Astronomers across the globe can now sift through hundreds of millions of galaxies, stars and asteroids collected in the first bundle of data from NASA
Using the amplifying power of a cosmic gravitational lens, astronomers have discovered a distant galaxy whose stars were born unexpectedly early in cosmic history. This result sheds new light on the formation of the first galaxies, as well as on the early evolution of the Universe.
The hypothetical dark flow seen in the movement of galaxy clusters requires that we can reliably identify a clear statistical correlation in the motion of distant objects which are, in any case, flowing outwards with the expansion of the universe and may also have their own individual (or peculiar) motion arising from gravitational interactions.
Astronomers have used an armada of telescopes on the ground and in space, including the Very Large Telescope at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile to discover and measure the distance to the most remote mature cluster of galaxies yet found. Although this cluster is seen when the Universe was less than one quarter of its current age it looks surprisingly similar to galaxy clusters in the current Universe.
The various spiral arm segments of the Sunflower galaxy, also known as Messier 63, show up vividly in a new image taken in infrared light by NASA
(PhysOrg.com) -- Our Milky Way galaxy, like other spiral galaxies, has a disk with sweeping arms of stars, gas, and dust that curve around the galaxy like the arms of a huge pinwheel.
A new observing instrument VIRUS-W saw
Astronomers have discovered 16 close-knit pairs of supermassive black holes in merging galaxies. These black-hole pairs, also called binaries, are about a hundred to a thousand times closer together than most that have been observed before, providing astronomers a glimpse into how these behemoths and their host galaxies merge -- a crucial part of understanding the evolution of the universe.
Galaxy X: An entire galaxy—made mainly of dark matter—may be lurking just outside our own, scientists say.
NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope unveiled a previously unseen structure centered on the Milky Way. The feature spans 50,000 light-years.
