Monthly Archives: November 2017

Astronomers using the MUSE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope in Chile have conducted the deepest spectroscopic survey ever. They focused on the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, measuring distances and properties of 1600 very faint galaxies including 72 galaxies that have never been detected before. This groundbreaking dataset has already resulted in 10 science papers that are being published in a special issue of Astronomy & Astrophysics. This wealth of new information is giving astronomers insight into star formation in the early Universe. […]Read More

The current cosmological model to explain the universe, the “Big Bang” model, aims to describe all observable phenomena, including the evolution of galaxies from earliest times to the present day. One of the major problems in the Standard Model is that it predicts a star formation rate that is far too high. All the star-forming material in galaxies should have coalesced into stars when the universe was only a fraction of its present age of 13.8 billion years. However, over half the galaxies we see, mainly spirals, are actively forming stars right now. This discrepancy between theoretical prediction and observation has forced researchers to look much more closely at star formation quenching processes that can slow down the rate of star formation over the lifetimes of galaxies. Without this quenching, the standard Big Bang model fails to predict the universe as we know it. […]Read More

New simulations show that the search for life on other planets may well be more difficult than previously assumed, in research published today in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. The study indicates that unusual air flow patterns could hide atmospheric components from telescopic observations, with direct consequences for formulating the optimal strategy for searching for (oxygen-producing) life such as bacteria or plants on exoplanets. […]Read More