The unusal hard x-ray burster GRO J1744-28 recently discovered by the Compton Gamma-ray Observatory (GRO) can be modeled as a strange star with a dipolar magnetic field ≤ 10 11 Gauss. When the accreted mass of the star exceeds some critical mass, its crust may break, resulting in conversion of the accreted matter into strange matter and release of energy. Subsequently, a fireball may form and e...

Our understanding of Lake Vostok, the huge subglacial lake beneath the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, has improved recently through the identification of key physical and chemical interactions between the ice sheet and the lake. The north of the lake, where the overlying ice sheet is thickest, is characterized by subglacial melting, whereas freezing of lake water occurs in the south, resulting in 3⁄...

Hoyle-Lyttleton type accretion is investigated, by taking account of not only the effect of radiation pressure but the effect of radiation drag. We calculate the trajectories of particles for three cases: only the effect of gravity is considered (case A); the effect of radiation pressure is taken into account (case B); the effect of radiation drag as well as radiation pressure is taken into acc...

We examine the hydromagnetic stability of magnetically confined mountains, which arise when material accumulates at the magnetic poles of an accreting neutron star. We extend a previous axisymmetric stability analysis by performing three-dimensional simulations using the ideal-magnetohydrodynamic (ideal-MHD) code zeus-mp, investigating the role played by boundary conditions, accreted mass, stel...

We investigate the tidal interactions of a red giant with a main sequence in the dense stellar core of globular clusters by Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics method. Two models of 0.8M⊙ red giant with the surface radii 20 and 85R⊙ are used with 0.6 or 0.8M⊙ main sequence star treated as a point mass. We demonstrate that even for the wide encounters that two stars fly apart, the angular momentum o...

Introduct ion: Since the major chondritic components—chondrules, Ca-Al–rich inclusions (CAIs), and amoeboid-olivine inclusions—formed in the nebula, their ages provide a limit for the lifetime of the solar nebula. If chondritic components accreted into asteroids before Jupiter formed, then these ages also provide constraints on the time of Jupiter’s formation. Such constraints might identify wh...

Methods to study growth of gallstones in the laboratory have not been reported. We here present such a method. Human cholesterol gallstones were harvested from patients with multiple nearly identical stones. The gallstones were washed and added to supersaturated model biles and the formation of cholesterol crystals and the increases in mass of human cholesterol gallstones were studied concurren...

One of the most important advances in high-energy astrophysics over the past decade has been the detailed understanding that has emerged of the nature of binary stellar systems in which material from an ordinary star is being accreted on to a compact object, either a neutron star or a black hole[1,2]. These systems are called ‘X-ray binaries’ because emission from the accretion disk and associa...