Astronomers catch wind rushing out of galaxy

Exploring the influence of galactic winds from a distant galaxy called Makani, UC San Diego’s Alison Coil, Rhodes College’s David Rupke and a group of collaborators from around the world made a novel discovery. Published in Nature, their study’s findings provide direct evidence for the first time of the role of galactic winds—ejections of gas from galaxies—in creating the circumgalactic medium…

How we discovered a glowing galactic ghoul

It’s a classic Halloween tale. A group of ghost hunters visit a grand old house that is rumored to be haunted. But after thoroughly exploring, they leave disappointed: there are no ghosts to be seen. Only later, when looking through their photographs of the place do they notice the mysterious apparition on the stairs. It was there all the time. Source:…

Virgin Galactic becomes first space tourism company to land on Wall Street

Virgin Galactic landed on Wall Street Monday, debuting its listing on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in a first for a space tourism company. Source: https://phys.org/news/2019-10-virgin-galactic-space-tourism-company.html…

Virgin Galactic unveils commercial space suits

The date for the world’s first commercial space flight is not even confirmed yet, but future passengers’ Star Trek-like outfits are ready and waiting. Source: https://phys.org/news/2019-10-virgin-galactic-unveils-commercial-space.html…

Summer Triangle and galactic equator

You can use the Summer Triangle – and the constellation Cygnus the Swan – to locate the edgewise disk of our Milky Way galaxy. Source: https://earthsky.org/tonight/use-summer-triangle-to-locate-flat-plane-of-milky-way…

The nature of obscured active galactic nuclei

Most galaxies host a supermassive black hole (SMBH) at their nucleus, one whose mass exceeds a million solar-masses. When material actively accretes onto the SMBH, associated processes can produce an active galactic nucleus (AGN) with a hot torus and dramatic bipolar jets of rapidly moving charged particles. The most luminous known AGN emit over ten trillion solar-luminosities. Astronomers are trying to…

Milky Way raids intergalactic ‘bank accounts,’ Hubble study finds

Our Milky Way is a frugal galaxy. Supernovas and violent stellar winds blow gas out of the galactic disk, but that gas falls back onto the galaxy to form new generations of stars. In an ambitious effort to conduct a full accounting of this recycling process, astronomers were surprised to find a surplus of incoming gas. Source: https://phys.org/news/2019-10-milky-raids-intergalactic-bank-accounts.html…

Boeing to invest $20 million in Virgin Galactic (Update)

Boeing plans to invest $20 million in Virgin Galactic, looking at possibilities beyond the space tourism company’s immediate goal of launching passengers on suborbital flights as early as next year. Source: https://phys.org/news/2019-10-boeing-invest-million-virgin-galactic.html…