AAS NOVA — Research Highlights 2017

bystander · Post by **bystander** » Mon Jan 16, 2017 5:36 pm

AAS NOVA — Research Highlights 2017
American Astronomical Association

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bystander · Post by **bystander** » Mon Jan 16, 2017 5:43 pm

Neptune as a Mirror for the Sun
NOVA | American Astronomical Society | 2017 Jan 11

How would the Kepler mission see a star like the Sun? We now know the answer to this question due to a creative approach: a new study has used the Kepler K2 mission to detect signals from the Sun reflected off of the surface of Neptune. ...

A Distant Mirror: Solar Oscillations Observed on Neptune by the Kepler K2 Mission - P. Gaulme et al

Astrophysical Journal Letters 833(1):L13 (2016 Dec 10) DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/833/1/L13
arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1612.04287 > 13 Dec 2016

bystander · Post by **bystander** » Thu Jan 19, 2017 3:54 pm

The Impact of Stars on Moons
NOVA | American Astronomical Society | 2017 Jan 13

In other solar systems, the radiation streaming from the central star can have a destructive impact on the atmospheres of the star’s close-in planets. A new study suggests that these exoplanets may also have a much harder time keeping their moons. ...

Global Instability of the Exo-Moon System Triggered by Photo-Evaporation - Ming Yang et al

Astrophysical Journal 833(1):7 (2016 Dec 10) DOI: 10.3847/0004-637X/833/1/7
arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1609.08634 > 27 Sep 2016

bystander · Post by **bystander** » Thu Jan 19, 2017 4:03 pm

Reinflating Giant Planets
NOVA | American Astronomical Society | 2017 Jan 18

Two new, large gas-giant exoplanets have been discovered orbiting close to their host stars. A recent study examining these planets — and others like them — may help us to better understand what happens to close-in hot Jupiters as their host stars reach the end of their main-sequence lives. ...

HAT-P-65b and HAT-P-66b: Two Transiting Inflated Hot Jupiters and
Observational Evidence for the Re-Inflation of Close-In Giant Planets - Joel D. Hartman et al

Astronomical Journal 152(6):182 (2016 Dec) DOI: 10.3847/0004-6256/152/6/182
arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1609.02767 > 09 Sep 2016

bystander · Post by **bystander** » Sat Jan 21, 2017 4:13 pm

The Search for Lensed Supernovae
NOVA | American Astronomical Society | 2017 Jan 20

Type Ia supernovae that have multiple images due to gravitational lensing can provide us with a wealth of information — both about the supernovae themselves and about our surrounding universe. But how can we find these rare explosions? ...

How to Find Gravitationally Lensed Type Ia Supernovae - Daniel A. Goldstein, Peter E. Nugent

Astrophysical Journal Letters 834(1):L5 (2017 Jan 01) DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/834/1/L5
arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1611.09459 > 29 Nov 2016 (v1), 14 Dec 2016 (v2)

bystander · Post by **bystander** » Sat Jan 28, 2017 5:16 pm

Destruction of a Magnetized Star
NOVA | American Astronomical Society | 2017 Jan 25

What happens when a magnetized star is torn apart by the tidal forces of a supermassive black hole, in a violent process known as a tidal disruption event? Two scientists have broken new ground by simulating the disruption of stars with magnetic fields for the first time. ...

Simulations of Magnetic Fields in Tidally Disrupted Stars - James Guillochon, Michael McCourt

Astrophysical Journal Letters 834(2):L19 (2017 Jan 10) DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/834/2/L19
arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1609.08160 > 26 Sep 2016 (v1), 22 Dec 2016 (v2)

bystander · Post by **bystander** » Sat Jan 28, 2017 5:25 pm

Hi’iaka: Haumea’s Rapidly Spinning Moon
NOVA | American Astronomical Society | 2017 Jan 27

Recent observations of Hi’iaka, the largest satellite of the dwarf planet Haumea, reveal that the moon is spinning much more rapidly than expected. What could this tell us about how Haumea and its moons formed? ...

The Short Rotation Period of Hi'iaka, Haumea's Largest Satellite - Danielle M. Hastings et al

Astronomical Journal 152(6):195 (Dec 2016) DOI: 10.3847/0004-6256/152/6/195
arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1610.04305 > 14 Oct 2016

bystander · Post by **bystander** » Mon Feb 06, 2017 6:15 pm

UV Habitable Zones Further Constrain Possible Life
NOVA | American Astronomical Society | 2017 Jan 30

Where should we search for life in the universe? Habitable zones are traditionally determined based on the possibility of liquid water existing on a planet — but ultraviolet (UV) radiation also plays a key role. ...

A Simple Evolutional Model of the UV Habitable Zone and the Possibility
of the Persistent Life Existence: The Effects of Mass and Metallicity - Midori Oishi, Hideyuki Kamaya

Astrophysical Journal 833(2):293 (20 Dec 2016) DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/833/2/293

bystander · Post by **bystander** » Mon Feb 06, 2017 6:22 pm

A Quasar Turns On
NOVA | American Astronomical Society | 2017 Feb 01

The intermediate Palomar Transient Factory (iPTF) has discovered a quasar — the brightly-shining, active nucleus of a galaxy — abruptly turning on in what appears to be the fastest such transition ever seen in such an object. ...

iPTF Discovery of the Rapid "Turn On" of a Luminous Quasar - S. Gezari et al

Astrophysical Journal 835(2):144 (01 Feb 2017) DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/835/2/144
arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1612.04830 > 14 Dec 2016

bystander · Post by **bystander** » Mon Feb 06, 2017 6:28 pm

Resolving the Birth of High-Mass Binary Stars
NOVA | American Astronomical Society | 2017 Feb 03

New observations may help us to learn more about the birth of high-mass star systems. For the first time, scientists have imaged a very young, high-mass binary system and resolved the individual disks that surround each star and the binary. ...

A High-mass Protobinary System with Spatially Resolved Circumstellar Accretion Disks and Circumbinary Disk - Stefan Kraus et al

Astrophysical Journal Letters 835(1):L5 (2017 Jan 20) DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/835/1/L5
arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1612.07804 > 22 Dec 2016

bystander · Post by **bystander** » Thu Feb 09, 2017 9:15 pm

Climate of an Earth-Like World with Changing Eccentricity
NOVA | American Astronomical Society | 2017 Feb 07

Susanna Kohler wrote:
Having a giant planet like Jupiter next door can really wreak havoc on your orbit! A new study examines what such a bad neighbor might mean for the long-term climate of an Earth-like planet. ...

Effects of Variable Eccentricity on the Climate of an Earth-like World - Michael. J. Way, Nikolaos Georgakarakos

Astrophysical Journal Letters 835(1):L1 (2017 Jan 20) DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/835/1/L1
arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1611.06133 > 18 Nov 2016 (v1), 22 Dec 2016 (v3)

bystander · Post by **bystander** » Sun Feb 12, 2017 3:53 pm

Simulations of Solar Jets
NOVA | American Astronomical Society | 2017 Feb 10

Susanna Kohler wrote:
How do jets emitted from the Sun’s surface contribute to its corona and to the solar wind? In a recent study, a team of scientists performed complex three-dimensional simulations of coronal jets to answer these questions. ...

Coronal Jets Simulated with the Global Alfvén Wave Solar Model - J. Szente et al

Astrophysical Journal 834(2):123 (10 Jan 2017) DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/834/2/123

bystander · Post by **bystander** » Thu Feb 16, 2017 4:32 pm

New Ultra-Compact Dwarf Galaxies in Clusters
NOVA | American Astronomical Society | 2017 Feb 13

Susanna Kohler wrote:
How do ultra-compact dwarf galaxies (UCDs) — galaxies that are especially small and dense — form and evolve? Scientists have recently examined distant galaxy clusters, searching for more UCDs to help us answer this question. ...

M32 Analogs? A Population of Massive Ultra Compact Dwarf and Compact Elliptical
Galaxies in Intermediate Redshift CLASH Clusters - Yuanyuan Zhang, Eric. F. Bell

Astrophysical Journal Letters 835(1):L2 (2017 Jan 20) DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/835/1/L2
arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1610.06174 > 19 Oct 2016 (v1), 13 Jan 2017 (v2)

bystander · Post by **bystander** » Thu Feb 16, 2017 4:42 pm

Fixing the Big Bang Theory’s Lithium Problem
NOVA | American Astronomical Society | 2017 Feb 15

Susanna Kohler wrote:
How did our universe come into being? The Big Bang theory is a widely accepted and highly successful cosmological model of the universe, but it does introduce one puzzle: the “cosmological lithium problem.” Have scientists now found a solution? ...

Non-Extensive Statistics Solution to the Cosmological Lithium Problem - S.Q. Hou et al

Astrophysical Journal 834(2):165 (10 Jan 2017) DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/834/2/165
arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1701.04149 > 16 Jan 2017

bystander · Post by **bystander** » Fri Feb 17, 2017 10:55 pm

Revisiting Black Holes as Dark Matter
NOVA | American Astronomical Society | 2017 Feb 17

Susanna Kohler wrote:
Could dark matter be made of intermediate-mass black holes formed in the beginning of the universe? A recent study takes a renewed look at this question. ...

Limits on the Mass and Abundance of Primordial Black Holes from Quasar Gravitational Microlensing - E. Mediavilla et al

Astrophysical Journal Letters 836(2):L18 (2017 Feb 20) DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/aa5dab/
arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1702.00947 > 03 Feb 2017

bystander · Post by **bystander** » Fri Feb 24, 2017 5:29 pm

A Planet Soon to Meet Its Demise
NOVA | American Astronomical Society | 2017 Feb 22

Susanna Kohler wrote:
A tiny telescope has discovered a scalding hot world orbiting its star 1,300 light-years from us. KELT-16b may only be around for a few more hundreds of thousands of years, however. ...

KELT-16b: A Highly Irradiated, Ultra-short Period Hot Jupiter Nearing Tidal Disruption - Thomas E. Oberst et al

Astronomical Journal 153(3):97 (Mar 2017) DOI: 10.3847/1538-3881/153/3/97
arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1608.00618 > 01 Aug 2016 (v1), 31 Jan 2017 (v2)

bystander · Post by **bystander** » Fri Mar 03, 2017 3:46 pm

ALMA Explores How Supermassive Black Holes Talk to Their Galaxies
NOVA | American Astronomical Society | 2017 Feb 24

Susanna Kohler wrote:
We believe that supermassive black holes evolve in tandem with their host galaxies — but how do the two communicate? Observations from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have revealed new clues about how a monster black hole talks to its galaxy. ...

Alma Observations of Massive Molecular Gas Filaments Encasing Radio Bubbles in the Phoenix Cluster - H.R. Russell et al

Astrophysical Journal 836(1):130 (10 Feb 2017) DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/836/1/130
arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1611.00017 > 31 Oct 2016 (v1), 15 Dec 2016 (v2)

http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?t=36849

bystander · Post by **bystander** » Fri Mar 03, 2017 4:05 pm

A Challenge to Our View of How Stars Die
NOVA | American Astronomical Society | 2017 Feb 27

Susanna Kohler wrote:
For the first time ever, we’ve been able to watch the complete metamorphosis of an unusual explosion from one type of supernova to another. What do our observations of SN 2014C mean for our understanding of how massive stars end their lives? ...

Ejection of the Massive Hydrogen-Rich Envelope Timed with the Collapse of the Stripped SN 2014C - Raffaella Margutti et al

Astrophysical Journal 835(2):140 (2017 Feb 01) DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/835/2/140
arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1601.06806 > 25 Jan 2017

http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?t=36784

bystander · Post by **bystander** » Fri Mar 03, 2017 4:14 pm

The Birth of Disks Around Protostars
NOVA | American Astronomical Society | 2017 Mar 01

Susanna Kohler wrote:
The dusty disks around young stars make the news regularly due to their appeal as the birthplace of early exoplanets. But how do disks like these first form and evolve around their newly born protostars? New observations from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) are helping us to better understand this process. ...

Signs of Early-Stage Disk Growth Revealed with ALMA - Hsi-Wei Yen et al

Astrophysical Journal 834(2):178 (10 Jan 2017) DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/834/2/178
arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1611.08416 > 25 Nov 2016

bystander · Post by **bystander** » Fri Mar 10, 2017 4:20 pm

Where Do Messy Planetary Nebulae Come From?
NOVA | American Astronomical Society | 2017 Mar 03

If you examined images of planetary nebulae, you would find that many of them have an appearance that is too “messy” to be accounted for in the standard model of how planetary nebulae form. So what causes these structures? ...

Planetary Nebulae that Cannot Be Explained by Binary Systems - Ealeal Bear, Noam Soker

Astrophysical Journal Letters 837(1):L10 (2017 Mar 01) DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/aa611c

bystander · Post by **bystander** » Fri Mar 10, 2017 4:27 pm

The Discovery of Five Early Gamma-Ray Blazars
NOVA | American Astronomical Society | 2017 Mar 08

Due to a recent software improvement, the Large Area Telescope (LAT) on board the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has discovered five gamma-ray blazars at high redshifts, opening a window to the early universe. ...

Gamma-Ray Blazars within the First 2 Billion Years - Fermi LAT Collaboration, M. Ackermann et al

Astrophysical Journal Letters 837(1):L5 (2017 Mar 01) DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/aa5fff
arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1702.04006 > 13 Feb 2017

bystander · Post by **bystander** » Tue Mar 14, 2017 3:32 pm

Building Magnetic Fields in White Dwarfs
NOVA | American Astronomical Society | 2017 Mar 10

White dwarfs, the compact remnants left over at the end of low- and medium-mass stars’ lifetimes, are often found to have magnetic fields with strengths ranging from thousands to billions of times that of Earth. But how do these fields form? ...

A Common Origin of Magnetism from Planets to White Dwarfs - Jordi Isern et al

Astrophysical Journal Letters 836(2):L28 (2017 Feb 20) DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/aa5eae
arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1702.01813 > 06 Feb 2017 (v1), 21 Feb 2017 (v2)

bystander · Post by **bystander** » Tue Mar 14, 2017 3:42 pm

How Stable is a Light Sail Riding on a Laser Beam?
NOVA | American Astronomical Society | 2017 Mar 13

The Breakthrough Starshot Initiative made headlines last year when the plan was first announced to send tiny spacecraft to our nearest stellar neighbors. But just how feasible is this initiative? A new study looks at just one aspect of this plan: whether we can propel the spacecraft successfully. ...

Stability of a Light Sail Riding on a Laser Beam - Zachary Manchester, Abraham Loeb

Astrophysical Journal Letters 837(2):L20 (2017 Mar 10) DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/aa619b
arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1609.09506 > 29 Sep 2016 (v1), 18 Feb 2017 (v3)

bystander · Post by **bystander** » Fri Mar 17, 2017 7:19 pm

A Connection between Corona and Jet
NOVA | American Astronomical Society | 2017 Mar 15

The structure immediately around a supermassive black hole at the heart of an active galaxy can tell us about how material flows in and out of these monsters — but this region is hard to observe! A new study provides us with clues of what might be going on in these active and energetic cores of galaxies. ...

AGN Coronae through a Jet Perspective - Ashley L. King, Anne Lohfink, Erin Kara

Astrophysical Journal 835(2):226 (01 Feb 2017) DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/835/2/226
arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1612.07784 > 22 Dec 2016

bystander · Post by **bystander** » Fri Mar 17, 2017 7:25 pm

More Unusual Light Curves from Kepler
NOVA | American Astronomical Society | 2017 Mar 17

Twenty-three new objects have been added to the growing collection of stars observed to have unusual dips in their light curves. A recent study examines these stars and the potential causes of their strange behavior. ...

Orbiting Clouds of Material at the Keplerian Co-Rotation Radius
of Rapidly Rotating Low Mass WTTs in Upper Sco - John Stauffer et al

Astronomical Journal 153(4):152 (Apr 2017) DOI: 10.3847/1538-3881/aa5eb9
arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1702.01797 > 06 Feb 2017