<p>Galaxy groups and clusters are the least massive systems where the bulk of baryons are accounted for and also the most massive systems that are gravitationally bound. They contain a wealth of galaxies sampling the broad spectra of galaxy properties, including the most massive galaxies (and probably the most massive supermassive black holes) and galaxies with the highest velocities in the univer...</p>
<p>Enceladus, a small icy satellite of Saturn, was found to have a subsurface water ocean and evidence of ongoing hydrothermal activity in the seafloor. The ocean water, sampled via a plume, was inferred to contain substantial levels of inorganic and organic carbon as well as ammonia. However, there are very few constraints on the availability of other bio-essential nutrients, including phosphorus...</p>
<p>The current model of accretion disks, that of Shakura and Sunyaev (1973) asserts that such disks are geometrically thin, and are prone to a number of instabilities. One such instability is that of fragmentation due to self-gravity at radii larger than a few hundred black hole gravitational radii, which would limit the mass accretion rate to be well below that observed to occur. Recent GIZMO (La...</p>
<p>The Einstein Probe (EP, renamed 天关 in Chinese last week), launched on January 9th, 2024, is a space X-ray observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in collaboration with ESA, MPE and CNES. It is detecting high-energy transient and variable sources in the X-ray band with better sensitivity and spatial resolution by at least one order of magnitude than the other operating wide-field monito...</p>
<p>Recent observations from ALMA and JWST have revealed the complex and turbulent nature of galaxies at high redshift, during the epoch of formation of globular clusters. The emergence of large disks at cosmic dawn (z > 10) and the almost ubiquity of massive star forming clumps at cosmic noon (z~2) question the formation scenarios of globular clusters. Although gravitational lensing pushes the obs...</p>
<p>Planets between the size of Earth and Neptune, also known as sub-Neptunes, pose a conundrum. They are absent in the solar system, but more than half of all Sun-like stars in the Galaxy host a sub-Neptune interior to 1 au. Although the number of sub-Neptunes atmospheres probed so far has been very low, a major breakthrough in exo-atmospheres science is happening right now thanks to the increased...</p>
<p>Open clusters provide an ideal laboratory for testing and calibrating our understanding of stellar physics and single stellar population. In this talk, I will discuss how astronomers use open clusters as a well-defined single population of stars to study the Milky Way disk and stellar evolution. Additionally, I will explore how open clusters can be used to validate pipeline results from large p...</p>
<p>The so-called Hypervelocity stars (HVSs; with velocities even greater than 1000 km/s) were first predicted from the theoretical arguments of Hills (1988), and attributed to be the result of tidal interaction between a close stellar binary system and a supermassive black hole (SMBH) in the Galactic center, commonly referred to as the “Hills mechanism”. HVSs or High-Velocity stars (HiVels) can ...</p>
<p>The discovery of neutrino oscillation established a non-zero mass of neutrino. The origin of neutrino and its non-zero mass is an one of the most important experimental clues to the new physics beyond the standard model. Neutrinos are ubiquitous in the universe, accompanying most of the weak-interacting physics processes. I shall review natural and artificial sources of neutrinos with an emph...</p>
<p>Circumstellar disks as young as 0.5 Myr bear gaps and rings as tentative planet signposts, which aligns with accumulating evidence of early planet formation. However, such young disks are poorly understood both observationally and theoretically. They are likely affected by the star formation environment becoming warped or eccentric. The disk flow can become peculiar, and various instabilities f...</p>