 Pulsars are exceptionally stable cosmic clocks. If a pulsar can be found found orbiting a supermassive black hole, its precisely measured pulse arrival times can be used to probe the spacetime around the black hole and test gravity in the strong-field regime. In particular, a pulsar orbiting Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, would provide a powerful new tool for measuring the fundamental properties of the closest supermassive black hole to the Earth. Previous studies have shown that timing a pulsar with an orbital period of less than about 0.5 year could potentially measure the mass, spin, and quadrupole moment of Sgr A* with fractional errore better than 1%, providing a stringent test of the no-hair theorem in the general relativity. However, realizing this potential requires a sufficiently accurate pulsar timing model that incorporates all effects that are expected to be measurable in future observations.
|
 When astronomers seek to understand how stars and planets form, one molecule lies near the beginning of the story: molecular hydrogen, H2. It is the most abundant diatomic molecule in the interstellar medium, a major coolant in collapsing gas clouds, and a central component of the molecular material from which stars are born.
|
 Searching for associations between gravitational-wave (GW) signals and their electromagnetic (EM) counterparts is essential for enabling multi-messenger studies and unlocking their rich scientific potential. It was demonstrated with GW170817, the first multi-messenger event from a binary neutron star merger, in establishing the origin of short gamma-ray burst, testing gravity theories, and measuring the expansion of the Universe. However, with the advent of next-generation GW detectors and continued advances in EM observing facilities, the expected rise in the number of joint detections will place growing demands on both computational resources and human effort, potentially limiting our ability to fully exploit the scientific value of these data. To address this challenge, a research team led by Prof. Lijing Shao at the Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Peking University, has developed GW-Eyes, a framework that uses a large language model (LLM)-powered agent to automate GW–EM counterpart association, exploring how LLMs could contribute to future multi-messenger observations in the era of big data.
|
 Beijing, China — An international team of astronomers led by researchers from the Department of Astronomy (DoA), School of Physics, Peking University (PKU), the Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics (KIAA) at PKU and the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS) has constructed the largest three-dimensional chemodynamical map to date of metal-poor giant stars in the inner Milky Way. By resolving the positions, chemical compositions and motions of ancient stars in our own Galaxy, this work provides a new way to connect near-field cosmology with theories of galaxy formation in the early Universe, where young galaxies underwent rapid growth and structural transformation.
|
 When searching for undiscovered planets in the vast expanse of space, sometimes the best place to look is not up, but into data we already have. A new study led by Peking University undergraduate student Yihan Li, advised by Professor Yifan Zhou of the University of Virginia and Professor Gregory Herczeg at the Kavli Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics at Peking University, developed a novel method for reusing existing James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) observations to hunt for massive, Jupiter-like planets orbiting in the cold, distant regions of alien solar systems.
|
 Astronomers mosaic-imaged a giant molecular filament using ALMA to reveal, for the first time, the early mass assembly history during clustered star formation in a single cloud.
The study focuses on a central question in star formation: how massive stars and stellar clusters assemble their mass over time? To tackle this problem, astronomers have long focused on deeply embedded “infant” stars that remain hidden within cold molecular clouds. These objects are invisible at optical wavelengths but radiate strongly at (sub-)millimeter and radio wavelengths due to their low temperatures. Over the past decades, large Galactic surveys have significantly expanded the sample of star-forming regions across diverse environments and distances. However, this diversity has also introduced substantial environmental variations, complicating efforts to isolate evolutionary effects from external influences.
|
