Dating the Dawn of the Milky Way Disk
A recent study used the kinematics, chemical composition, and ages of thousands of stars to determine when the Milky Way settled into the spiral disk we know it as today.
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Seeking Technosignatures in Polluted White Dwarfs
White dwarfs with metals in their spectra preserve a record of planets that once orbited them. New research examines these spectra for signs that the metals underwent technological processing.
When the Spacecraft Align: Rescuing Saturated Images of Solar Flares
When a powerful solar flare saturates a detector, the information about the flare is lost — or is it? New research validates a technique for extracting knowledge from saturated images of solar flares.
Putting the Landing Site Before the Lander
How do you pick a landing site before you know how you’re going to land? The scientists behind NASA’s latest Moon missions are working on just that.
Gaia Data Show That the Initial Mass Function Is Not Universal
Do all clusters form stars with the same distribution of masses? Researchers have demonstrated that the initial mass function, often assumed to be universal, varies across Milky Way clusters.
A New Catalog of Stellar Rotation Periods for Over a Million Stars
A recent study has leveraged TESS’s full-sky coverage to build a catalog of stellar rotation periods for over a million stars.
Two More Thoughts on Little Red Dots
What’s behind the population of compact, reddish objects spotted by JWST? Two recent research articles have explored theories involving young globular clusters and little red dots with little blue companions.
Detached but Not Alone
The galaxy seems to be full of free-range Neptunes, but a closer look reveals some complicated family dynamics in planetary systems.
New Spectral Signs of Buckyballs Discovered in Planetary Nebula
JWST observations serendipitously revealed new emission features from fullerenes, the largest molecules definitively detected in space.
Shot from the Heart of the Milky Way: Discovery of an Old Hypervelocity Star
A recent study presents the first strong evidence of an old, low-mass hypervelocity star flung from the galactic center.