Volume 1 Issue 11, November 2017

Through involvement in CHIME, ALMA, the Jansky VLA and the Murchison Widefield Array, Canada is well placed in current radio astronomy facilities and the future looks even brighter, with strategic interest in the SKA and the Next Generation VLA.

How do you build a (distance) ladder from the closest stars to the far-away supernovae and all the way back to the last scattering surface of the Universe? Jeremy Mould summarizes some of the highlights of the Stellar Populations and the Distance Scale conference.

The Gravitational-wave Optical Transient Observer telescope will provide a rapid response to gravitational wave event triggers in order to locate optical counterparts for subsequent multi-wavelength follow-up, explains Danny Steeghs.

The first detection of electromagnetic emission from a gravitational wave source bridges the gap between one of the most energetic phenomena in the Universe and their dark, difficult to detect progenitors.

A technique for weighing galaxy clusters using distortions of the cosmic microwave background is entering an era of precision measurements.

The tropical stratospheric temperature and wind field of several planets oscillate quasi-periodically. Recent Cassini observations show that Saturn’s oscillations were disturbed for more than three years by the year-long giant storm that appeared in 2010.

The discovery of Jupiter’s southern X-ray aurora reveals that it is tellingly different from the northern one, providing important clues to how Jupiter’s polar aurorae are generated.

The authors discover that Jupiter's southern X-ray aurora is concentrated into a hot spot (until now only the north pole was known to have one), which behaves completely differently in brightness and timing pulsation from its northern counterpart.

The 2010–2011 storm that appeared at Saturn’s northern mid-latitudes significantly altered the wind structure and atmospheric temperature even far away from the storm, by disrupting the quasi-periodic atmospheric oscillations at the equator for more than 3 years.

The authors detect hard X-ray emission produced by plasma heated at ≥10 million kelvin from a quiescent active region of the Sun, providing clear observational evidence of plasma heating by nanoflares, and hinting at their important role in coronal heating.

The origin of the broad-line emission from type-1 active galactic nuclei is unclear. Calculations of emission lines from dusty clumps that are tidally disrupted by the central black hole suggest that these clumps give rise to the broad-line emission.

The relatively unexplored southwestern region of the Large Magellanic Cloud is host to a massive, embedded star-forming complex that rivals the star-forming efficiency of 30 Doradus. Its most luminous object could be a super star cluster in formation.

A double neutron star merger gave rise to the gravitational-wave event GW 170817, with counterpart electromagnetic radiation in the optical and gamma-ray spectra. Polarization measurements of the optical emission reveal a lanthanide-rich macronova.

Mapping the optical emission of a galaxy cluster to its mass is challenging. Lensing of the cosmic microwave background by massive clusters is used to calibrate the optical richness of clusters to their total baryonic mass at the ten per cent level.

By assessing the ionization fraction of the environment around Tycho’s (type Ia) supernova, the authors have constrained the properties of its progenitor enough to rule out a hot, luminous white dwarf. A double white dwarf binary merger is allowed.