Galaxies News

April 18, 2024

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No Gamma Rays Seen Coming from Nearby Supernova

Apr. 16, 2024 — A nearby supernova in 2023 offered astrophysicists an excellent opportunity to test ideas about how these types of explosions boost particles, called cosmic rays, to near light-speed. But surprisingly, NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope detected ...

Most Massive Stellar Black Hole in Our Galaxy Found

Apr. 16, 2024 — Astronomers have identified the most massive stellar black hole yet discovered in the Milky Way galaxy. This black hole was spotted in data from the European Space Agency's Gaia mission because it imposes an odd 'wobbling' motion on the companion ...

Inexplicable Flying Fox Found in Hydra Galaxy Cluster

Apr. 8, 2024 — High sensitivity radio observations have discovered a cloud of magnetized plasma in the Hydra galaxy cluster. The odd location and shape of this plasma defy all conventional explanations. Dubbed the Flying Fox based on its silhouette, this plasma ...

NASA's Webb Probes an Extreme Starburst Galaxy

Apr. 3, 2024 — A team of astronomers has used NASA's James Webb Space Telescope to survey the starburst galaxy Messier 82 (M82). Located 12 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major, this galaxy is relatively compact in size but hosts a frenzy of ...

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Physicists Solve Puzzle About Ancient Galaxy Found by Webb Telescope

Apr. 15, 2024 — Physicists solve a puzzle linked to JWST-ER1g, a massive ancient galaxy that formed when the universe was just a quarter of its current ...

Stellar Collisions Produce Strange, Zombie-Like Survivors

Apr. 4, 2024 — Densely packed, fast-moving stars at the Milky Way's center can collide with each other. New research uses simulations to explore the outcomes of these collisions. Some collisions are more like ...

ALMA Finds New Molecular Signposts in Starburst Galaxy

Mar. 28, 2024 — The ALMA radio telescope has detected more than 100 molecular species, including many indicative of different star formation and evolution processes, in a galaxy where stars are forming much more ...

Persistent Hiccups in a Far-Off Galaxy Draw Astronomers to New Black Hole Behavior

Mar. 27, 2024 — Astronomers have found that a previously quiet black hole, which sits at the center of a galaxy about 800 million light years away, has suddenly ...

Astronomers Discover 49 New Galaxies in Under Three Hours

Mar. 25, 2024 — New work aimed to study the star-forming gas in a single radio galaxy. Although the team didn't find any star-forming gas in the galaxy they were studying, they instead discovered other galaxies ...

Two of the Milky Way's Earliest Building Blocks Identified

Mar. 21, 2024 — Astronomers have identified what could be two of the Milky Way's earliest building blocks: Named 'Shakti' and 'Shiva', these appear to be the remnants of two galaxies that merged between 12 and 13 ...

Scientists Find One of the Most Ancient Stars That Formed in Another Galaxy

Mar. 20, 2024 — The first generation of stars transformed the universe. Inside their cores, simple hydrogen and helium fused into a rainbow of elements. When these stars died, they exploded and sent these new ...

Largest-Ever Map of Universe's Active Supermassive Black Holes Released

Mar. 18, 2024 — Astronomers have charted the largest-ever volume of the universe with a new map of active supermassive black holes living at the centers of galaxies. Called quasars, the gas-gobbling black holes are, ...

Peering Into the Tendrils of NGC 604 With NASA's Webb

Mar. 11, 2024 — The formation of stars and the chaotic environments they inhabit is one of the most well-studied, but also mystery-shrouded, areas of cosmic investigation. The intricacies of these processes are now ...

Astronomers Spot Oldest 'Dead' Galaxy Yet Observed

Mar. 6, 2024 — A galaxy that suddenly stopped forming new stars more than 13 billion years ago has been observed by astronomers. Using the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have spotted a 'dead' galaxy when ...

What Makes Black Holes Grow and New Stars Form? Machine Learning Helps Solve the Mystery

Mar. 5, 2024 — It takes more than a galaxy merger to make a black hole grow and new stars form: machine learning shows cold gas is needed too to initiate rapid growth -- new research ...

Webb Unlocks Secrets of One of the Most Distant Galaxies Ever Seen

Mar. 4, 2024 — Looking deeply into space and time, astronomers have studied the exceptionally luminous galaxy GN-z11, which existed when our 13.8 billion-year-old universe was only about 430 million years ...

New Insights on How Galaxies Are Formed

Mar. 1, 2024 — Astronomers can use supercomputers to simulate the formation of galaxies from the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago to the present day. But there are a number of sources of error. An international ...

Astronomers Measure Heaviest Black Hole Pair Ever Found

Feb. 29, 2024 — Using archival data from the Gemini North telescope, a team of astronomers has measured the heaviest pair of supermassive black holes ever found. The merging of two supermassive black holes is a ...

Black Hole at Center of the Milky Way Resembles a Football

Feb. 21, 2024 — The supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way is spinning so quickly it is warping the spacetime surrounding it into a shape that can look like a football, according to a new study. That ...

Astronomers Report Oscillation of Our Giant, Gaseous Neighbor

Feb. 20, 2024 — A few years ago, astronomers uncovered one of the Milky Way's greatest secrets: an enormous, wave-shaped chain of gaseous clouds in our sun's backyard, giving birth to clusters of stars ...

A Long, Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Not So Far Away

Feb. 6, 2024 — Employing massive data sets collected through NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers are unearthing clues to conditions existing in the early universe. The team has catalogued the ages ...

Which Came First: Black Holes or Galaxies?

Feb. 6, 2024 — Black holes not only existed at the dawn of time, they birthed new stars and supercharged galaxy formation, a new analysis of James Webb Space Telescope data ...

Gas on the Run -- ALMA Spots the Shadow of a Molecular Outflow from a Quasar When the Universe Was Less Than One Billion Years Old

Feb. 1, 2024 — Theoretical predictions have been confirmed with the discovery of an outflow of molecular gas from a quasar when the Universe was less than a billion years ...

Bright Galaxies Put Dark Matter to the Test

Jan. 31, 2024 — The earliest galaxies are thought to have formed as the gravitational pull of dark matter, which has been impossible to study directly, slowly drew in enough hydrogen and helium to ignite stars. But ...

Staggering Structure in 19 Nearby Spiral Galaxies

Jan. 29, 2024 — The James Webb Space Telescope observed 19 nearby face-on spiral galaxies in near- and mid-infrared light as part of its contributions to the Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS ...

Astronomers Spot 18 Black Holes Gobbling Up Nearby Stars

Jan. 29, 2024 — Scientists have identified 18 new tidal disruption events (TDEs) -- extreme instances when a nearby star is tidally drawn into a black hole and ripped to shreds. The detections more than double the ...

Stars Travel More Slowly at Milky Way's Edge

Jan. 26, 2024 — Physicists discovered stars near the edge of the Milky Way travel more slowly than those closer to its center -- a surprise suggesting our galaxy's gravitational core may have less dark matter ...

Faint Features in Galaxy NGC 5728 Revealed

Jan. 25, 2024 — A new study describes the best method to improve images obtained by the James Webb Science Telescope (JWST) using a mathematical approach called ...

Astronomers Detect Oldest Black Hole Ever Observed

Jan. 17, 2024 — Researchers have discovered the oldest black hole ever observed, dating from the dawn of the universe, and found that it is 'eating' its host galaxy to ...

Study Delivers Detailed Photos of Galaxies' Inner Structures

Jan. 17, 2024 — High-resolution images captured by the James Webb Space Telescope are offering powerful insights into the complex dust patterns of nearby star-forming ...

Astronomers Produce Most Sensitive Radio Image Ever of Ancient Star Cluster

Jan. 16, 2024 — Astronomers have created the most sensitive radio image ever of a globular cluster, an ancient ball of tightly-packed ...

NASA Scientists Discover a Novel Galactic 'Fossil'

Jan. 12, 2024 — Researchers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center have discovered X-ray activity that sheds light on the evolution of ...

Our Surprising Magnetic Galaxy

Jan. 11, 2024 — A team of astronomers has created the first-ever map of magnetic field structures within a spiral arm of our Milky Way galaxy. Previous studies on galactic magnetic fields only gave a very general ...

'Blob-Like' Home of Farthest-Known Fast Radio Burst Is Collection of Seven Galaxies

Jan. 9, 2024 — In summer 2022, astronomers detected the most powerful and most distant fast radio burst (FRB) ever observed. Now, astronomers have pinpointed the extraordinary object's birthplace -- and ...