Constraints on the Hubble constant from supernova Refsdal's reappearance.

The gravitationally lensed supernova Refsdal appeared in multiple images produced through gravitational lensing by a massive foreground galaxy cluster. After the supernova appeared in 2014, lens models of the galaxy cluster predicted that an additional image of the supernova would appear in 2015, which was subsequently observed. We use the time delays between the images to perform a blinded measurement of the expansion rate of the Universe, quantified by the Hubble constant (H0). Using eight cluster lens models, we infer [Formula: see text]. Using the two models most consistent with the observations, we find [Formula: see text]. The observations are best reproduced by models that assign dark-matter halos to individual galaxies and the overall cluster.

Robust diffraction-limited near-infrared-to-near-ultraviolet wide-field imaging from stratospheric balloon-borne platforms-Super-pressure Balloon-borne Imaging Telescope performance.

At a fraction of the total cost of an equivalent orbital mission, scientific balloon-borne platforms, operating above 99.7% of the Earth's atmosphere, offer attractive, competitive, and effective observational capabilities-namely, space-like seeing, transmission, and backgrounds-which are well suited for modern astronomy and cosmology. The Super-pressure Balloon-borne Imaging Telescope (SUPERBIT) is a diffraction-limited, wide-field, 0.5 m telescope capable of exploiting these observing conditions in order to provide exquisite imaging throughout the near-infrared to near-ultraviolet. It utilizes a robust active stabilization system that has consistently demonstrated a 48 mas 1σ sky-fixed pointing stability over multiple 1 h observations at float. This is achieved by actively tracking compound pendulations via a three-axis gimballed platform, which provides sky-fixed telescope stability at < 500 mas and corrects for field rotation, while employing high-bandwidth tip/tilt optics to remove residual disturbances across the science imaging focal plane. SUPERBIT's performance during the 2019 commissioning flight benefited from a customized high-fidelity science-capable telescope designed with an exceptional thermo- and opto-mechanical stability as well as a tightly constrained static and dynamic coupling between high-rate sensors and telescope optics. At the currently demonstrated level of flight performance, SUPERBIT capabilities now surpass the science requirements for a wide variety of experiments in cosmology, astrophysics, and stellar dynamics.

Warm-hot baryons comprise 5-10 per cent of filaments in the cosmic web.

Observations of the cosmic microwave background indicate that baryons account for 5 per cent of the Universe's total energy content. In the local Universe, the census of all observed baryons falls short of this estimate by a factor of two. Cosmological simulations indicate that the missing baryons have not condensed into virialized haloes, but reside throughout the filaments of the cosmic web (where matter density is larger than average) as a low-density plasma at temperatures of 10(5)-10(7) kelvin, known as the warm-hot intergalactic medium. There have been previous claims of the detection of warm-hot baryons along the line of sight to distant blazars and of hot gas between interacting clusters. These observations were, however, unable to trace the large-scale filamentary structure, or to estimate the total amount of warm-hot baryons in a representative volume of the Universe. Here we report X-ray observations of filamentary structures of gas at 10(7) kelvin associated with the galaxy cluster Abell 2744. Previous observations of this cluster were unable to resolve and remove coincidental X-ray point sources. After subtracting these, we find hot gas structures that are coherent over scales of 8 megaparsecs. The filaments coincide with over-densities of galaxies and dark matter, with 5-10 per cent of their mass in baryonic gas. This gas has been heated up by the cluster's gravitational pull and is now feeding its core. Our findings strengthen evidence for a picture of the Universe in which a large fraction of the missing baryons reside in the filaments of the cosmic web.