Angela Adamo and Ragnhild Lunnan at the Department of Astronomy have been appointed to docents.

In the latest issue of the journal Nature, astronomers from Stockholm University participate in a study of an exploding star that lacks all of the most common elements in the Universe. This rare stripped star helps scientists understand how and where elements like sulphur and silicon form.

The Vera Rubin Observatory's new LSST telescope is now operational, marking the start of a new era in astronomical research at the Oskar Klein Centre (OKC). With funding previously granted by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation totaling SEK 30 million, OKC now significantly enhances its capability to explore fundamental questions about the universe.

The Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) collaboration has announced a major milestone in the study of cosmic expansion and supernova physics with the release of over 20 scientific publications in a special issue of the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.

The Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) collaboration has announced a major milestone in the study of cosmic expansion and supernova physics with the release of over 20 scientific publications in a special issue of the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.

Astronomers have used the telescopes at the Canary Islands Observatories on La Palma, including the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) and the Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT), to study the evolution of an exceptionally fast and bright cosmic outburst in a small galaxy located 500 million light years away. The outburst, identified as CSS161010, reached its brightest peak in just 4 days and declined to half of this brightness in only 2.5 days, making its discovery and subsequent observations of its evolution particularly challenging

A small telescope on a mountain in California has enabled collecting over 10 000 supernovae over the past 7 years. A large team of international scientists – including astronomers in Stockholm– has made this possible. The international supernova survey Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) and its Bright Transient Survey (BTS) has finally reached 10 000 supernovae. A supernova is an exploding star, and the best way to find one is to monitor many, many distant galaxies and look for new bright objects. This is done routinely with the ZTF telescope on Palomar, California, in the BTS study led by Caltech staff-scientist Christoffer Fremling. This project has now reached a record-breaking number of 10 000 supernovae.   The most prolific supernova hunter in the team is Fremling's former PhD supervisor, Professor Jesper Sollerman at the Department of Astronomy at Stockholm University.

Ingress

In the latest issue of the journal Nature, researchers from Stockholm University participate in a study of a supernova explosion where the astronomers made the Hubble telescope turn and look in a different direction than planned. The ultraviolet light from the explosion shows that the exploding red giant star was embedded in gas that puffed out in the years before the final bang. Supernovae – exploding stars – suddenly appear in the night sky. The closest supernova in nearly 10 years, SN 2023ixf, was discovered by a Japanese amateur astronomer on Friday evening, May 19 last year (2023). Just 20 million light-years away in the Whirlpool Galaxy (M101) in the Big Bear constellation, it became a favorite among Earth's astrophotographers (see Image).

Scientists can finally show that a neutron star formed from our most well-studied supernova, SN 1987A. The breakthrough was made possible thanks to the James Webb telescope.