Stars

Image of the M82 galaxy with at its center, also magnified, the M82 X-2 pulsar (Image NASA/JPL-Caltech/SAO/NOAO)

NASA’s NuSTAR (Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array) Space Telescope allowed to discover a pulsar with a brightness never seen before. In an article published in the journal “Nature”, the international team led by Matteo Bachetti, who now works at INAF’s Astronomical Observatory of Cagliari and at the time at the Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planetologie in Toulouse, France, illustrates the research that led to the discovery of this pulsar that emits energy ten million times that of the Sun.

A magnification of the cluster of new stars and the nuclei of the merging galaxies that created it (Image NASA)

The Hubble Space Telescope has photographed an extraordinary structure 100,000 light years long containing clusters of young stars that form a sort of bridge around the nuclei of two ancient galaxies within the galaxy cluster known as SDSS J1531 +3414. This unique structure may provide new clues about the formation of star clusters as a result of galaxies mergers.

Artistic concept of the pulsar PSR J2222-0137 and its white dwarf companion (Image courtesy B. Saxton (NRAO/AUI/NSF). All rights reserved)

Astronomical research are getting us used to really bizarre discoveries and sometimes astronomers can truly say they found a jewel in space. In the past, the analysis of the planet 55 Cancri e led to theorize that part of it is a huge diamond, now a team of astronomers has identified a white dwarf that may have turned into a diamond the size of the Earth.

The square-shaped coronal hole on the Sun's surface (Image Solar Dynamics Observatory/NASA)

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) space probe has discovered a square-shaped coronal hole in the Sun’s corona, the outer part of the atmosphere of our star. It’s far south on the Sun so it’s unlikely that the solar wind originated in that area reaches Earth.