Monthly Roundup: Extreme Objects — Pulsars and Magnetars
What’s new in the world of pulsars and magnetars? Four recent research articles seek to characterize these ultra-dense stellar remnants with observations from radio to X-rays.
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Discovery of Nearest Candidate Exoplanet Orbiting a White Dwarf
JWST has spotted a planet candidate in a whole new way. This discovery paves the way for finding even more white-dwarf exoplanets, helping researchers understand the fate of our solar system after the Sun expires.
Icy Insights from Comets and Planet-Forming Disks
Are comets pristine remnants of the formation of our solar system, or have they changed since then? New work compares the chemistry of comets and planet-forming systems to answer this question.
Heating Up the Universe: Characterizing Reionization-Era Galaxies
Observing some of the universe’s first galaxies is no easy task, but with the help of JWST, a new study learns a bit more about these distant galaxies and their role in cosmic reionization.
Watching Solar Flares Heat Up
What happens just as a solar flare gets going? A recent study uses X-ray data to shine a light on an early stage in the life cycle of solar flares.
Hunting for a Target on the Fly
New Horizons’ next target beyond Pluto was discovered mid-flight in a search that forged a path for present-day planetary science. A recent publication reviews this hunt and tells the story of this remarkable discovery.
Evaporating Stars, Magnetars, and Bumpy Supernova Light Curves
Some supernovae have bumps in their light curves. New research shows that unusual binary systems containing a magnetar and an unlucky companion star can explain some of these bumps.
Homing In on Host Galaxies of Fast Radio Bursts
Researchers have detected about a thousand powerful yet fleeting radio signals called fast radio bursts. What do the home galaxies of these bursts tell us about where they come from?
Complex Composition: The Origins of J1010+2358
Stars hundreds of times the mass of the Sun likely formed during the universe’s debut into star formation. Could the star J1010+2358 be a direct descendant of one of these elusive first-generation massive stars?
The Odds of the Unthinkable
An asteroid named Apophis is almost definitely going to miss Earth during a close flyby in 2029. But could it be diverted onto a more dangerous path through a collision with a smaller asteroid before then?