First Confirmed Planet in a White Dwarf’s “Forbidden Zone”
Brr! A newly confirmed exoplanet orbiting a white dwarf has a temperature of just 186K, making it the coldest exoplanet whose light has been directly detected.
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How Squished Is That Planet? Astronomers Measure Oblateness of a Sub-Neptune
HIP 41378f — a cold, puffy exoplanet with four known siblings — becomes one of just a handful of planets with an estimate of its rotation period.
To Be or Not to Be Aligned: Exploring Spin–Orbit Alignment Trends for Exoplanetary Systems
What is pulling exoplanet XO-3b out of alignment with its host star? A recent study explores the system and reveals an emerging trend that provides a boundary for planet formation mechanisms.
A New Way to Measure Black Hole Spin
Sensitive polarized-light observations of the relativistic jets of supermassive black holes may provide an entirely new way to measure the spin of a black hole.
Double-Star Discovery Suggests There’s a New Nearby Supernova Progenitor
Mark your calendars for a few tens of millions of years in the future: a core-collapse supernova at just 228 light-years away is sure to be spectacular.
Sun Glitter and Sunglint on Titan’s Hydrocarbon Seas
From its vantage point in orbit around Saturn, the Cassini spacecraft captured the brilliant gleam of sunlight reflecting off of Titan’s oily hydrocarbon seas. New research explores what sunglint can tell us about the interaction between Titan’s seas and atmosphere.
Monthly Roundup: A Cluster of Cosmic Spiders
Arachnophobes beware: today’s post concerns the behavior of the voracious stellar remnants called spider pulsars.
Crater Cartography: Mapping the Moon’s North Pole
New high-resolution maps of the Moon’s north pole reveal interesting terrain and locations possibly preserving water ice, which will inform future lunar exploration.
Two More Double-Faced White Dwarfs Discovered
A search for white dwarfs that present different compositional “faces” as they spin has dredged up two new members of the emerging class of double-faced white dwarfs.
A Slowly Spinning Pulsar Below the Death Line
A serendipitous discovery illuminates the kinds of objects that might bridge the gap between pulsars and long-period radio transients.