Sixteen years ago, theoretical astrophysicists at UC Berkeley and elsewhere proposed that highly magnetized, spinning neutron stars — magnetars — were the power source behind some superluminous supernovae. A 2024 supernova provided the smoking gun. Based on data obtained by Las Cumbres Observatory, a UC Santa Barbara graduate student proposed that a general relativistic precession in an accretion disk around the magnetar can explain the rising frequency of oscillations in the light curve, producing something like a bird chirp.

Breakthrough discovery provides new clues about how these celestial bodies - that push the known laws of physics to their limits - find each other.

University of Cincinnati engineers looked for simple but effective ways to maintain a robot's orientation while working on a broken satellite in zero gravity. They discovered that a second robotic arm acting as a counterbalance could help the robot maintain stability.