Astronomy News

Supermassive Black Hole Found 35,000 Light-Years from Home

The elliptical galaxy 3C186, located about 8 billion years from Earth, is most likely the result of a merger of two galaxies. This is supported by arc-shaped tidal tails, usually produced by a gravitational tug between two colliding galaxies, identified by M. Chiaberge et al. The merger of the galaxies also led to a merger of the two supermassive black holes in their centers, and the resultant black hole was then kicked out of its parent galaxy by the gravitational waves created by the merger. The bright, star-like looking quasar can be seen in the center of the image. Its former host galaxy is the faint, extended object behind it. Image credit: NASA / ESA / M. Chiaberge, STScI.
Mar 24, 2017 by News Staff

Astronomers have uncovered a monster black hole that has been propelled out of the center of a distant galaxy, called 3C 186, by what could be the power of gravitational waves. A paper describing the discovery will appear in the March 30, 2017 issue of the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics (arXiv.org preprint). The elliptical galaxy 3C186, located about 8 billion years from Earth, is most likely the result of a merger of two galaxies. This is supported...

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This artist’s impression displays TRAPPIST-1 and its planets reflected in a surface. Image credit: NASA / R. Hurt / T. Pyle.

TRAPPIST-1 System Ideal for Planet-Hopping Life?

Mar 24, 2017 by James Romero

Exoplanet hunters struck gold earlier this year with the discovery of seven rocky bodies orbiting around dwarf star TRAPPIST-1, a find that both raised...

This composite image of the Kleinmann-Low Nebula is composed of several pointings of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope in optical and near-infrared light. The revealed stars are shown with a bright red color in the image. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble.

Hubble Spots Fast-Moving Runaway Star in Kleinmann-Low Nebula

Mar 20, 2017 by News Staff

In the search for free-floating exoplanets and brown dwarfs, astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have created a mosaic image of the Kleinmann-Low...

This Hubble image captures an ongoing cosmic collision between two galaxies: NGC 3447A and NGC 3447B. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble.

Hubble Space Telescope Views Two Galaxies Merging: NGC 3447

Mar 20, 2017 by News Staff

This new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows two galaxies (NGC 3447A and NGC 3447B) merging into one approximately 60 million light-years...

A present-day near-miss of two spiral galaxies NGC 5426 and NGC 5427, which may be comparable to the early flyby of the Andromeda galaxy past our own Milky Way Galaxy. Image credit: ESO.

Discovery Challenges Our Current Understanding of Gravity

Mar 16, 2017 by News Staff

Einstein’s theory of gravity may have to be rewritten, after a team of astronomers at the University of St Andrews discovered a 10-million-light-year-wide...

Schematic representation of rotating disc galaxies in the early Universe (right) and the present day (left). New VLT observations suggest that such massive star-forming disc galaxies in the early Universe were less influenced by dark matter (shown in red), as it was less concentrated. As a result the outer parts of distant galaxies rotate more slowly than comparable regions of galaxies in the local Universe. Image credit: ESO / L. Calçada.

Universe’s Early Galaxies Were Less Influenced by Dark Matter

Mar 15, 2017 by News Staff

New observations from ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) indicate that massive, star-forming galaxies during the peak epoch of galaxy formation, 10 billion...

An artist’s impression of a white dwarf star (left) in orbit around a black hole and so close that much of its material is being pulled away. There is a hotspot where the gas from the white dwarf hits the disc of matter swirling around the black hole. The black hole itself is surrounded by a cloud of ionized gas, which contains large amounts of oxygen. Image credit: NASA / CXC / M. Weiss.

Astronomers Find Record-Breaking White-Dwarf-Black-Hole Binary in Globular Cluster 47 Tucanae

Mar 14, 2017 by News Staff

Using data from the Australia Telescope Compact Array, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and NuSTAR telescope, a team of astronomers has found evidence...

The massive black hole shown at left in this drawing is able to rapidly grow as intense radiation from a galaxy nearby shuts down star formation in its host galaxy. Image credit: John Wise, Georgia Tech.

How Universe’s First Supermassive Black Holes Were Born

Mar 13, 2017 by News Staff

An international team of astrophysicists from the United States, Ireland and Finland has come up with the formula for the formation of the first supermassive...

This image, taken with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera, shows the unbarred spiral galaxy NGC 1448. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble.

Hubble Takes Close Look at NGC 1448

Mar 13, 2017 by Natali Anderson

This image snapped by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reveals a detailed view of part of the disc of NGC 1448, one of the nearest luminous galaxies...

Could Mysterious Fast Radio Bursts Be Powering Extragalactic Light Sails?

Mar 12, 2017 by News Staff

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) — powerful radio flashes lasting just milliseconds, with mysterious origins that continue to be a matter of debate —...

This artist’s impression shows what the galaxy A2744_YD4 might look like. Image credit: ESO / M. Kornmesser.

ALMA Detects Vast Amounts of Interstellar Dust, Oxygen in Very Young, Distant Galaxy

Mar 9, 2017 by News Staff

New observations using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have demonstrated that A2744_YD4 — the youngest and most remote galaxy...

A Neptune-mass exoplanet. Image credit: NASA / Goddard / Francis Reddy.

Kepler’s K2 Mission Helps Discover Five New Exoplanets

Mar 6, 2017 by Enrico de Lazaro

Using NASA’s Kepler spacecraft on its K2 mission, astronomers have discovered five new planets around other stars, including two extraordinary companions...

This image, taken with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3, shows the super star cluster Westerlund 1. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble.

Hubble Spots Monster Star Cluster

Mar 6, 2017 by Natali Anderson

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured this vivid image of Westerlund 1, a young super star cluster. This image, taken with Hubble’s Wide Field...

Artist impression illustrating a supermassive black hole with X-ray emission emanating from its inner region (pink) and ultra-fast winds streaming from the surrounding disk (purple). Image credit: ESA.

XMM-Newton, NuSTAR Telescopes Measure Temperature Swings of Black Hole Winds

Mar 2, 2017 by News Staff

For the first time, researchers have measured rapidly varying temperatures in hot gas flowing from the vicinity of a black hole. Artist impression illustrating...

Abell 2744 takes on a ghostly look where total starlight has been artificially colored blue in this Hubble view. Image credit: NASA / ESA / IAC / HFF Team / STScI.

Astrophysicists Unveil Most Detailed Maps of Dark Matter to Date

Mar 2, 2017 by News Staff

A team of astrophysicists led by Yale Professor Priyamvada Natarajan has unveiled the most detailed maps to date of dark matter, offering a detailed case...

An artist’s conception of a free-floating planet-like object. Image credit: NASA / JPL.

Astronomers Hunt for Free-Floating Planetary-Mass Objects in Solar Neighborhood

Mar 1, 2017 by News Staff

There may be a large number of undetected giant planet-like bodies in the neighborhood of our Sun, according to a Carnegie-led team of astronomers from...

This VLT image shows the spiral galaxy NGC 1055. This large galaxy appears to lack the whirling arms characteristic of a spiral, as it is seen edge-on; however, it displays odd twists in its structure that were probably caused by an interaction with a large neighboring galaxy, Messier 77. The VLT observed NGC 1055 with the FOcal Reducer and low dispersion Spectrograph 2 (FORS2) instrument using visible-light filters. Image credit: ESO.

ESO’s Very Large Telescope Spies Spiral Galaxy Edge-On

Mar 1, 2017 by News Staff

A new image from ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) gives a detailed view of NGC 1055, an edge-on spiral galaxy. This VLT image shows the spiral galaxy...

This artist’s illustration depicts what astronomers call a tidal disruption event. Image credit: NASA / CXC / M. Weiss.

Tidal Disruption Events Occur More Frequently than Thought

Feb 28, 2017 by News Staff

According to a team of astronomers at the University of Sheffield, UK, stars are ripped apart by supermassive black holes 100 times more often than previously...

A disc of rocky debris from a disrupted planetesimal surrounds the white dwarf-brown dwarf binary system SDSS 1557. Image credit: Mark Garlick, University College London, University of Warwick and University of Sheffield.

Planetary Debris Disk Detected around White Dwarf-Brown Dwarf System

Feb 27, 2017 by News Staff

Evidence of planetary debris surrounding a white dwarf and its substellar companion has been found by a University College London-led international team...

This image, taken with the Wide Field Camera 3 on board the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, shows the galaxy UGC 12591, located roughly 400 million light-years away in the constellation of Pegasus. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble.

Hubble Captures Image of Remarkable Galaxy UGC 12591

Feb 27, 2017 by News Staff

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has delivered a stunning snapshot of the strange giant galaxy UGC 12591. This image, taken with the Wide Field Camera...

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