Here on Earth, and within the solar system, we have become very familiar with star-planet interactions through observations of the dazzling aurora. However we have not been able to observe it on an exoplanet before. Is it too dim? Or are we just limited by instrumentation?
With the imminent launch of the James Webb Space Telescope next year, many scientists are asking what is next? Today’s bite, which focuses on a recent workshop on global coordination: future space-based Ultraviolet-Optical-Infrared Telescopes, hopefully represents the first steps towards the next big space telescope.
Kepler has stared at the stars and hundreds of exoplanets have waved back. Despite this, we struggle to detect the minor bodies we’re familiar with in our own Solar system around other stars…until recently that is. Today’s bite explores Kepler’s evidence for its first ever exocomet!
Observations of radio waves make for a great probe of electrons interacting with our Sun’s magnetic field. Today’s bite uncovers the origin of an unusual burst of radio energy, coined a J-burst, observed back in 2013.
During the search for an elusive electromagnetic counterpart to the newest gravitational wave in town, GW170104, a very special supernova was uncovered. Here we discuss its classification and whether it is linked to the origin of GW170104 .