“This planet is unlike the planets in our solar system, but more than that, it is unlike any other exoplanets we have discovered so far,” says Caltech’s Sarah Blunt about a planet discovered with three times the mass of Jupiter that travels on a long, slingshot-shaped path around its star.
“We still have no new clue on whether the origin is artificial or natural,” said Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb about fast radio bursts (FRBs), one of the great astrophysical mysteries. In a rare feat, Caltech researchers have caught a new burst, called FRB 190523, pinpointing its origins to a galaxy 7.9 billion light-years away.
“One intriguing possibility is that some of these ghostly galaxies are living fossils from the dawn of the universe when stars and galaxies emerged in a much different environment than today,” said Aaron Romanowsky, a UCO astronomer and Associate Professor of the Physics and Astronomy Department at San José State University. “Their birth is truly a fascinating mystery that our team is working on solving.”
