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The X-ray polarization properties of the black hole binary Cygnus X-1 in its hard state, combined with spectral and timing data, reveals that the accretion disk corona is either an extended structure or located far from the black hole.
In simulations, young massive star clusters in the present-day Universe form naturally in giant molecular clouds, despite the influence of radiative feedback. The same process occurred in earlier epochs, for instance, when globular clusters were born.
Evidence for the earliest phase of planet formation, dust grain growth, has been seen in the very young and massive circumstellar disk around low-mass protostar TMC1A. Such systems, still rich in gas, are responsible for the high-mass end of the exoplanet mass distribution.
A bright X-ray outburst from a massive star cluster 12.5 kpc from a galactic centre fits the profile of a tidal disruption event (TDE), indicating the likely presence of an intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH). TDEs could be the most effective way of identifying IMBHs.
By studying the properties of almost 200 disk galaxies, it is shown that modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND), or MOND-like alternative theories of gravity based on the existence of a fundamental acceleration scale, are ruled out as fundamental theories for galaxies at more than 10σ.
The presence of nanodiamonds in protoplanetary disks correlates strongly with the detection of anomalous microwave emission from the same disks, implying that spinning nanodiamonds rather than polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are the source of this puzzling ~30 GHz emission feature.
The Waves instrument on board the Juno spacecraft has detected ~1,600 lightning strokes in roughly 1 year of close approaches to Jupiter, indicated by low-dispersion rapid whistlers much shorter than those detected by Voyager 1 in Io’s plasma torus.
Cassini magnetic field and plasma observations find evidence of magnetic reconnection on the dayside of Saturn’s magnetosphere, which can explain local auroral pulsations and play a role in the transport of energetic particles within rapidly rotating magnetospheres.
Images of 67P's nucleus from the Rosetta spacecraft, together with numerical simulations, show that the jet-like features of cometary comae can be produced by diffuse activity focused by the nucleus topography as well as non-uniform insolation over the surface.
The suite of small moons orbiting close to Saturn exhibits a variety of shapes that provide clues to moon formation processes. A model shows that all of these shapes can be obtained with a single mechanism: merging collisions among similar-sized moonlets.
The hypothesis of an ocean under the icy surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa is strengthened by in-situ evidence of a plume, inferred by Galileo’s magnetic field and plasma density measurements obtained during the spacecraft’s closest flyby to the moon.
Until recently, stellar evolution models had not been able to explain the presence of bright planetary nebulae in old stellar populations. Using the revised evolutionary tracks of Miller Bertolami (2016), it is now evident that lower-mass and longer-lived planetary nebulae can be bright.
Supernova SN 2015bs is a hydrogen-rich type II supernova that appears to have been generated by a high-mass (>18 M⊙) and low-metallicity (<0.1 Z⊙) red supergiant progenitor.
Analysis of a six-year time series of SDO/HMI images of the solar photosphere reveals the existence of global-scale equatorial Rossby waves in the Sun, which contain a large fraction of the radial vorticity at these scales.
1I/‘Oumuamua observations from the Gemini North telescope, spanning approximately 8 hours on 27–28 October 2017, characterize the magnitude variations of the object and detect its tumbling nature, triggered by an old collision when it was still in its home system.
In Galactic star-forming region W43-MM1 the core mass function (CMF), describing the mass distribution of the birthplaces of stars, is very different from the initial mass function (IMF), the mass distribution of newborn stars. Previously, the IMF was thought to reflect the CMF.
Α combined study of spatially resolved stellar kinematics and global stellar populations with the SAMI Galaxy Survey finds a strong correlation between the characteristic stellar population age of a galaxy and its intrinsic ellipticity.
The authors predict the ability of the Event Horizon Telescope (in its 2017 campaign) to distinguish between different theories of gravity based on images of Sagittarius A*; they suggest that it will not be possible.
Iron has been ramp compressed to the pressures it would experience in the core of a 3–4 Earth-mass terrestrial exoplanet, providing experimental constraints on the mass–radius relationship for a hypothetical pure iron planet.
Cosmic filaments evolve nonlinearly from density fluctuations produced in the primordial Universe. Detection of cosmic microwave background lensing by filaments allows the measurement of how filaments trace the matter distribution on large scales.