Read article 'An Introduction to Birth, Evolution and Death of Stars'
How stars form from interstellar matter, how they evolve and die, was understood only relatively recently. All of these aspects are covered in this book by Lequeux, who directed the Marseilles observa...
Read article 'CLOUD sees through the haze'
The CLOUD (Cosmic Leaving OUtdoor Droplets) experiment at CERN, which is studying whether cosmic rays have a climatically significant effect on aerosols and clouds, is also tackling one of the most ch...
Read article 'New instrument sees intergalactic filaments'
A team of US astronomers has taken unprecedented images of the intergalactic medium (IGM) – the diffuse gas that connects galaxies throughout the universe. These first pictures of the IGM were o...
Read article 'BICEP2 finds evidence of cosmic inflation'
The news came as a surprise on 17 March, making a “big bang” in the physics community. Within hours of the announcement, physicists around the world had become aware of the existence ...
Read article 'Fermi gamma-rays match dark-matter signal'
A new analysis of observations of the galactic centre by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope strengthens the case for a signal from annihilating dark matter. The authors claim that the excess emission...
Read article 'Record-setting GRB challenges theories'
The very bright, relatively nearby gamma-ray burst (GRB) of 27 April 2013 – GRB 130427A – offers astronomers the most complete set of observational data of this phenomenon to date. Wh...
Read article 'Black-hole jets contain heavy nuclei'
One of the open questions of astrophysics is the composition of the powerful jets launched by black holes. Are the jets purely leptonic or do they also contain protons and nuclei? The latter are impli...
Read article 'Light echoes reveal black hole’s violent past'
Researchers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory have found evidence that the normally dim region close to the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way flared up with at least tw...
Read article 'CLOUD shines new light on aerosol formation in atmosphere'
The CLOUD experiment at CERN, which is studying whether cosmic rays have a climatically significant effect on aerosols and clouds, is also tackling one of the most challenging and long-standing proble...
Read article 'Volatile millisecond pulsar validates theory'
For the first time, astronomers have caught a pulsar in a crucial transitional phase that explains the origin of the mysterious millisecond pulsars. The newly found pulsar swings back and forth betwee...
