A team of astronomers led by the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard and Smithsonian have for the first time used galactic archaeology, the study of detailed chemical fingerprints in deep space, to trace the history of a galaxy outside the Milky Way. The study, published today in the journal Nature Astronomy, demonstrates a new way to reconstruct the evolution of distant galaxies, and opens up a new field of astronomy, called “extragalactic archaeology.” 

A team of researchers led by the University of Tokyo Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU, WPI) Project Assistant Professor Elisa Ferreira has shown that a discrepancy in a key cosmic measurement in the early universe originates from a subtle statistical interplay between measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO).

Previous measurements of lightning on Jupiter were from dark-side optical observations and yielded conflicting conclusions about the power they release. A UC Berkeley scientist used new data from Juno’s microwave detector to calculate the power in 613 pulses, concluding they range from Earth size to hundreds of times Earth’s bolts, and perhaps even greater. The strength helps to understand convection on the planet, which creates long-lasting storm clouds 10 times higher than those on Earth.

In the south-east of Chile, terraces host relic gypsum, a sulfate mineral, in layered sedimentary formations, known as stromatolites, that were formed under extreme climates. This environment provides a natural analog for sedimentary rocks on Mars. In a recent Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences study, an international team of researchers investigated colonization and biosignatures of microbes growing inside fossilized gypsum layers – an approach that could help them understand the formation and preservation of environmental systems on Mars where sulfate plays a central role.

Gravitational waves are ripples in spacetime produced by violent cosmic events, such as the merging of black holes. So far, direct detections have relied on measuring tiny distance changes over kilometer-scale instruments. In a new theoretical study accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters, researchers at Stockholm University, Nordita, and the University of T¨ubingen propose an unconventional approach: tracking how gravitational waves reshape the light emitted by atoms. The work describes a possible detection route, but an experimental demonstration remains for the

future.