The first polarized light from a gamma ray burst billions of light years away is helping astronomers gain a better understanding of collapsing stars and other high-energy phenomena. Originating in the constellation of Fornax, the light brighter than a billion suns came from massive jets of plasma.
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An international team of physicists has finally found proof of circumplanetary disks, adding substantial weight to current theoretical models of planet formation. These disks of gas surrounded by dust have eluded detection, until now.
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In a pair of studies published this week, astronomers have shed new light on dark matter through close observation of a galaxy previously found to have very little of the stuff, while the same team found a new example of a similar oddball galaxy.
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Images taken by NASA's Spitzer Space telescope are providing insight into the phenomenon of "killer" galaxies that, when they merge, shut down star formation within the new united galaxies.
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NASA has selected the newest space mission for its Explorer program: the Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx). The spacecraft will search for the ingredients of life in the Milky Way, and peer as far as 10 billion years back in time.
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An astrophysicist from Oxford has put forward a new theory that suggests that dark matter and dark energy are actually part of the same phenomenon: a “dark fluid” with negative mass that fills the universe.
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Our Sun may live a pretty lonesome life nowadays, but when it was born it was the middle child in a family of thousands. Now astronomers in Portugal have found not just a solar sibling but a “twin,” more or less identical to the Sun, meaning it’s a great place to look for extraterrestrial life.
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Astronomers have identified one of the oldest stars ever found, which appears to be just one generation removed from the beginning of the universe itself. Being relatively close to Earth, the find could mean our galactic neighborhood is much older than previously thought.
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The universe as we know it is made up of three spatial dimensions, right? But some physics models suggest the existence of extra dimensions that we can’t perceive. In an effort to find evidence of these dimensions, researchers have studied gravitational waves and come up empty.
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The ISS is slated to become the coldest spot in space as NASA's Cold Atom Laboratory begins producing ultra-cold atoms that are cooled to 10 millionth of one Kelvin above absolute zero as part of microgravity experiments to study quantum mechanics and the fundamental nature of matter.
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