Weekly Update from the Open Journal of Astrophysics – 25/04/2026

So here we are again, on a Saturday morning, with another update of activity at the Open Journal of Astrophysics. Since the last update we have published a further five papers, bringing the number in Volume 9 (2026) to 87 and the total so far published by OJAp up to 535.

I will continue to include the posts made on our Mastodon account (on Fediscience) to encourage you to visit it. Mastodon is a really excellent service, and a more than adequate replacement for X/Twitter (which nobody should be using); these announcements also show the DOI for each paper.

The first paper to report this week is “Bayesian Cosmic Void Finding with Graph Flows” by Leander Thiele (U. Tokyo, Japan). This was published on Monday 20th April in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics. The paper presents a method using a deep graph neural network to identify cosmic voids in sparse galaxy surveys, improving upon traditional deterministic algorithms by considering the problem’s probabilistic nature. The overlay is here:

You can find the officially accepted version on arXiv here and the announcement on Fediverse here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116435864086025246

The second paper for this week, published on Wednesday 22nd April in the folder Astrophysics of Galaxies, is “Sifting for a Stream: The Morphology of the 300S Stellar Stream” by Benjamin Cohen (U. Chicago, USA) and 20 others distributed around the world. This study analyzes the morphology of the $300S$ stellar stream, revealing three density peaks, a possible gap, and a kink, suggesting significant influence from the Large Magellanic Cloud on its structure.

The overlay for this one is here:

The official version of the paper can be found on arXiv here and the Fediverse announcement here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116447005556180402

Next one up, the third paper of the week, is “IRMaGiC: Extending Luminous Red Galaxy Selection into the Infrared with Joint Rubin Observatory’s Large Survey of Space Time and Roman’s High Latitude Imaging Survey” by Zhiyuan Guo & Chris. W. Walter (Duke U., USA) and Eli S. Rykoff (Stanford U., USA) on behalf of the LSST Dark Energy Science Collaboration. This was published on Wednesday April 22nd in the folder Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics. The paper introduces IRMaGiC, an algorithm that improves the selection and redshift estimation of Luminous Red Galaxies (LRGs) by incorporating infrared data, enhancing future cosmological surveys.

The overlay for this one is here:

The final, accepted version can be found on arXiv here and the Mastodon announcement is here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116447067337351283

The fourth paper this week, published on Thursday April 23rd, is “The Diagnostic Temperature Discrepancy as Evidence for Non-Maxwellian Coronal Electrons” by Victor Edmonds (Final Stop Consulting, USA). This paper, in the folder Solar and Stellar Astrophysics, presents two methods of measuring electron temperature in the quiet solar corona yielding different results, suggesting non-Maxwellian electron velocity distributions may be responsible for the discrepancy.

The overlay is here:

The finally accepted version of this paper can be found here and the Mastodon announcement follows:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116452775389963618

The fifth and final paper for this week was published on Friday 24th April in the folder Astrophysics of Galaxies. The title is “Galaxy evolution in the post-merger regime. IV – The long-term effect of mergers on galactic stellar mass growth and distribution” by Sara L. Ellison (U. Victoria, Canada) and Leonardo Ferreira (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande, Brazil). This study uses a large sample of post-merger galaxies to demonstrate that galaxy mergers trigger significant and extended stellar mass growth in their central regions, independent of stellar population modelling.

The overlay is here:

You can find the authorized version of this paper on arXiv here and the Fediverse announcement is here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116458316824739014

The overlay for this one is here:

You can find the officially-accepted version on arXiv here and the Mastodon announcement here:

https://fediscience.org/@OJ_Astro/116458316824739014

And that concludes this week’s update. I’ll do another one at the end of next week.

P.S. Thanks to the efforts of a member of our Editorial Board, the Open Journal of Astrophysics now has a Wikipedia page.

#300SStellarStream #arXiv250621410v2 #arXiv251121512v2 #arXiv260114554v2 #arXiv260214630v2 #arXiv260310040v3 #AstrophysicsOfGalaxies #BayesianMethods #CosmicVoids #CosmologyAndNonGalacticAstrophysics #DiamondOpenAccess #DiamondOpenAccessPublishing #EarthAndPlanetaryAstrophysics #GAIA #galaxyEvolution #galaxyFormation #galaxyMergers #InstrumentationAndMethodsForAstrophysics #IntergalacticMedium #IRMaGiC #LargeMagellanicCloud #LSST #LSSTDarkEnergyScienceCollaboration #MilkyWay #OpenAccess #OpenAccessPublishing #SolarAndStellarAstrophysics #SolarCorona #VeraCRubinObservatory #wikipedia
The Large Magellanic Cloud, which is visible only from the Southern Hemisphere, has been caught in the crosshairs of the Hubble Space Telescope...
#space #astronomy #LargeMagellanicCloud #hubblespacetelescope #SpacePhotography
https://www.livescience.com/space/astronomy/space-photo-of-the-week-cotton-candy-clouds-shine-in-one-of-hubbles-most-beautiful-images-ever
Space photo of the week: Cotton candy clouds shine in one of Hubble's most beautiful images ever

The Large Magellanic Cloud, which is visible only from the Southern Hemisphere, has been caught in the crosshairs of the Hubble Space Telescope.

Live Science

Hubble Captures Cotton Candy Clouds

This Hubble Space Telescope image features a sparkling cloudscape from one of the Milky Way’s galactic neighbors, a dwarf galaxy called the Large Magellanic Cloud.

Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, C. Murray
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/hubble-captures-cotton-candy-clouds/

#Hubble #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Astrodon #galaxies #LargeMagellanicCloud #LMC #space #science #STEM #galaxy

Hubble Captures Cotton Candy Clouds

This Hubble image features a sparkling cloudscape from one of the Milky Way’s galactic neighbors, located 160,000 light-years away.

NASA Science

The Large Magellanic Cloud is a satellite galaxy of our own, and like ours, it has a Super Massive Black Hole at its centre, holding the whole show together

https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/second-closest-supermassive-black-hole/
#LargeMagellanicCloud #Astronomy #SMBH

Surprising stars reveal second-closest supermassive black hole

Just 165,000 light-years away, the Large Magellanic Cloud is suspected to house a supermassive black hole. At last, evidence has arrived.

Big Think
A monster black hole may be hiding in the galaxy next door: 'It is astounding'

"Black holes are so stealthy that this one has been practically under our noses this whole time."

Space

ScienceAlert: A Supermassive Black Hole Is on a Collision Course With The Milky Way…

Hidden deep in the Large Magellanic Cloud dwarf galaxy that orbits the Milky Way on an ever-closing loop, signs of a massive invisible object clocking in at around 600,000 times the mass of the Sun have been detected... #largemagellaniccloud #space #milkyway #blackhole #galaxy

https://formuchdeliberation.wordpress.com/2025/02/14/sciencealert-a-supermassive-black-hole-is-on-a-collision-course-with-the-milky-way/

ScienceAlert: A Supermassive Black Hole Is on a Collision Course With The Milky Way…

Hidden deep in the Large Magellanic Cloud dwarf galaxy that orbits the Milky Way on an ever-closing loop, signs of a massive invisible object clocking in at around 600,000 times the mass of the Sun…

for much deliberation

#Astrodon , I have a question. I've been taking photos of the LMC - not the main bit where all the action is, but the outskirts.

Do you see the thing that looks somewhat like a planetary nebula, towards the upper right and forming a triangle with NGC 2114 and NGC 2117, looking like a circle with a cluster in it?
I put it into astrometry.net but it hasn't annotated it. I've provided the annotated version too.

What is it, does anyone know? It's what led me to target the area in the first place and it looks interesting, I'd like to know more about it.

Otherwise I'm just going to call it Leece's Lucent Pearl 😉

#astronomy #BackYardAstronomy #SouthernHemisphereAstronomy #DrivewayAstrophotography #LargeMagellanicCloud