Proxima Centauri Sports a Fancy Dust Ring
Astrobites reports on belts of dust discovered around our nearest neighbor, the star Proxima Centauri.
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Featured Image: Connecting Theory to Observation with the FluxCompensator
One of the challenges of astronomy is connecting theoretical models of distant objects to observations. A new code allows scientists to transform models of sources into images of what we’d expect to observe.
Analog of the Milky Way and the Magellanic Clouds
A hunt for merging dwarf galaxies has yielded an intriguing result: 180 million light-years away, a galaxy very similar to the Milky Way — with two dwarf-galaxy satellites just like our own Magellanic clouds.
Protoplanetary Disks Might Be More Turbulent than Thought
How do the protoplanetary disks surrounding newly formed stars eventually disappear? Astrobites reports on the role that turbulence in the disks might play.
Kepler Planets Tend to Have Siblings of the Same Size
Exoplanets in Kepler multiplanet systems tend to be “peas in a pod”: planets within the same system often have similar radii. A new study explores this odd behavior.
LIGO Finds Lightest Black-Hole Binary
LIGO has announced the discovery of the lightest pair of black holes we’ve ever seen merge, allowing us to compare to the black holes detected by electromagnetic means.
A Look at the Milky Way’s Outskirts
We may be stuck in the Milky Way’s interior, but we can use distant variable stars to map out a picture of what’s happening in the outskirts of our galaxy.
Can We Detect Auroral Emission from Proxima b?
A planet’s aurorae (like the northern lights on Earth) can tell us about the planet itself — but we’ve never before detected aurorae from an exoplanet. Astrobites reports on the prospect of observing aurorae from Proxima Centauri b.
Featured Image: Nuclear Star Clusters in Virgo
Many galaxies host extremely dense clusters of stars in their cores. Observations of these clusters help us explore how they might have formed.
Use Authorea or Overleaf to Submit to AAS Journals
Do you use collaborative document preparation software like Authorea or Overleaf? If so, submitting to AAS journals just got easier.
Carrying Energy to the Corona with Waves
Why is the Sun’s atmosphere so much hotter than its surface? A new study explores the role of magnetic waves in heating the Sun’s corona.
Feeding Black Holes Through Galactic Bars
Galactic bars channel gas into the central regions of spiral galaxies to birth new stars. Astrobites reports on whether they are also responsible for lighting up their black holes.