The bigger they are, the smaller their moons?
Can bigger planets form bigger moons when whacked with bigger rocks? Maybe not!
Shaping Galaxy Discs and Halos Through Supernovae
Star formation and supernova explosions play an important role in galaxy formation and evolution, in a process known as feedback. Today’s astrobite discusses how modifying the amount of feedback from supernova explosions affects the properties of the disc of a Milky Way galaxy, and how it affects the hot, gaseous halo surrounding massive galaxies.
Wreaking Havoc with a Stellar Fly-By
You can’t model RW Aurigae as a single star with a disk of material around it, because there is a second star. And you can’t model it as a regular old binary system either, because there are interactions between the stars and the asymmetric disk. The authors of today’s paper create a comprehensive hydrodynamic model that considers many different observations of RW Aurigae.
A New Type of Stellar Feedback
Reproducing the observed star formation history of galaxies in simulations is a fantastic test of our understanding of galaxy evolution. This is regulated strongly by “feedback”, for example, from supernova. Today’s astrobite discusses feedback from high mass X-ray binaries.
Gas to Black Holes: Direct formation of a supermassive black hole in galaxy mergers
Supermassive black holes (SMBH) likely exist at the center of every massive galaxy in our universe. How these million to billion solar mass beasts form is not well understood. The authors in today’s astrobite examine the possibility of the direct collapse of massive gas clouds to form SMBH seeds in a computer simulation of a galaxy merger.
Stellar Flybys and Damping Disks: How to Excite an Exoplanet
Close encounters with a passing star can excite a planet into an eccentric or inclined orbit. But a circumstellar disk can damp a planet’s eccentricity and inclination. Who wins? Find out when the authors of this paper model a stellar flyby with two circumstellar disks!