241–260 of 265 results

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.

Galaxies

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.

Galaxies

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!

Galaxies

Hubble's Colliding Galaxies

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

Stellar Science

A Superfast Star from Far, Far Away

The latest "hypervelocity star" that astronomers are puzzling over didn't even start in our own galaxy.

Galaxies

Monster Black Holes Soon to Collide?

The members of a binary black hole in Cancer, one of which is unbelievably massive, look to be on a collision course.

Galaxies

Astronomers Find Double Einstein Ring

A unique example of gravitational lensing in the universe gives clues to the distribution of dark matter in galaxies.

Star Clusters near M81 and M82

Galaxies

Stars in the Middle of Nowhere

Astronomers have found several young star clusters that don't belong to any particular galaxy.

Galaxies

A Gamma-Ray Burst Out of Nowhere

Astronomers are mystified by a gamma-ray burst without a host galaxy.

Galaxies

Rain of Super-Particles

A 45-year mystery solved? Scientists using the new Pierre Auger Observatory say they've finally tracked down where ultra-high-energy cosmic rays — "tennis ball particles" — are coming from.

Galaxies

The Record Stellar-Mass Black Hole

In a nearby galaxy, astronomers find the biggest-ever small black hole.

Galaxies

Refining Hipparcos's Star Distances

To extract even better star distances, a Cambridge astronomer who took part in the Hipparcos mission has just completed a whole new analysis of the raw data.

Star-tail galaxy

Galaxies

New Stars in a Galaxy's Wake

More than 200 million light-years away, a galaxy is shedding gas as it moves. Surprisingly, stars have popped up in the material left behind.

Professional Telescopes

A Galaxy with the Wrong Shape

A newly discovered dwarf galaxy in Hercules isn't like the millions of other "dwarf spheroidals" known in the universe. It's cigar shaped.