A dense globular star cluster near the center of our Milky Way Galaxy holds a buzzing beehive of rapidly-spinning millisecond pulsars, according to astronomers who discovered 21 new pulsars in the cluster using the National Science Foundation’s 100-meter Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia.
Dwarf Galaxy Gives Giant Surprise
An astronomer studying small irregular galaxies discovered a remarkable feature in one galaxy that may provide key clues to understanding how galaxies form and the relationship between the gas and the stars within galaxies.
Unexplained Emission From Three Brown Dwarfs
Astronomers have discovered three brown dwarfs — enigmatic objects that are neither stars nor planets — emitting radio waves that scientists cannot explain. The three newly-discovered radio-emitting brown dwarfs were found as part of a systematic study of nearby brown dwarfs using the National Science Foundation’s Very Large Array radio telescope.
Gigantic Cosmic Corkscrew
Making an extra effort to image a faint, gigantic corkscrew traced by fast protons and electrons shot out from a mysterious microquasar paid off for a pair of astrophysicists who gained new insights into the beast’s inner workings and also resolved a longstanding dispute over the object’s distance.
Stellar Pair Shot Out from Its Birthplace
Astronomers studying data from the National Science Foundation’s Very Long Baseline Array and other telescopes have concluded that a binary pair of stars forming an energetic microquasar was blasted out of the cluster in which it was born by a supernova.
Radio Telescopes Reveal Youngest Stellar Corpse
Astronomers using a global combination of radio telescopes to study a stellar explosion some 30 million light-years from Earth have likely discovered either the youngest black hole or the youngest neutron star known in the Universe.