An Interview with Melissa McGrath
Next week we’ll be at this year’s DPS/EPSC meeting in Pasadena, CA! In preparation, we talked with Melissa McGrath, the new AAS Lead Editor for the Solar System, Exoplanets, and Astrobiology corridor.
Highlights RSS
How Did Our Galactic Nucleus Form?
The recent discovery of old, variable stars in the Milky Way’s nucleus may have solved a long-standing question.
Why Are Pulsar Planets Rare?
Pulsar planets were the first planets outside the solar system ever discovered, but they now appear to be very rare. Astrobites reports on what makes pulsar planets so uncommon.
Featured Image: X-Rays from the Dark Side of Venus
Imaging of Venus during its 2012 transit across the Sun revealed X-ray emission coming from the planet’s dark side. What was the source of this light?
SMASH 1: A Disrupting Satellite of a Satellite?
The Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite of our galaxy, may have a newly discovered satellite of its own — a faint collection of stars being torn apart by the Cloud’s gravitational forces.
Merging a Pair of Supermassive Black Holes
When two galaxies collide and merge, what happens to the supermassive black holes that reside at the galaxies’ centers?
Gravity-Darkened Seasons on Planets
What happens when a planet orbits a rapidly spinning, oblate star? Astrobites reports on how this can potentially double the number of seasons that a planet experiences!
A Solution to “Too Big to Fail”
Why aren’t the outputs of cosmological simulations consistent with the satellite galaxies we observe around the Milky Way? A recent study may have found an answer.
A Planet Found by Pulsations
Thus far, most of the exoplanets we’ve discovered orbit around cool stars rather than hot ones. Recently, an unusual technique has been found to discover a planet in the habitable zone of a very hot star.
Is There a Size Limit for Supermassive Black Holes?
Supermassive black holes — which often weigh in at millions to billions of solar masses — can accrete matter as they lurk at the centers of galaxies. Is there a maximum mass that these monsters can attain?
Shooting for the Stars (and the Damage of Doing So)
How will the tiny spacecraft of the Breakthrough Starshot initiative fare against dust, as they speed through interstellar space on their way to Proxima Centauri? Astrobites reports on the potentially catastrophic consequences of the interstellar medium for the mission.
Featured Image: Tests of an MHD Code
Creating the codes that are used to numerically model astrophysical systems takes a lot of work — and a lot of testing! Here’s a brief look at the some of the entrancing test outputs from the new DISCO code.