An extremely metal-poor star, which was first discussed on astrobites by Anna in September 2011, may be evidence that dust-induced fragmentation was the catalyst for the change from the top-heavy Initial Mass Function (IMF) of the first stars to the steep IMF we observe today.
The LOFAR low-frequency radio interferometer is poised to make exciting discoveries in transient searches, high-energy astrophysics, and cosmology.
Fumagalli et al. may have observed the first example of metal-free gas untouched after the Big Bang.
Morganson et al. announce the discovery of the first quasar discovered by Pan-STARRS. The newly detected quasar is a Broad Absorption Line quasar at a redshift of 5.73 +/- 0.02 with a z band magnitude of 19.4, a luminosity of 3.8×1047 erg/s, and an estimated black hole mass of 6.9×109 solar masses.
Many simulations of our universe result in a similar discrepancy with current observations. The simulations predict an abundance of subhalos around galaxies the size of our Milky Way which are an order of magnitude higher than observations suggest. This paper tackles the issue of detecting these presumably faint subhalos by analyzing the effects they might have on streams from globular clusters and other satellite galaxies we know to exist.
Neutral hydrogen is very effective at absorbing radiation with wavelengths shorter than 91.2nm. This has become known as the Lyman limit. In this study, the authors use the Lyman-break technique to search for galaxies with z ~ 8 – 9. They use the latest Hubble WFC3 near-infrared data to look for large (Y-J) colors or, “Y-drops”, in a larger field than previous studies due to the camera’s larger field and better infrared sensitivity.