Tag Archives: Astrophysics

Astronomers find the first known regular pattern of fast radio bursts

Astronomers are having an easier time finding fast radio bursts as of late, and that now includes the first regular pattern for those bursts. A research team from MIT and elsewhere has discovered that something 500 million light-years away is routinely producing four days of seemingly random but frantic bursts, followed by 12 days of silence — something that happened consistently for 500 days of study. Continue reading Astronomers find the first known regular pattern of fast radio bursts

Scientists confirm the basis of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity

If you simultaneously drop a feather and a bowling ball in a vacuum, they’ll hit the ground at the same time. In other words, despite their mass, they’re affected by a gravitational field in exactly the same way. The same goes for massive objects like stars, according to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, and astrophysicists have confirmed his inference. Continue reading Scientists confirm the basis of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity

A Star Orbiting in the Extreme Gravity of a Black Hole Validates General Relativity

At the center of the Milky Way galaxy, nearly 26,000 light-years away, a cluster of stars circles close to the supermassive black hole known as Sagittarius A*. As these few dozen stars, called S-stars, approach the black hole—which is about four million times more massive than the sun—its immense gravitational force whips them around faster than 16 million miles per hour. In fact, the gravitational pull of Sagittarius A* is so intense that it warps the light from these stars when they stray too close, stretching the wavelengths toward the red part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Continue reading A Star Orbiting in the Extreme Gravity of a Black Hole Validates General Relativity

Four Types of Stars That Will Not Exist for Billions or Even Trillions of Years

The early universe was filled with strange and mysterious objects. Shortly after the Big Bang, large clouds of material may have formed black holes directly, without first coalescing into stars as we see today. Pseudo-galaxies lit up a sea of neutral hydrogen to make the universe transparent, releasing photons where before there was nothing but darkness. And short-lived stars made of nothing but hydrogen and helium may have flashed in and out of existence like sparks in the night. Continue reading Four Types of Stars That Will Not Exist for Billions or Even Trillions of Years

Gaze in Awe at Hubble’s Most Detailed View of the Triangulum Galaxy

Usually when astronomers talk about our neighboring galaxy, they’re talking about Andromeda, which is a cozy 2.5 million light-years away. But just a little farther—okay, 500,000 light-years farther—is another spiral galaxy, the third largest in our local group. Hubble has just released its most detailed view yet of that galaxy, which is known as Triangulum (can you see why?). Continue reading Gaze in Awe at Hubble’s Most Detailed View of the Triangulum Galaxy