#aas247

[spacetelescopescience]

A team of astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope studied a starless, gas-rich, dark-matter cloud and found it to be a new type of astronomical object—a failed galaxy that never produced stars. Nicknamed Cloud-9, it is a fossil remnant from the early days of the universe.

Scientists have long sought evidence of such a phantom object. But only when they turned Hubble’s sharp vision toward Cloud-9 could they confirm its starless nature—a finding that furthers the understanding of galaxy formation, the early universe, and the nature of dark matter itself: https://news.stsci.edu/4bdj2Ov

[spacetelescopescience]

The early universe had few elemental ingredients for making the molecular building blocks of planets, but the James Webb Space Telescope is showing massive, aging stars may have found a way.

Sextans A is a nearby, tiny galaxy that resembles those that filled the early universe just after the big bang—when the universe was made of mostly hydrogen and helium—before stars had time to enrich space with “metals.”

In this galaxy, though, Webb found iron dust and complex carbon molecules, even with very few heavy elements available. The discovery offers new insight into how the first galaxies developed the building blocks for planets: https://news.stsci.edu/4st0ccz

[spacetelescopescience]

The red supergiant star at the shoulder of the constellation Orion holds a surprise. Astronomers have found new evidence that Betelgeuse is orbited by a small companion star, so close that the companion circulates within the extended outer atmosphere of the supergiant, as shown in this artist’s concept.

The Hubble Space Telescope has provided evidence of a dense “wake” of gas churned up by the orbital motion of the companion. This may explain why Betelgeuse varies in brightness every 2,100 days: https://news.stsci.edu/4sunaQH

[spacetelescopescience]

A small sample of galaxies, including the four shown here in an image from the James Webb Space Telescope, are defying astronomers’ attempts to categorize them.

Astronomer Haoijing Yan says they are so odd, they are like astronomy’s platypus, with features that shouldn’t coexist. How are they so distant, so tiny, and yet so bright?

Discover the mystery of the “platypus galaxies” with Webb: https://news.stsci.edu/4qamfDq