news 2024

More accurate orbit predictions for satellites and space debris as well as a better understanding of the water masses present on Earth: Researchers at TU Graz have achieved both using satellite laser ranging. What do the Earth's gravitational field and the trajectories of satellites and space debris have in common? The Earth's gravitational field influences the orbits of our companions in space, while the changes in the orbits in turn allow conclusions to be drawn about changes in the gravitational field and thus existing water masses.

A historical supernova documented by Chinese and Japanese astronomers in 1181 has been lost for centuries, until very recently. Yet, the newly found remnant shows some stunning characteristics that are puzzling astronomers. Now, it surrenders its secrets. A team led by Tim Cunningham from the Center for Astrophysics, Harvard & Smithsonian, and Ilaria Caiazzo, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA), provides the first detailed study of the supernova's structure and speed of expansion in 3D.

International researchers involving Graz University of Technology have used radar data to determine which glaciers in High Mountain Asia are growing or shrinking in which season. For parts of Central Asia and the Himalayas, the findings contradict previous assumptions. Glaciers are dynamic entities: over the course of the year, phases of mass growth, particularly due to snowfall, alternate with periods in which glaciers lose mass.

Life needs the right conditions - warmth, water and, of course, the building blocks of life, such as amino acids and proteins. These have already been detected on meteorites. A research project at the Johannes Kepler University Linz has now shown how these building blocks of life could be created in space - adding an important facet to our understanding of life.

Supernova explosions from the formation history of these families also left traces on Earth An international team of astronomers led by the University of Vienna has deciphered the formation history of young star clusters, some of which we can see with the naked eye at night. The team, led by Cameren Swiggum and João Alves from the University of Vienna and Robert Benjamin from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, reports that most nearby young star clusters belong to only three families, which originate from very massive star-forming regions.

Launched last year, ESA's Euclid space telescope has already been delivering data for almost a year. The first scientific results are being published today. They show that the new instrument is capable of detecting a representative sample of all galaxies in the universe. For example, a study led by the University of Innsbruck was able to identify over 600 previously unknown dwarf galaxies in the Perseus galaxy cluster .

In the COSINUS research project, an international team involving TU Wien and the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) is searching for evidence of dark matter. The large-scale experiment is now starting in Italy . How can we understand dark matter? It probably makes up around 85% of the mass in the universe, but what it is and what it consists of is still one of the biggest and most difficult questions in modern physics.

Astrophysicists were able to quantify the mass loss of stars via their stellar winds An international research team led by a researcher from the University of Vienna has for the first time directly detected stellar winds from three Sun-like stars by recording the X-ray emission from their astrospheres, and placed constraints on the mass loss rate of the stars via their stellar winds.

The ÖAW and TU Vienna were able to show during a parabolic flight: A change in gravity has no influence on quantum experiments . A team from the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Vienna University of Technology was able to prove this during a flight with the European Space Agency: Quantum entanglement also works when the strength of gravity changes.