News

NRAO/ALMA News Release Enduring ‘Radio Rebound’ Powered by Jets from Gamma-Ray Burst

NRAO/ALMA News Release Enduring ‘Radio Rebound’ Powered by Jets from Gamma-Ray Burst

ALMA Creates Its First-ever Movie of Cosmic Explosion Summary: Astronomers using ALMA studied a cataclysmic stellar explosion known as a gamma-ray burst, or GRB, and found its enduring “afterglow.” The rebound, or reverse shock, triggered by the GRB’s powerful jets slamming into surrounding debris, lasted thousands of times longer than expected....

Distant Quasar Providing Clues to Early-Universe Conditions

Distant Quasar Providing Clues to Early-Universe Conditions

Astronomers using the National Science Foundation’s Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) have made an image revealing tantalizing details of a quasar nearly 13 billion light-years from Earth — an object that may provide important clues about the physical processes at work in the Universe’s first galaxies. The scientists studied a quasar called PSO...

Even Phenomenally Dense Neutron Stars Fall like a Feather

Even Phenomenally Dense Neutron Stars Fall like a Feather

Einstein’s understanding of gravity, as outlined in his general theory of relativity, predicts that all objects fall at the same rate, regardless of their mass or composition. This theory has passed test after test here on Earth, but does it still hold true for some of the most massive and dense objects in the known universe, an aspect of nature...