Press release

Sleeping giant surprises Gaia scientists

Published on April 16, 2024
ESA press release

Wading through the wealth of data from ESA’s Gaia mission, scientists have uncovered a ‘sleeping giant’. A large black hole, with a mass of nearly 33 times the mass of the Sun, was hiding in the constellation Aquila, less than 2000 light-years from Earth. This is the first time a black hole of stellar origin this big has been spotted within the Milky Way. So far, black holes of this type have only been observed in very distant galaxies. The discovery challenges our understanding of how massive (...)

Discovery of a nascent planet in close orbit around a young star

Published on March 25, 2024

A study conducted by a team of scientists from the Institut de Planétologie et d’Astrophysique de Grenoble (IPAG - CNRS / UGA) as part of the ERC SPIDI project Scientific local contacts [Jérôme Bouvier->

Groundbreaking survey reveals secrets of planet birth around dozens of stars

Published on March 05, 2024

In a series of studies, a team of astronomers has shed new light on the fascinating and complex process of planet formation. The stunning images, captured using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) in Chile, represent one of the largest ever surveys of planet-forming discs. The research brings together observations of more than 80 young stars that might have planets forming around them, providing astronomers with a wealth of data and unique insights into how (...)

Distant black hole mass measurement demonstrates the potential of GRAVITY+

Published on February 01, 2024

Astronomers have, for the first time, made a direct measurement of the mass of a distant black hole, one so far away that light from its surroundings took 11 billion years to reach us. The team, led by Taro Shimizu at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany, involving scientists from IPAG, found the black hole, called J0920, to have a mass of about 320 million times that of the Sun. This achievement, described in a paper published today in Nature, has been made (...)

The disk with three rings making metal-rich planets

Published on January 09, 2024

How Earth and the Solar System were formed, is an age-old question of humankind. By studying the present state of our planet, scientists were able to trace back our planetary history to the very beginning. Now we know that Earth formed from the dust which encircled the newborn Sun 4.5 billion years ago. An alternative approach to study the origin of our globe is to observe planetary systems currently in the making around distant young stars. An international team of astronomers observed (...)

Weather report: Expect scattered, patchy clouds made up of silicates on planet VHS 1256 b

Published on March 29, 2023

To date, despite the huge number of exoplanet discoveries, the formation and properties of giant planets remains a mystery. Giant exoplanets sculpt young exoplanetary systems, and might determine whether smaller Earth-like planets could be capable of harboring life. The observation and characterization of the properties of young exoplanets is crucial (i) to help scientists to understand what giant exoplanets are made of, how they differ from Jupiter and Saturn, and (ii) how they formed.
In (...)

Polarized X-rays reveal shape, orientation of extremely hot matter around black hole

Published on November 10, 2022

Researchers’ recent observations of a stellar-mass black hole called Cygnus X-1 reveal new details about the configuration of extremely hot matter in the region immediately surrounding the black hole. Matter is heated to millions of degrees as it is pulled toward a black hole. This hot matter glows in X-rays. Researchers are using measurements of the polarization of these X-rays to test and refine models that describe how black holes swallow matter, becoming some of the most luminous (...)

Discovery of 30 exocomets in a young planetary system

Published on May 06, 2022
CNRS Press release

For the past thirty years, the star β Pictoris has fascinated astronomers because it enables them to observe a planetary system in the process of formation. It is made up of at least two young planets, and also contains comets, which were detected as early as 1987. These were the first comets ever observed around a star other than the Sun. Now, an international research team headed by Alain Lecavelier des Etangs, CNRS researcher at the Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris (CNRS/Sorbonne (...)

An ancient age for the first known impact crater under the Greenland Ice Sheet

Published on March 11, 2022

Scientists have precisely dated the Hiawatha impact crater, the first known impact crater buried under the Greenland Ice Sheet to 58 million years old – just a few million years younger than the impact that killed off the dinosaurs. The work (involving scientists from IGE & IPAG) led by researchers at the Swedish Museum of Natural History, the Natural History Museum of Denmark, and the Globe Institute University of Copenhagen overturns previous suggestions that the impact may have (...)

Hope for Present-Day Martian Groundwater Dries Up

Published on January 27, 2022

Liquid water previously detected under Mars’ ice-covered south pole is probably just a dusty mirage, according to a new study of the red planet led by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin.
Scientists in 2018 had thought they were looking at liquid water when they saw bright radar reflections under the polar cap. However, the new study published Jan. 24 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters found that the reflections matched those of volcanic plains found all over the red (...)