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Playing detective on a galactic scale: huge new dataset will solve multiple Milky Way mysteries
Australian-led GALAH project releases chemical information for 600,000 stars. How do stars destroy lithium? Was a drastic change in the shape of the Milky Way caused by the sudden arrival of millions of stellar stowaways? These are just a couple of the astronomical questions likely to be answered following the
Astronomers find regular rhythms among pulsating stars
Through the noise, young stars reveal their inner workings An Australian-led team has solved the mystery of how some rapidly rotating young stars pulsate. Delta Scuti stars can now be studied in more detail thanks to the work of Professor Tim Bedding and colleagues. By listening to the beating hearts
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Galaxy’s arms elbow stars into our neighbourhood
Many stars that now live near the Sun were born somewhere else in the Galaxy. Astronomers have just worked out how these migrants reached their new homes and what set them travelling – important details of our Galaxy’s story.
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An explosion at the centre of our Galaxy
A new study led by SIfA professor Joss Bland-Hawthorn shows evidence that a huge explosion occurred at the centre of our Galaxy. This explosion was so powerful that it could only have come from one thing: the supermassive black hole today lying dormant in the middle of our galaxy, Sagittarius A*.
The Cannibal Next Door
SIfA Professor Geraint Lewis and his international team, including with SIfA PhD students Zhen Wen, have unravelled the cannibalistic past of the Andromeda galaxy. This study, published in Nature, analysed globular cluster data from the Pan-Andromeda Archaeological Survey (PAndAS) to reconstruct the times when Andromeda devoured small galaxies to grow its
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