Related papers: The 1908 Tunguska Event and Bright Nights
The origin of GRBs have been a mystery for almost 30 years. The afterglow observed in the last few years enabled redshift determination for a handful of bursts, and the cosmological origin is now firmly established. Though the distance…
The ground-based imaging atmospheric Cherenkov technique is currently the most powerful observation method for very high energy gamma rays. With its specially designed camera and readout system, the MAGIC Telescope is capable of observing…
Modern surveys of gravitational microlensing events have progressed to detecting thousands per year. Surveys are capable of probing Galactic structure, stellar evolution, lens populations, black hole physics, and the nature of dark matter.…
A long-term decrease in downward surface solar radiation from the 1950s to the 1980s ("global dimming") followed by a multi-decadal increase up to the present ("brightening") have been detected in many regions worldwide. In addition, some…
Starbursts are the light intensity patterns seen when small bright sources are looked at night, typically stars. Starburst shapes are produced when the presence of the eye's wave aberrations generates caustics (light concentration) at the…
This article, produced as part of an undergraduate research class, aims to provide an overview of gravitational waves, though it does not offer a comprehensive review. We begin with a brief discussion regarding the history of gravitational…
Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) have remained a puzzle for many high-energy astrophysicists since their discovery in 1967. With the advent of the X-ray satellites BeppoSAX and RossiXTE, it has been possible to carry out deep multi-wavelength…
We search for signatures of gravitational lensing in the binary black hole events detected by Advanced LIGO and Virgo during their first two observational runs. In particular, we look for three effects: 1) evidence of lensing magnification…
The 1-m telescope at Lulin Observatory and the 0.76-m Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope at Lick Observatory were used to observe the optical afterglow of the short-duration (1.2--1.5 s) gamma-ray burst (GRB) 040924. This object has a soft…
The modern picture of the neutrino as a multiple mass highly mixed neutral particle has emerged over 40 years of study. Best known of the issues leading to this picture was the apparent loss of neutrinos coming from the sun. This article…
The visual perception of the natural night sky in many places of the world is strongly disturbed by anthropogenic light. Part of this artificial light is scattered in the atmosphere and propagates towards the observer, adding to the natural…
We consider small-scale spheroidal clusters of weakly interacting massive particles in our Galaxy as non-compact gravitational microlenses and predict the appearance of caustics in the plane of a lensed source. The crossing of these…
Context: The extreme luminosity of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) makes them powerful beacons for studies of the distant Universe. The most luminous bursts are typically detected at moderate/high redshift, where the volume for seeing such rare…
Over the past five years evidence has mounted that long-duration (> 2 s) gamma-ray bursts (GRBs)--the most brilliant of all astronomical explosions--signal the collapse of massive stars in our Universe. This evidence was originally based on…
The ANITA experiment, which is designed to detect ultra-high energy neutrinos, has reported the observation of two anomalous events, directed at angles of $27^{\circ}$ and $35^{\circ}$ with respect to the horizontal. At these angles, the…
When visiting the Museum of Modern Art's special exhibit ''van Gogh and the Colors of the Night (New York, USA, 2008)'' I was impressed by the artist's effort to paint and write about landscapes and life scenes at night. At the same time a…
Further bright sirens - gravitational wave events with electromagnetic counterparts - are keenly awaited, but proving elusive. The exceptional event GW170817 had a profound impact on the landscape of viable cosmological extensions of…
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are among the most violent occurrences in the universe. They are powerful explosions, visible to high redshift, and thought to be the signature of black hole birth. They are highly luminous events and provide…
To complement hydrodynamic studies of the tidal disruption of the star by a massive black hole, we present the study of stellar luminosity and its variations, produced by the strong gravitational field of the black hole during a close…
On 28 January 2010, the recurrent nova U Scorpii had its long predicted eruption; prior preparation allowed for this to become the all-time best observed nova event. The coverage included daily and hourly spectra in the X-ray, ultraviolet,…