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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

  • Science

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

  • Science

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

  • 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

  • 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

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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Dying stars’ cocoons could be new source of gravitational waves

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Dying stars’ cocoons could be new source of gravitational waves

When massive stars collapse into black holes, they may create powerful outflows (or jets) of particles traveling close to the speed of light. New simulations model this process — from the time the star collapses into a black hole until the jet escapes. For the first time, the simulations show that the cocoon of stellar

Ore Gottlieb/Northwestern/CIERA

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Aaron Geller and Alex Gurvich showcase Firefly on AAS Journal Author Series

Interview

Aaron Geller and Alex Gurvich showcase Firefly on AAS Journal Author Series

On May 27, 2023, CIERA Research Assistant Professor Aaron Geller and former NSF Graduate Fellow Alex Gurvich were featured on the American Astronomical Society (AAS) Journal Author Series to showcase Firefly, their new browser-based interactive tool for visualizing 3D particle data sets. Geller and Gurvich were interviewed by the AAS’s Frank Timmes. Read the full news story

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Medium-sized black holes eat stars like messy toddlers

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Medium-sized black holes eat stars like messy toddlers

New 3D computer simulations created by graduate student Fulya Kıroğlu show the eating habits of intermediate-mass black holes, which have yet to be discovered in observations. When a star approaches an intermediate-mass black hole, it initially gets caught in the black hole’s orbit. Every time the star makes a lap, the black hole takes a

Fulya Kiroglu/Northwestern/CIERA

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