News by Subject Space & Planetary

In 2017, a massive new region of magnetic field erupted on the sun's surface next to an existing sunspot. The powerful collision of magnetic energy produced a series of solar flares, causing turbulent space weather conditions at Earth. Scientists have now pinpointed for the first time exactly when and where the explosion released the energy that heated spewing plasma to energies equivalent to 1 billion degrees in temperature.

UCLA astronomers have discovered a new class of bizarre objects at the center of our galaxy, not far from the supermassive black hole called Sagittarius A*. 'Mergers of stars may be happening in the universe more often than we thought, and likely are quite common,' said Andrea Ghez, UCLA's Lauren B. Leichtman and Arthur E. Levine Professor of Astrophysics. She believes the objects were binary stars that merged because of the black hole's gravitational force.

An analysis of cyclical changes in the light spectrum emitted by Proxima Centauri, the star closest to the Sun, suggests it may be orbited by a second planet. Mario Damasso and colleagues present data suggesting that this candidate planet orbits Proxima Centauri every 5.2 years and may be a 'super-Earth,' with a mass higher than Earth's, though much lower than that.

Recently, a Chinese team of astronomers claimed to have discovered a black hole as massive as 70 solar masses, which, if confirmed, would severely challenge the current view of stellar evolution. Among those to take a closer look at the object were astronomers from the Universities of Erlangen-Nürnberg and Potsdam. They discovered that it may not necessarily be a black hole at all, but possibly a massive neutron star or even an 'ordinary' star.

A Princeton-led team of astrophysicists has shown that exoplanet WASP-12b, located 600 light-years away, is spiraling in toward certain destruction in about 3 million years. 'Ever since the discovery of the first 'hot Jupiter' in 1995 -- a discovery that was recognized with this year's Nobel Prize in Physics -- we have wondered how long such planets can survive,' said Prof. Joshua Winn.