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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...

This VLT image shows the spiral galaxy NGC 4981. The bright star visible in the image is a foreground star. Image credit: ESO / Josh Barrington.

VLT Sees Elegant Spiral with Explosive Past

Feb 26, 2017 by News Staff

ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) has produced this beautiful image of the spiral galaxy NGC 4981. This VLT image shows the spiral galaxy NGC 4981. The...

This Hubble image shows the remnant of SN 1987A within the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. The image was taken by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) in January 2017. SN 1987A is located in the center of the image amidst a backdrop of stars. The bright ring around the central region of the exploded star is composed of material ejected by the star about 20,000 years before the actual explosion took place. The supernova is surrounded by gaseous clouds. The clouds’ red color represents the glow of hydrogen gas. The colors of the foreground and background stars were added from observations taken by Hubble’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2). Image credit: NASA / ESA / R. Kirshner, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation / P. Challis, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Hubble Snaps 30th Anniversary Image of SN 1987A Remnant

Feb 25, 2017 by News Staff

This new image of the remnant of core-collapse Supernova 1987A (SN 1987A) was taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope in January 2017. This Hubble...

NGC 5907 X-1 is in the spiral galaxy NGC 5907, which is also known as the Knife Edge Galaxy or Splinter Galaxy. This image comprises X-ray emission data (blue/white) from ESA’s XMM-Newton space telescope and NASA’s Chandra X-ray observatory, and optical data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The inset shows the X-ray pulsation of the spinning neutron star, which has a period of 1.13 sec, as determined by XMM-Newton’s European Photon Imaging Camera. Image credit: ESA / XMM-Newton / NASA / Chandra / SDSS.

XMM-Newton Spots Record-Breaking Pulsar: NGC 5907 X-1

Feb 24, 2017 by News Staff

ESA’s XMM-Newton mission has spotted a pulsar — a rapidly rotating, magnetized neutron star that sweeps regular pulses of radiation in two symmetrical...