An international team of astronomers used ALMA to capture high-resolution images of eight protoplanetary disks in the Sigma Orionis cluster, which is irradiated by intense ultraviolet light from a massive nearby star. To their surprise, they found evidence of gaps and rings in most of the disks—structures commonly associated with the formation of giant planets, like Jupiter.
Using the U.S. National Science Foundation Green Bank Telescope (NSF GBT), an international team of astronomers led by Yi Feng of China’s Research Center for Astronomical Computing have observed FRB 20220912A as it emitted 128 bursts in under two hours, thus setting a new FRB burst rate record for this class of radio telescope.
There should be a lot of carbon in space, but surprisingly, it’s not always easy to find. While it can be observed in many places, it doesn’t add up to the volume astronomers would expect to see. The discovery of a new, complex molecule (1-cyanopyrene), challenges these expectations, about where the building blocks for carbon are found, and how they evolve.
The U.S. National Science Foundation National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NSF NRAO) is working with scientific, academic, and industry partners across the country to find solutions, as part of the NSF-Simons AI Institute for Cosmic Origins (NSF-Simons CosmicAI), a five-year program made possible by funding from the NSF and the Simons Foundation.