For the first time, astronomers have imaged dozens of belts around nearby stars where comets and tiny pebbles within them are orbiting.

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Enabled by supercomputing, University of Pretoria (UP) researchers have led an international team of astronomers that has provided deeper insight into the entire life cycle (birth, growth and death) of giant radio galaxies, which resemble “cosmic fountains”—jets of superheated gas that are ejected into near-empty space from their spinning supermassive black holes.

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As night falls on the Atacama desert in northern Chile four giant telescopes turn their gaze towards the star-strewn heavens.

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A study published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics (JCAP) presents a methodology to test the assumption of cosmic homogeneity and isotropy, known as the Cosmological Principle, by leveraging weak gravitational lensing—a light distortion effect described by general relativity—in astronomical images collected by new observatories such as the Euclid Space Telescope. Finding evidence […]

For the first time, astronomers have succeeded in observing the magnetic field around a young star where planets are thought to be forming. The team was able to use dust to measure the three-dimensional structure “fingerprint” of the magnetic field. This will help improve our understanding of planet formation.

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Understanding where Earth’s essential elements came from—and why some are missing—has long puzzled scientists. Now, a new study reveals a surprising twist in the story of our planet’s formation.

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Finding life in outer space is one of the great endeavors of humankind. One approach is to find motile microorganisms that can move independently, an ability that is a solid hint for life. If movement is induced by a chemical and an organism moves in response, it is known as chemotaxis.

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Matter in intergalactic space is distributed in a vast network of interconnected filamentary structures, collectively referred to as the cosmic web. With hundreds of hours of observations, an international team of researchers has now obtained an unprecedented high-definition image of a cosmic filament inside this web, connecting two active forming galaxies—dating back to when the […]