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‘Blob-like’ home of farthest-known fast radio burst is collection of seven galaxies

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‘Blob-like’ home of farthest-known fast radio burst is collection of seven galaxies

A Hubble Space Telescope image of the host galaxy of an exceptionally powerful fast radio burst, FRB 20220610A. In summer 2022, astronomers detected the most powerful fast radio burst (FRB) ever observed. And coming from a location that dates halfway back to the Big Bang, it also was the farthest known FRB spotted to date.

NASA, ESA, STScI, Alexa Gordon (Northwestern)

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Flower Moon above Chicago photographed by Imran Sultan

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Flower Moon above Chicago photographed by Imran Sultan

The May 2023 full moon, photographed by graduate student and CIERA member Imran Sultan. This image won runner-up in the 2023 Royal Society Publishing Photography Competition’s astronomy category. “The May full moon is known as the Flower Moon, a name originating from the Algonquin peoples that marks the blooming of flowers during spring. This year’s

  • Achievement,
  • Outreach,
  • Interdisciplinary

Western Veil Nebula photographed by Imran Sultan

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Western Veil Nebula photographed by Imran Sultan

The colorful Western Veil Nebula, photographed by graduate student and CIERA member Imran Sultan, is a stunning remnant left behind from the explosion of a massive star 10,000 to 20,000 years ago. Located 2,100 light-years away, the nebula resides within the constellation Cygnus (the Swan). Sultan’s photo of the Western Veil Nebula won first place in

Imran Sultan

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‘Teenage galaxies’ are unusually hot, glowing with unexpected elements

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‘Teenage galaxies’ are unusually hot, glowing with unexpected elements

Light from 23 distant galaxies, identified with red rectangles in the Hubble Space Telescope image at the top, were combined to capture incredibly faint emission from eight different elements, which are labelled in the JWST spectrum at the bottom. Although scientists regularly find these elements on Earth, astronomers rarely, if ever, observe many of them

Aaron M. Geller, Northwestern, CIERA + IT-RCDS

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Bursts of star formation explain mysterious brightness at cosmic dawn

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Bursts of star formation explain mysterious brightness at cosmic dawn

Artist conception of early starbursting galaxies. Stars and galaxies are shown in the bright white points of light, while the more diffuse dark matter and gas are shown in purples and reds. When scientists viewed the James Webb Space Telescope’s (JWST) first images of the universe’s earliest galaxies, they were shocked. The young galaxies appeared

Aaron M. Geller, Northwestern, CIERA + IT-RCDS

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Black holes eat faster than previously expected

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Black holes eat faster than previously expected

Simulated image of an accretion disk, the violent whirlpool of gas that encircles a supermassive black hole, broken apart into inner and outer rings. According to new high-resolution 3D simulations, spinning black holes twist up the surrounding space-time, ultimately ripping apart the violent whirlpool of gas (or accretion disk) that encircles and feeds them. This

A. Tchekhovskoy/Nick Kaaz/Northwestern University

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Black holes eat faster than previously expected

Image

Black holes eat faster than previously expected

Simulated image of an accretion disk, the violent whirlpool of gas that encircles a supermassive black hole, broken apart into inner and outer rings. According to new high-resolution 3D simulations, spinning black holes twist up the surrounding space-time, ultimately ripping apart the violent whirlpool of gas (or accretion disk) that encircles and feeds them. This

A. Tchekhovskoy/Nick Kaaz/Northwestern University

  • Science

Black holes eat faster than previously expected

Image

Black holes eat faster than previously expected

Simulated image of an accretion disk, the violent whirlpool of gas that encircles a supermassive black hole, broken apart into inner and outer rings. According to new high-resolution 3D simulations, spinning black holes twist up the surrounding space-time, ultimately ripping apart the violent whirlpool of gas (or accretion disk) that encircles and feeds them. This

A. Tchekhovskoy/Nick Kaaz/Northwestern University

  • Science

Black holes eat faster than previously expected

Image

Black holes eat faster than previously expected

Simulated image of an accretion disk, the violent whirlpool of gas that encircles a supermassive black hole, broken apart into inner and outer rings. According to new high-resolution 3D simulations, spinning black holes twist up the surrounding space-time, ultimately ripping apart the violent whirlpool of gas (or accretion disk) that encircles and feeds them. This

A. Tchekhovskoy/Nick Kaaz/Northwestern University

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Unprecedented gamma-ray burst explained by long-lived jet

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Unprecedented gamma-ray burst explained by long-lived jet

Last year, Northwestern University researchers uncovered new observational evidence that long gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) can result from the merger of a neutron star with another compact object (either another neutron star or black hole) — a finding that was previously believed to be impossible. Now, another Northwestern team offers a potential explanation for what generated

Ore Gottlieb/Danat Issa/Alexander Tchekhovskoy/CIERA/Northwestern

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‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ passed through massive stars

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‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ passed through massive stars

A Northwestern University-led team of researchers, including postdoctoral fellow Evan Anders, developed the first 3D simulations of energy rippling from a massive star’s core to its outer surface. Using these new models, the researchers determined, for the first time, how much stars should innately twinkle. Depending on how large or bright a massive star is,

Northwestern University

17-year time-lapse of Beta Pictoris b orbiting its star

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17-year time-lapse of Beta Pictoris b orbiting its star

This is the longest time-lapse footage of an exoplanet to date, all made with real data. Beta Pictoris b is a 12 Jupiter mass planet orbiting its star at a distance of 10 AU (10x Earth-Sun distance) on a near-edge on orbit. The first image of the planet was obtained in 2003. However, the planet’s

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Unveiling the origins of merging black holes in galaxies like our own

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Unveiling the origins of merging black holes in galaxies like our own

A 31.5 solar-mass black hole with an 8.38 solar-mass black hole companion viewed in front of its (computer generated) stellar nursery prior to merging. The distant band of the Milky Way can be seen toward the lower-left of the black hole pair. Light is warped nearby the black holes due to their strong gravity. The

Aaron M. Geller / Northwestern CIERA & NUIT-RCS; ESO / S. Brunier

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Mysterious dashes revealed in Milky Way’s center

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Mysterious dashes revealed in Milky Way’s center

Two populations of filaments, perpendicular and parallel to the galactic plane, which runs horizontally. Professor Farhad Yusef-Zadeh discovered the vertical filaments in the 1980s. He discovered the horizontal filaments recently and the news was published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters on June 2, 2023. Continue to the full CIERA news story.

Farhad Yusef-Zadeh/Northwestern University/CIERA

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