Related papers: On the origin of the North Celestial Pole Loop
We review the evolution of our understanding of the planetary nebulae phenomenon and their place in the scheme of stellar evolution. The historical steps leading to our current understanding of central star evolution and nebular formation…
Using VLTI/GRAVITY and SINFONI data, we investigate the sub-pc gas and dust structure around the nearby type 1 AGN hosted by NGC 3783. The K-band coverage of GRAVITY uniquely allows a simultaneous analysis of the size and kinematics of the…
Even today in our Galaxy, stars form from gas cores in a variety of environments, which may affect the properties of resulting star and planetary systems. Here we study the role of pressure, parameterized via ambient clump mass surface…
I investigate the caustics produced by the fall of collisionless dark matter in and out of a galaxy in the limit of negligible velocity dispersion. The outer caustics are spherical shells enveloping the galaxy. The inner caustics are rings.…
The magnetospheric plasma distribution in the vicinity of a pulsar at various inclination angles is investigated using a new relativistic, parallel 3D Particle-In-Cell (PIC) code DYMPHNA3D. DYMPHNA3D uses a superposition of the…
Understanding star formation in galaxies requires resolving the physical scale on which star formation often occurs: the scale of star clusters. We present a multiwavelength, eight-parsec resolution study of star formation in the…
We use direct N-body simulations to investigate the evolution of star clusters with large size-scales with the particular goal of understanding the so-called extended clusters observed in various Local Group galaxies, including M31 and…
Galaxies of different types are not equally distributed in the Local Universe. In particular, the supergalactic plane is prominent among the brightest ellipticals, but inconspicuous among the brightest disk galaxies. This striking…
We present a wide-field (~6'x6') and deep near-infrared (Ks band: 2.14 micro m) circular polarization image in the Orion nebula, where massive stars and many low-mass stars are forming. Our results reveal that a high circular polarization…
NGC 3311 is the central galaxy of the Hydra I galaxy cluster. It has a hot interstellar medium and hosts a central dust lane with emission lines. These dust lanes are frequent in elliptical galaxies, but the case of NGC 3311 might be…
The Cygnus Loop is among the brightest and best studied evolved Galactic supernova remnants. However, its distance has remained uncertain thus undermining quantitative understanding about many of its fundamental properties. Here we present…
The planetary nebula NGC 6720, also known as the ``Ring Nebula", is one of the most iconic examples of nearby planetary nebulae whose morphologies present a challenge to our theoretical understanding of the processes that govern the deaths…
The LMC is ideal for studying the co-evolution of planetary nebulae (PNe) and their central stars, in that the debilitating uncertainties of the Galactic PN distance scale and selection biases from attenuation by interstellar dust do not…
The origin of the highly eccentric, inclined, and resonance-locked orbit of Pluto has long been a puzzle. A possible explanation has been proposed recently [Malhotra, R., {\it Nature} 365:819-21 (1993)] which suggests that these…
We probe the evolution of globular clusters that could form in giant molecular clouds within high-redshift galaxies. Numerical simulations demonstrate that the large and dense enough gas clouds assemble naturally in current hierarchical…
Recent observations have revealed interstellar features that apparently connect energetic activity in the central region of our Galaxy to its halo. The nature of these features, however, remains largely uncertain. We present a Chandra…
We recently proposed that the star-forming potential of dense molecular clouds in the Central Molecular Zone (CMZ, i.e. the central few 100 pc) of the Milky Way is linked to their orbital dynamics, potentially giving rise to an…
The bipolar-hyper shell (BHS) model for the North Polar Spurs (NPS-E, -W, and Loop I) and counter southern spurs (SPS-E and -W) is revisited based on numerical hydrodynamical simulations. Propagations of shock waves produced by energetic…
The recent characterization of transiting close-in planets has revealed an intriguing population of sub-Neptunes with highly tilted and even polar orbits relative to their host star's equator. Any viable theory for the origin of these…
Astronomical observations reveal that protoplanetary disks around young stars commonly have ring- and gap-like structures in their dust distributions. These features are associated with pressure bumps trapping dust particles at specific…