Highlights from AAS Nova: 24 July - 6 August 2016

AAS Nova provides brief highlights of recently published articles from the AAS journals, i.e., The Astronomical Journal (AJ) and The Astrophysical Journal (ApJ), ApJ Letters, and ApJ Supplements. The website's intent is to gain broader exposure for AAS authors and to provide astronomy researchers and enthusiasts with summaries of recent, interesting research across a wide range of astronomical fields.

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The following are the AAS Nova highlights from the past two weeks; follow the links to read more, or visit the AAS Nova webpage for more posts.

5 August 2016
Images of an Activated Asteroid
In late April of this year, asteroid P/2016 G1 was discovered streaking through space, a tail of dust extending behind it. What caused this asteroid’s tail?

3 August 2016
How a Star Cluster Ruled Out MACHOs
Are massive black holes hiding in the halos of galaxies, making up the majority of the universe’s mysterious dark matter?

2 August 2016
White Dwarf Surprise — Again!
Astrobites reports on a Kepler spacecraft finding: two new white dwarfs that are “outbursting” — suddenly brightening every few days before quieting down again.

1 August 2016
Satellite Galaxies of the Milky Way
This beautiful image features Eridanus II, an ultra-faint dwarf galaxy that is orbiting the Milky Way.

29 July 2016
Observing the Sun with NuSTAR
A high-energy telescope designed to observe distant astrophysical sources has recently been used to point much closer to home. Can it solve a few longstanding mysteries about the Sun?

27 July 2016
Water Clouds in the Atmosphere of a Jupiter-Like Brown Dwarf
New observations have provided evidence of water clouds in the atmosphere of a brown dwarf located just 7.2 light-years away.

26 July 2016
Mass Loss in Dying Stars
By the time a star becomes a white dwarf, much of its mass will have been lost. When does this mass loss occur and what drives it?

25 July 2016
A Pulsar and a Disk
Recent, unusual X-ray observations from the Small Magellanic Cloud have led to an interesting model for SXP 214, a pulsar in a binary star system.