201–220 of 275 results

Cosmology

Galaxies Grow By Snacking

Evidence from observations and computer simulations supports a picture of galaxy growth that isn't dominated by the rough-and-tumble crashes of big galaxies. Instead, most of the universe's stellar metropolises appear to feed themselves with nibbles instead of feasts.

Galaxies

Galactic Runts Carry Beefy Black Holes

Astronomers have found supermassive black holes in 151 dwarf galaxies, surprising expectations and providing a time machine into black hole formation.

Cosmology

Gaia Launches to Pinpoint a Billion Stars

Gaia launched flawlessly Thursday morning at 9:12 UTC (4:12 a.m. Eastern Standard Time). This long-awaited mission will precisely map the distances and motions of 1 billion stars in our galaxy.

Black Holes

A Double Black Hole?

Strange emission from a distant galaxy paints an enigmatic picture of what’s happening inside its core. One solution: instead of one supermassive black hole, the galaxy hosts two trapped in a tight dance around each other.

Galaxies

Triple Collision in Infant Galaxy

A complex of three bright, star-forming clumps called Himiko is merging in the early universe. With its light reaching us from when the universe was only 800 million years old, this primordial galaxy could yield insight into the elusive process of early galaxy formation.

Cosmology

A Galaxy Near Cosmic Dawn

Astronomers have confirmed that light from a distant galaxy is reaching us from about 700 million years after the Big Bang. The galaxy's emission hints that star formation during that era might have proceeded at a much faster rate than previously thought.

Milky Way

Source Found for Magellanic Stream

New observations solve the origins of a long rivulet of gas encircling the Milky Way.

Galaxies

"Smoking Gun" from Galactic Smashup?

Observations from the Chandra X-ray Observatory suggest that something has slammed into the spiral galaxy NGC 1232. But you'd never know it from the galaxy's unperturbed appearance

Cat's Paw Nebula

Milky Way

Cat’s Paw Nebula: Nearby Mini-Starburst?

The Cat's Paw Nebula is home to many bright, young stars. But thousands of fainter stars concealed behind dust reveal themselves in a new infrared image.

Galaxies

New View of Nearest Galaxies

Spectacular high-resolution images released at the 222nd American Astronomical Society conference in Indianapolis reveal two of the Milky Way’s nearest galactic neighbors in a new light.

Galaxies

The Mysterious Seven

Seven clouds of hydrogen dotting the space between two iconic galaxies might be crumbs from a past encounter or evidence for the elusive cosmic web theorized to fuel galaxy growth.

Galaxies

How to Build a Galaxy

The iconic disk galaxy is perhaps the most common type of galaxy in the universe. But how did these galaxies form their wide, thin skirts and fat, round centers?

Stellar Science

The Most Distant Star Ever Seen?

Astronomers have detected what might be the farthest star ever spectroscopically observed. The bright object blazes in an unusual location, too, perhaps giving insight into star formation in unconventional environments.

Stellar Science

Stellar Senior Citizen

Astronomers have confirmed that the star HD 140283 is nearly as old as the universe.

Stellar Science

Culprit Pegged for Cosmic Rays

Astronomers working with the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope say they might finally have the “smoking gun” they’ve needed to convict supernova remnants as the origin of energetic particles called cosmic rays.

Galaxies

Amateurs Help Hubble Unveil Spiral

Robert Gendler stitched together a stunning mosaic of spiral galaxy M106, filling in gaps in Hubble coverage with his own and Jay GaBany's ground-based observations.

Milky Way

Galactic Bubbles Spark Debate

New microwave and radio observations resurrect controversy over gigantic lobes seen ballooning from the Milky Way’s center.

distant galaxies seen by Hubble

Cosmology

Hubble Takes Galaxy Census

New observations by the Hubble Space Telescope reveal some of the earliest galaxies in the universe.

NGC 1277

Galaxies

A Big Black Hole in a Small Galactic Pond

A record-breaking black hole lurking at the center of a compact galaxy weighs about 17 billion Suns, a new study finds. Now astronomers are wondering: how did such a small galaxy come to harbor a leviathan?

Milky Way

Cosmic Web Weeds Dwarf Galaxies

Astronomers have discovered an unexpected explanation for why they can only find a small fraction of the satellite galaxies the Milky Way is supposed to have.