Lessons from Lithium
Is there a link between lithium abundance, galactic chemical evolution, and exoplanets? Ramirez et al. examine metallicities, lithium abundances, and stellar characteristics of 1381 Sun-like stars to find out.
New measurements of star formation at intermediate redshift
Astronomers in Leiden have measured star formation rates across a large range in redshift with H-alpha spectroscopy for the first time, which is a huge leap forward in our ability to compare the local Universe with high-redshift.
How does the Milky Way get its gas?
While the known gas in the Milky Way’s halo cannot supply enough gas to fuel star formation, what about the gas we haven’t observed yet?
Adolescent Black Holes
We know that supermassive black holes exist, but how did they get so big? In this paper, the authors seek to shed some light on their progenitors – rapidly accreting, intermediate-mass black holes.
Dust-Rich Quasars at z~1.5
How does AGN activity influence star formation in active galaxies? Dai et al. combine multi-wavelength observations of 32 quasars to bring us closer to the answer.
Cosmic blowhard: the most distant massive quasar outflow yet
The idea of “negative feedback” on star formation in galaxies is ubiquitous, but the debate about what causes the massive outflows we see in galaxies is far from over. Now, Maiolino et al. have found evidence of a massive quasar-driven outflow at z > 6, making it the earliest instance yet of a central black hole affecting its host galaxy on a global scale.