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ALMA unveils rapid star formation in distant galaxies

In general, the larger a galaxy’s mass, the higher its rate of forming new stars. However, every now and then a galaxy will display a burst of newly-formed stars that shine brighter than the rest. Researchers using the Atacama Large Millimetre Array (ALMA) have found that galaxies forming stars at extreme rates 9 billion years ago were more efficient than average galaxies today.

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Comet’s tail may shed light on solar wind heating

We can’t see the wind, but we can learn about it by observing things that are being blown about. And by studying changes in a comet’s bright tail of gas and ions, scientists are on the trail to solving two big mysteries about the solar wind — the supersonic outflow of electrically charged gas from the Sun’s million-degree upper atmosphere, or corona.

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Hubble portrait captures changes in Jupiter’s Great Red Spot

Scientists using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have produced new maps of Jupiter that show the continuing changes in its famous Great Red Spot. The images also reveal a rare wave structure in the planet’s atmosphere that has not been seen for decades. This is the first in a series of annual portraits of the solar system’s outer planets which will help researchers study how they change over time.

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VLA reveals spectacular “haloes” of spiral galaxies

An international team of astronomers used the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) to investigate 35 edge-on spiral galaxies at distances from 11 million to 137 million light-years from Earth. The study has revealed that “haloes” of cosmic rays and magnetic fields above and below the galaxies’ discs are much more common than previously thought.

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A sharp-eyed future for historic Kitt Peak telescope

The 2.1-metre telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory will be transformed into the first dedicated adaptive optics (AO) observatory for astronomy. This system, named Robo-AO KP, will allow astronomers to study large numbers of astronomical objects in high resolution, spanning science from planetary to stellar, and exoplanetary to extragalactic.

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Banking X-ray data for the future

NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has collected data for over sixteen years on thousands of different objects throughout the universe. Once the data is processed, all of the data goes into an archive and is available to the public. To celebrate American Archive Month, a collection of new images from the Chandra archive has just been released.

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Understanding pulsating aurorae

Thanks to a lucky conjunction of two satellites, a ground-based array of all-sky cameras, and some spectacular aurorae boreales, researchers have uncovered evidence for an unexpected role that electrons have in creating the dancing aurorae. Though humans have been seeing aurorae for thousands of years, we have only recently begun to understand what causes them.