Galaxies News

June 10, 2024

Top Headlines

Galactic Bloodlines: Many Nearby Star Clusters Originate from Only Three 'Families'

June 10, 2024 — Astronomers have deciphered the formation history of young star clusters, some of which we can see with the naked eye at night. The team reports that most nearby young star clusters belong to only ...

Researchers Upend Theory About the Formation of the Milky Way Galaxy

June 6, 2024 — Research reveals a shocking discovery about the history of our universe: the Milky Way Galaxy's last major collision occurred billions of years later than previously ...

Medium and Mighty: Intermediate-Mass Black Holes Can Survive in Globular Clusters

May 30, 2024 — New research demonstrated a possible formation mechanism of intermediate-mass black holes in globular clusters, star clusters that could contain tens of thousands or even millions of tightly packed ...

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope Finds Most Distant Known Galaxy

May 30, 2024 — Over the last two years, scientists have used NASA's James Webb Space Telescope to explore what astronomers refer to as Cosmic Dawn -- the period in the first few hundred million years after the big bang where the first galaxies were ...

Latest Headlines

updated 4:24pm EDT

First Pictures from Euclid Satellite Reveal Billions of Orphan Stars

May 23, 2024 — The first scientific pictures from the Euclid satellite mission have revealed more than 1,500 billion orphan stars scattered throughout the Perseus cluster of ...

Complete Stellar Collapse: Unusual Star System Proves That Stars Can Die Quietly

May 21, 2024 — University of Copenhagen astrophysicists help explain a mysterious phenomenon, whereby stars suddenly vanish from the night sky. Their study of an ...

Researchers Discover the Universe's Oldest Stars in Our Own Galactic Backyard

May 14, 2024 — Astronomers discovered three of the oldest stars in the universe, and they live in our own galactic neighborhood. The stars are in the Milky Way's ...

Iron Fingerprints in Nearby Active Galaxy

May 8, 2024 — After starting science operations in February, Japan-led XRISM (X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission) studied the monster black hole at the center of galaxy NGC ...

Astronomers Observe Elusive Stellar Light Surrounding Ancient Quasars

May 6, 2024 — Astronomers observed the elusive starlight surrounding some of the earliest quasars in the universe. The findings may shed light on how the earliest supermassive black holes became so massive despite ...

Hubble Views a Galaxy With a Voracious Black Hole

May 6, 2024 — Bright, starry spiral arms surround an active galactic center in a new NASA Hubble Space Telescope image of the galaxy NGC 4951. Located in the Virgo constellation, NGC 4951 is located roughly 50 ...

Eruption of Mega-Magnetic Star Lights Up Nearby Galaxy

Apr. 24, 2024 — While ESA's satellite INTEGRAL was observing the sky, it spotted a burst of gamma-rays -- high-energy photons -- coming from the nearby galaxy M82. Only a few hours later, ESA's XMM-Newton X-ray ...

Giant Galactic Explosion Exposes Galaxy Pollution in Action

Apr. 22, 2024 — Astronomers have produced the first high-resolution map of a massive explosion in a nearby galaxy, providing important clues on how the space between galaxies is polluted with chemical ...

Physicists Solve Puzzle About Ancient Galaxy Found by Webb Telescope

Apr. 12, 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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 erupted, giving off plumes of gas every 8.5 days ...

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 ...

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' ...

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 ...