Gamma rays: a window to the first stars?
The longest-lasting, most energetic explosions in the universe might occur in rare stars very similar to the very first stars to form in the universe.
Hide and Seek Planets
Is CoRoT-7d real, or is it stellar activity masquerading as a planet? Haywood et al. build a noise model to analyze CoRoT-7’s activity to find out.
Groups and clusters: who turned off the AC?
Gas in clusters is predicted to cool quickly, but observations suggest otherwise. What prevents the gas from cooling? The authors explore the incidence and impact of heating by active galactic nuclei.
Searching for Signs of Plate Tectonics in Polluted White Dwarfs
Astronomers hope to get lucky and discover the first evidence of plate tectonics on a planet besides Earth: remnants of continental crust in the rocky material that pollutes some white dwarfs.
Can Icelines Explain Uranus and Neptune?
A new hypothesis posits that the ice giant planets formed between the CO and N2 icelines in the Solar System’s protoplanetary disk.
Star Formation on a String
What’s causing the “beads on a string” pattern of star formation around this interacting galaxy pair?