Dec 22, 2021
DAp-AIM scientist helps uncover largest group of rogue planets yet with a panoramic camera built by CEA
Rogue planets are elusive cosmic objects that have masses comparable to the largest planets in our Solar System but do not orbit a star, instead roaming freely on their own. Not many were known until now, but a team of astronomers, using data from facilities across the world, have just discovered at least 70 new rogue planets in our galaxy just a few hundred light-years away in the Scorpion sky region.
Feb 05, 2018
A galactic cohabitation more hectic than expected
The MegaCam camera developed at CEA-Irfu has revealed previously unsuspected structures within the famous Stephan Quintet, a spectacular combination of five galaxies. The discovery of a very large red halo, consisting of old stars, centered on one of the elliptical galaxies, NGC 7317, shows that the group of galaxies is still in very strong interaction, an aspect totally ignored in previous studies.
Sep 30, 2016
New light on the formation of giant galaxies
Observations of Malin 1, a nearby galaxy and a perfect prototype of the "giant galaxies with low surface brightness," have allowed scientists from an international team including a researcher from the Astrophysics Laboratory-Service AIM CEA-IRFU to make an unexpected discovery that challenges the assumptions about galaxy formation process of this type.
Apr 11, 2013
A giant survey of weak gravitational lensing
An international collaboration of astrophysicists, led by Martin Kilbinger from the Astrophysics Division - AIM Laboratory AIM at CEA Saclay-Irfu and the Institute of Astrophysics Paris, has obtained the largest survey of galaxy images that are deformed by gravitation.
More than 4.2 million galaxies have been observed during more than 500 nights at the Canada-France Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) with the camera MegaCam, built at the CEA. The fine analysis of these images is the goal of the CFHTLenS project [1].
Apr 19, 2010
Supernovae will no longer escape from physicists!
The SNLS collaboration (Supernova Legacy Survey, at the Canada-France-Hawaii telescope) has just published a new method which allows the determination of the recession velocity of supernovae, those "standard candles" which have appeared in the universe throughout its history. The novelty of the method is its ability to study these cataclysmic explosions without needing to turn to spectroscopy, which requires too much observation time, even when using the planet's largest telescopes.
