Calcium-rich supernova examined with X-rays for first time
Unprecedented observations shine light on a compact star’s final moments Artist’s interpretation of the calcium-rich supernova 2019ehk. Shown in orange is the calcium-rich material...
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Spectacular ultraviolet flash may finally explain how white dwarfs explode
Event also could give insight into dark energy and the creation of iron Composite image of SN2019yvq (blue dot) in the host galaxy NGC...
Short Gamma Ray Burst Leaves Most-distant Optical Afterglow Ever Detected
Image Credit: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/K. Paterson & W. Fong (Northwestern University) The farther away an object lies in the universe, the fainter it appears...
New Mystery Merger Detected by LIGO-Virgo
Image Credit: LIGO/Caltech/MIT/R. Hurt (IPAC) In August of 2019, the LIGO-Virgo gravitational-wave network witnessed the merger of a black hole with 23 times the...
Astrophysicists Capture New Class of Transient Objects
Artist’s illustration comparing FBOTs to normal supernovae and gamma-ray bursts. Credit: Bill Saxton, NRAO/AUI/NSF ‘A new beast is out there,’ researcher says of object...
Using Gravitational Waves to Approximate Pi
Image Credit: Igor Sokalski Getty Images At least 3,700 years ago, Babylonian mathematicians approximated the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. They...
Astronomers Find First-Ever Collision of Black Holes With a Strange Mass Discrepancy
Just over a year ago, on 12 April 2019, the LIGO-Virgo collaboration made a detection of gravitational waves, rippling out across space-time from...
A Supernova that Outshines All Others
A supernova at least twice as bright and energetic, and likely much more massive than any yet recorded has been identified by an international...
CIERA’s Sasha Tchekhovskoy to Utilize the Fastest Academic Supercomputer in the World
The Texas Advanced Computing Center announced that the National Science Foundation has approved allocations of supercomputing time on Frontera to 49 science projects for...
The Sky is No Limit
New remote observatory compresses distances to connect Evanston and Hawaii, allowing Northwestern researchers to venture boldly into space without leaving home “Northwestern astronomers have...
This Exoplanet is in a Death Dance with its Star
Planets tend to suffer the consequences as the stars they orbit go through different phases. And in about three million years, the exoplanet known...
Cosmic ‘candy cane’ spotted in inner Milky Way
“A feature resembling a candy cane appears at the center of this colorful composite image of our Milky Way galaxy’s central zone. But this...