All articles tagged with #maser
Astronomers using the MeerKAT radio telescope spotted an extremely bright hydroxyl maser in the distant galaxy merger H-ATLAS J142935.3–002836, whose signal was amplified by an unrelated foreground galaxy acting as a gravitational lens, yielding the first gigamaser—about 100,000 times the luminosity of a star—and enabling new ways to probe cosmic evolution from billions of light-years away.
Masers are the microwave cousins of lasers that power cryogenic amplifiers for deep-space signals, provide precise timekeeping with hydrogen and cesium clocks, and appear in natural astrophysical sources; advances in new materials could enable room-temperature masers and even chip-scale devices for quantum computing, signaling a potential revival beyond their historical role.
Astronomers have discovered a massive, previously unknown molecular cloud in the Milky Way, called the Midpoint cloud, which is fueling star formation and providing insights into the galaxy's gas dynamics and evolution.