Astrophysical Journal Letters , scientists identified negatively charged molecules called 'carbon chain anions' in the atmosphere of Titan, Saturn's largest moon.