The link between a pile of data and a physical explanation is the fun part. Astronomers spend countless hours gathering data, and countless more thinking up physical models for different pieces of the Universe. But reconciling these two things—finding a model that not only agrees with observations, but is the sole likely explanation—isn’t easy.
Astronomers have found evidence of water in the remains of a planetary system around a white dwarf. This indicates water-rich asteroids can bring water to terrestrial planets, important for the habitability of planets.
A “Super-Jupiter” recently discovered by direct imaging techniques may not be as it initially seemed. Hinkley et al. find the system to be older than expected and the Super-Jupiter to really be a brown dwarf.
How do emission lines from nebulae affect broad-band photometry of high redshift galaxies?
How can we find the distant galaxies that were responsible for bringing us out of the cosmic dark ages?
Spectroscopy with Herschel can probe the dust in the heart of protoplanetary disks through the 69 micron feature of forsterite. Examining these features in detail reveals that the dust grains are small, iron poor, and confined to narrow rings.