#Astrophysics #TheoreticalPhysics #YearInScience: Scientists led by Yan-Fei Jiang at the University of California, Santa Barbara’s Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP) built a computer model that helps to explains the weird, wild behavior of rare, so-called luminous blue variable stars.

The team's 3-D model provided key insights that former 1-D models couldn't offer. One such key insight is how a light-blocking effect of the element helium in part determines the temperature of the stars during one of their characteristically bright outbursts.

Researchers are keen to study luminous blue variable stars to gain a deeper understanding of the physics behind the explosive death of massive stars as a kind of supernova.

Read more here: http://ow.ly/Mbej30n4Q4H

Training - or at least inspiring - the next generation of astrophysicists! 😎 The #ZempTriplets are eager to learn about #GeneralRelativity, #RocketScience and #Astrophysics 😂😜🤣 #UsefulChristmasGift

#Astrophysics #YearInScience: The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, a.k.a. LIGO, and its Europe-based partner, VIRGO, notched up new gravitational wave detections. The new finds have brought the total recorded so far to 10 black hole mergers, as well as 1 neutron star-black hole merger.

Gravitational waves represent a brand new kind of astronomy that delves into the most energetic, powerful, yet counterintuitively often-impossible-to-otherwise-observe events, such as the cataclysmic collisions of black holes weighing dozens of times out Sun's mass. Based on all the discoveries to date, gravitational wave astronomy is absolutely blossoming!

Many members of the Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are members and leaders of the LIGO team. One of the co-founders of LIGO, MIT's Rainer Weiss, was awarded the 2016 Kavli Prize in Astrophysics.

Learn more about the recent LIGO and VIRGO detection here: http://ow.ly/4b3Z30n4Pak

#Astrophysics #YearInScience: Researchers caught a glimpse of the farthest individual star ever seen, located some 9 billion light-years away! Masamune Oguri, Associate Scientist at the #Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (@KavliIPMU), was part of the team that made the record-setting detection: http://ow.ly/eQeC30n4OQ5

#Astrophysics #YearInScience: Researchers led by Subo Dong of the Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics at Peking University described a new exoplanet class, dubbed "Hoptunes." These worlds orbit their host stars tightly and could range in composition from mostly rocky to mostly gassy. These toasty worlds will help answer how even bigger planets, called hot Jupiters, could ever possibly arise or persist in such extremely searing environments: http://ow.ly/Df4b30n43Vm @PKU1898

If you know what Astrophysics is, you'll enjoy this... Black-Hole Hunter Takes Aim at Einstein http://bit.ly/2SOWVDr #Astrophysics #Science #WSJ

#Astrophysics #YearInScience: Two new Institute Directors were named! Risa Wechsler became the new leader of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, a joint project of Stanford University and SLAClab, in July. Then in October, Hirosi Ooguri took the helm at the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe at the University of Tokyo: http://ow.ly/TypQ30n43AZ ; http://ow.ly/WfzL30n43BC

#Astrophysics #YearInScience: Devourer of worlds! Researchers led by Hans Moritz Guenther at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research used NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory to link a star's strange dimming to its gobbling up of the rocky remains of a planet. As the planetary fragments smash together, ahead of their eventual consumption by the star, they pulverize each other and give off dust that causes the star to occasionally dim: http://ow.ly/hoiA30n42wr