News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
Rocket Lab will build its next-generation Neutron launcher on Wallops Island, Virginia, at a site adjacent to the company’s coastal U.S. launch pad. “Its position on the eastern seaboard is the ideal location to support both Neutron’s expected frequent launch cadence and the rocket’s return-to-Earth capability of landing back at its launch site after liftoff,” … Read more
Neutron stars release powerful warm winds after chowing down on their stellar companions, new research shows. Neutron stars are the remains of more massive stars that reached the end of their lives and exploded in violent supernovas, leaving behind a dense core that continues to collapse in on itself. These stellar corpses are the densest … Read more
A strange X-ray glow seen in the sky three and a half years after an epic collision between two neutron stars is a first for science. According to astronomers studying the region of space, it could be the afterglow of the kilonova explosion that was generated by the merger, likely produced by a shock wave … Read more
A recently discovered repeating fast radio burst (FRB) named FRB 20200120E is deepening the mystery of these already deeply mysterious space signals. Astronomers have tracked its location to a galaxy 11.7 million light-years away, which makes it the closest known extragalactic fast radio burst, 40 times closer than the next-closest extragalactic signal. But it … Read more
Astronomers say a “hyperburst” nuclear explosion within a neutron star could explain its strange behaviour – but the conditions required to create the explosion are so rare that we will probably never see one again Space 11 February 2022 By Jonathan O’Callaghan An artist’s illustration of an explosion in space Shutterstock/mik ulyannikov Astronomers think they … Read more
Something extraordinarily bright in space is pulsing far slower than most similar cosmic objects, and it may be a strange type of neutron star that we have never seen before Space 26 January 2022 By Leah Crane A view of the Milky Way from the Murchison Widefield Array. The star icon shows the position of … Read more
Something in Earth’s cosmic neighborhood is emitting weird signals of a kind we’ve never seen before. Just 4,000 light-years away, something is flashing radio waves. For roughly 30 to 60 seconds, every 18.18 minutes, it pulses brightly, one of the most luminous objects in the low-frequency radio sky. It matches the profile of no known … Read more
In a nearby galaxy, a rare kind of dead star erupted into a giant outburst. This in itself may not be so peculiar; but, for the first time, changes in its brightness during this event have been documented in detail, giving scientists a window into understanding the processes that produce these colossal flares. The … Read more
The cause of a mysterious cosmic kaboom – so bright it led to the classification of a new type of space explosion – may have now been revealed. According to an analysis of the 2018 event, nicknamed “the Cow” (AT2018cow), it was likely an unusual kind of core-collapse supernova that led to the formation of … Read more