241–260 of 275 results

Cosmology

The Earliest Black Holes

Combining data from the deepest images ever taken in visual/infrared wavelengths and X-rays, astronomers have discovered some of the earliest black holes in the universe.

NGC 5584

Galaxies

Best-yet Value for Universe's Expansion

A new study with the Hubble Space Telescope pins down the universe's expansion rate with unprecedented accuracy.

Galaxies

A Galaxy when Galaxies Were Young

News media worldwide are reporting today on the new "farthest galaxy ever found," but the discovery is not quite as definite as it’s being made out.

Galaxies

The Most Distant Galaxy Cluster

Many instruments working together have profiled a baby galaxy group, seen not long after the Big Bang, of the kind that probably evolved into our Milky Way.

Galaxies

A Black Hole “Too Big” For Its Galaxy

A lightweight little dwarf galaxy with no central bulge has a supermassive black hole half as heavy as the Milky Way's. How did that happen?

Galaxies

Draw Some Bubbles, Help Astronomy

A fun and colorful new citizen-science effort has been launched to spot and flag star-forming regions throughout our galaxy.

Galaxies

Starry, Starry, Starry Night

Two astronomers report that small, dim red-dwarf stars are far more abundant in elliptical galaxies than thought — so much so that the total number of stars in the universe is likely three times higher than previous estimates.

Space Missions

Why is the Milky Way Blowing Bubbles?

Using gamma-ray eyes on NASA's Fermi spacecraft, astronomers now see that our home galaxy sports a matched pair of enormous and recently formed bubbles. It's a mystery how and why they formed.

NGC 1399 and surroundings

Galaxies

Black-Hole Bonanza

Astronomers announce supermassive double holes, an intermediate-mass hole that seems to have pulled apart a star, fast-spinning holes, and a screaming runaway.

Galaxies

A Glowing Vision of the Early Universe

Astronomers shed new light on our picture of the early Universe.

Galaxies

Black-Hole Missing Link Found?

Astronomers are searching galaxies with no central bulges for intermediate-mass black holes — the missing links between the small black holes that result from collapsing stars and the monsters in the cores of bulge galaxies. A team reports that it's found one — or maybe three.

Galaxies

A Now-You-See-It, Now-You-Don’t Quasar?

Poring over sky-survey data, a Dutch schoolteacher noticed a starless blue-green blob near a faint galaxy. Astronomers think "Hanny's Voorwerp" is a cloud of intergalactic gas lit by an active galactic nucleus (AGN) hidden in the galaxy just to its north. But if so, why don't we see the AGN?

Galaxies

Why You Missed the Supernova in M82

Radio astronomers have spotted emission from a supernova that went unnoticed when it exploded more than a year ago in the nearby galaxy M82.

Cosmology

Dark Matter or Pulsars? Fermi is on the Case

Something funny is going on within a few hundred light-years of us, creating high-energy electrons that we don't understand. Recent data from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope keep the mystery alive.

Galaxies

Black Holes First, Galaxies Second

Back when the universe was young, a new study finds, galaxies grew their central black holes faster than the holes' starry surroundings. But how?

Galaxies

Star-Studded Black Holes

A pair of Scottish astronomers has solved the mystery of how young stars can form improbably close to the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy.

Cosmology

Weighing Black Holes with a Thermometer

Astronomers use the 12-million-kelvin-blaze of a galaxy's central region to measure its supermassive black hole.

Galaxies

"The Antennae" Fall Into Line

A spectacular pair of colliding galaxies starts to make better sense.

Galaxies

Examining the Throat of a Black-Hole Jet

How do black holes squirt away jets of matter at nearly the speed of light? Now we know!

Cosmology

Hubble's Colliding Galaxies

No two galaxy collisions are alike, as shown in 59 weird images just released by the Hubble Heritage Project.