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NishMath - #astronomy
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@NASA
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NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has peered into the early Universe, observing galaxies from just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. With its unique infrared sensitivity, JWST allows researchers to examine these ancient galaxies and uncover secrets from the Universe's formative years. The telescope's NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) played a key role in these observations.
An international team of astronomers has identified bright hydrogen emission from a galaxy, JADES-GS-z13-1, at an unexpectedly early time. This distant galaxy, observed just 330 million years after the Big Bang, has a redshift (z) of 13, indicating its age and distance. This discovery challenges existing understanding of how light could have pierced the thick fog of neutral hydrogen that filled space at that time. Recommended read:
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Siôn Geschwindt@The Next Web
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The ESA's Euclid mission has released its first data, offering a glimpse into the deep fields of space and marking a significant step in the study of dark matter and dark energy. The data covers 63 square degrees of the sky and includes a classification survey of over 380,000 galaxies and 500 gravitational lens candidates. The Euclid space observatory, dubbed the "dark matter hunter", aims to create the largest 3D map of the sky ever created.
This initial data release includes numerous galaxy clusters, active galactic nuclei, and transient phenomena. The mission's unique observational capabilities are expected to contribute to a better determination of the expansion rate of the Universe through gravitational-wave observations. Researchers plan to correlate events from LIGO, Virgo, and KAGRA with Euclid galaxy catalogues. Euclid's discovery of numerous gravitational lens systems could also be crucial for detecting the first gravitational waves split into multiple images by gravitational lenses, according to Miguel Zumalacárregui, group leader in the Astrophysical and Cosmological Relativity department. Recommended read:
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@bigthink.com
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bigthink.com
, hubblesite.org
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The Bullseye galaxy, also known as LEDA 1313424, has been revealed as a unique ring galaxy with an unprecedented nine concentric rings. This makes it significantly different from other ring galaxies, as prior to the 2025 discovery of the Bullseye galaxy, no other galaxy had been found with more than three concentric rings. This rare class of galaxies, representing only 1 in 10,000 galaxies, typically forms after a galactic collision which appears as a central galaxy surrounded by a well-defined ring of stars.
The Bullseye galaxy is a spiral galaxy that is in the process of transforming into a ring galaxy. This is because a galactic collision occurred around 50 million years ago. High-resolution imagery from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope confirmed eight rings, and data from the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii confirmed a ninth ring. Hubble and Keck also pinpointed the cause: a blue dwarf galaxy that sits to the immediate center-left of the main galaxy. Recommended read:
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@bigthink.com
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Astronomers are tracking asteroid 2024 YR4, a space rock with the potential to impact Earth. Recent data shows the probability of a collision in 2032 has been increasing. Initially, the chance of impact was estimated at 1.2%, but has since risen to 3.1%. While this may sound alarming, experts say it's a normal part of refining the asteroid's trajectory.
This asteroid has the potential to wipe out a major city. Scientists use the Torino Scale to rate the potential hazards of near-Earth objects. Currently, asteroid 2024 YR4 has a rating of 3, indicating that it is worthy of attention from astronomers. This ranking reflects the probability that the asteroid is capable of localized destruction. As scientists continue to observe the asteroid, gathering more data on its orbit, the probability of impact is expected to either increase further or drop to zero. Once a definitive miss is confirmed, the asteroid's ranking on the Torino Scale will likely be reassigned to Level 0, indicating no threat. Recommended read:
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@bigthink.com
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LIGO and Virgo have detected a significant gravitational wave event, named S250206dm, accompanied by neutrino signals. This event, observed on February 6, 2025 at 21:25:30.439 UTC (GPS time: 1422912348.439), marks a potential breakthrough in multi-messenger astronomy. The detection was made using data from LIGO Hanford Observatory (H1) and LIGO Livingston Observatory (L1) and identified by the GstLAL, MBTA, and PyCBC Live analysis pipelines. The event is of considerable interest due to its low false alarm rate, estimated at approximately one in 25 years.
Two sky maps generated by BAYESTAR are available for follow-up observations, with the preferred map being bayestar.multiorder.fits,1. This map indicates a 90% credible region of 1544 deg2 and estimates the luminosity distance at 409 +/- 139 Mpc. Based on preliminary analysis, the event is most likely a neutron star-black hole merger (NSBH) with a 55% probability, followed by a binary neutron star merger (BNS) at 37%. The probability that the lighter compact object is consistent with a neutron star mass is greater than 99%. This trifecta of gravitational waves, neutrinos, and potentially light, could provide unprecedented insights into the merger of compact objects. Recommended read:
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