Paul M. Sutter, Author at Universe Today

March 12, 2021March 9, 2021 by Paul M. Sutter

Comets Already Grow a Coma out in the Kuiper Belt

NAVCAM image of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko acquired on Nov. 22, 2015.

Just when do comets get their signature coma? Conventional wisdom says it only happens when they get close enough to the sun, but new research suggests it starts when they are still beyond the orbit of the planets.

March 11, 2021March 9, 2021 by Paul M. Sutter

The Oldest Stars Help Tell us how big the Universe is

Artist’s impression of the star in its multi-million year long and previously unobservable phase as a large, red supergiant. Credit: CAASTRO / Mats Björklund (Magipics)

Astronomers are struggling to understand the discrepancies when measuring the expansion rate of the universe with different methods, and are desperate for any creative idea to break the tension. A new method involving some of the oldest stars in the universe could just do the trick.

March 11, 2021March 9, 2021 by Paul M. Sutter

Researchers Discover the Source of the Sun’s Most Dangerous High-Energy Particles

Sometimes the sun spits out high-energy particles which slam into the Earth, potentially disrupting our sensitive electronics. New research has found that these particles originate in the plasma of the sun itself, and are trapped there by strong magnetic fields. When those fields weaken, the particles blast out.

March 10, 2021March 8, 2021 by Paul M. Sutter

Did Supermassive Black Holes Form Directly From Dark Matter?

This illustration depicts a gas halo surrounding a quasar in the early Universe. The quasar, in orange, has two powerful jets and a supermassive black hole at its centre, which is surrounded by a dusty disc. The gas halo of glowing hydrogen gas is represented in blue. A team of astronomers surveyed 31 distant quasars, seeing them as they were more than 12.5 billion years ago, at a time when the Universe was still an infant, only about 870 million years old. They found that 12 quasars were surrounded by enormous gas reservoirs: halos of cool, dense hydrogen gas extending 100 000 light years from the central black holes and with billions of times the mass of the Sun. These gas stashes provide the perfect food source to sustain the growth of supermassive black holes in the early Universe.

Supermassive black holes are just a little bit too supermassive – astronomers have difficulty explaining how they got so big so quickly in the early universe. So maybe it’s time for a new idea: perhaps giant black holes formed directly from dark matter.

March 10, 2021March 8, 2021 by Paul M. Sutter

This Exoplanetary System Breaks all the Rules

A cartoon of the K2-290 system, where two planets orbit backwards relative to the spin of their parent star. Image credit: Christoffer Grønne

It’s just like a normal solar system…except completely backwards.

March 9, 2021March 8, 2021 by Paul M. Sutter

The Most Recent Volcanic Activity on the Moon? Just 100 Million Years ago

The largest and most well known irregular mare patch, Ina. Image credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University

Regions of the Moon known as irregular mare patches – formed by magma cooling from a volcanic eruption – have almost no big craters, indicating that they must be relatively young. By studying the distribution of craters within them, we can estimate when these regions were formed: no more than 100 million years ago.

March 9, 2021March 8, 2021 by Paul M. Sutter

New Supercomputer Simulations Will Help pin Down Inflation

A diagram showing how the event of inflation laid down seeds that grew to become the largest structures in the universe. Image credit: The Institute of Statistical Mathematics

In the very earliest moments of the big bang, the universe experienced a period of rapid expansion known as inflation. That event planted the seeds that would eventually become galaxies and clusters. And now, a recent set of simulations is able to show us how that connection worked.

March 8, 2021March 8, 2021 by Paul M. Sutter

Simulations of the Universe are Getting Better and Better at Matching Reality

An artist's impression of the cosmic web, the filamentary structure that fills the entire Universe. Credit: M. Weiss/CfA

How can you possibly use simulations to reconstruct the history of the entire universe using only a small sample of galaxy observations? Through big data, that’s how.

March 8, 2021March 8, 2021 by Paul M. Sutter

Dust in the Chixalub Crater Makes the Compelling Case That an Asteroid Wiped out the Dinosaurs 65 Million Years ago

Impactors strike during the reign of the dinosaurs (image credit: MasPix/devianart)

For decades scientists have believed that an asteroid impact event ended the era of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. Now, analysis from the crater site itself seals the deal: the same elements that were deposited around the world from the impact have been found inside the crater itself.

February 4, 2021February 1, 2021 by Paul M. Sutter

Astronomers are now Finding Planetary Disks Around the Smallest, Least Massive Stars

Astronomers have been watching planetary systems form around sun-like stars for decades. And now, new observations with the ALMA telescope reveal the same process playing out around the smallest, but most common, stars in galaxy.