The surprising discovery of a massive outburst in a neighboring galaxy is giving astronomers a tantalizing look at what likely is a powerful belch by a gorging black hole at the galaxy’s center.
ALMA Sees Star and Planets Grow Together
Astronomers have used the ALMA telescope to get their first glimpse of a fascinating stage of star formation in which planets forming around a young star are helping the star itself continue to grow, resolving a longstanding mystery.
Powerful Supercomputer Makes ALMA a Telescope
One of the most powerful calculating machines known to the civilian world has been installed and tested in a remote, high-altitude site in the Andes Mountains of northern Chile, marking one of the major remaining milestones toward completion of the most elaborate ground-based telescope in history, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array.
Microquasar Found in Neighbor Galaxy, Tantalizing Scientists
For the first time, astronomers have found a microquasar — a black hole devouring material from a companion star — in a galaxy beyond our own Milky Way.
Astronomers Discover and Weigh Infant Solar System
Astronomers have found the youngest still-forming solar system yet seen, an infant star surrounded by a swirling disk of dust and gas more than 450 light-years from Earth in the constellation Taurus.
Brown Dwarfs May Grow Rocky Planets
Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array have for the first time found that the outer region of a dusty disk encircling a brown dwarf contains millimeter-sized solid grains like those found in denser disks around newborn stars.