Tag Archive for 'Andromeda galaxy'

Swift J0042.6+4112 is brighter at high energies than the Andromeda galaxy’s entire black hole population. The inset image shows the pulsar candidate in blue, as seen in X-ray light by NASA’s NuSTAR mission. The background image of the Andromeda galaxy was taken by NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer in UV light. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / GSFC / JHU.

Astronomers Solve Mystery of Andromeda’s Hard X-Rays

Mar 28, 2017 by News Staff

The Andromeda galaxy (also known as Messier 31) features a dominant source of hard X-rays, but its identity was mysterious until now. An international...

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...

NASA’s Fermi telescope has detected a gamma-ray excess (shown in yellow-white) at the center of the Andromeda galaxy that’s similar to a signature Fermi previously detected at the center of our own Milky Way Galaxy. Scientists think the signal could be produced by a variety of processes, including a population of pulsars or even dark matter. Image credit: NASA / DOE / Fermi LAT Collaboration / Bill Schoening / Vanessa Harvey / REU Program / NOAO / AURA / NSF.

Fermi Finds Dark Matter Clues in Andromeda Galaxy

Feb 22, 2017 by News Staff

NASA’s Fermi telescope has detected a strong gamma-ray signal coming from the core of the Andromeda galaxy (also known as Messier 31) that could indicate...

This diagram shows how scientists determined the size of the halo of the Andromeda Galaxy. Because the gas in the halo is dark, astronomers measured it by using the light from distant quasars. Image credit: NASA / ESA / A. Field, STScI / N. Lehner & J.C. Howk, University of Notre Dame / B. Wakker, University of Wisconsin, Madison.

NASA’s Hubble Sees Huge Gaseous Halo around Andromeda Galaxy

May 8, 2015 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) on the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have discovered that a nearly invisible halo of hot plasma...

Hot stars burn brightly in this image from NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer, showing the UV side of a familiar face. At 2.5 million light-years away, the Andromeda galaxy is our Milky Way's largest galactic neighbor. The galaxy spans 260,000 light-years across. The bands of blue-white making up the galaxy's striking rings are neighborhoods that harbor hot, young, massive stars. Dark blue-grey lanes of cooler dust show up starkly against these bright rings, tracing the regions where star formation is currently taking place in dense cloudy cocoons. Eventually, these dusty lanes will be blown away by strong stellar winds, as the forming stars ignite nuclear fusion in their cores. Meanwhile, the central orange-white ball reveals a congregation of cooler, old stars that formed long ago. When observed in visible light, the galaxy’s rings look more like spiral arms. The UV image shows that these arms more closely resemble the ring-like structure previously observed in infrared wavelengths with NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope; astronomers interpreted these rings as evidence that the galaxy was involved in a direct collision with its neighbor, Messier 32, more than 200 million years ago. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

New Study Reveals Turbulent History of Andromeda Galaxy

Jan 12, 2015 by News Staff

A study of the motions of different stellar populations in the Andromeda’s disk has revealed a violent history of mergers with dwarf galaxies in the...

Andromeda Galaxy. Image credit: NASA / ESA / University of Washington / PHAT team / J. Dalcanton / B. F. Williams / L. C. Johnson / R. Gendler.

Astronomers Snap Sharpest, Biggest Image Ever of Andromeda Galaxy

Jan 10, 2015 by News Staff

A team of astronomers using the Advanced Camera for Surveys on NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has obtained the sharpest image ever taken of our galactic...

This Hubble composite image shows a ring of dark matter in the galaxy cluster ZwCl0024+1652; the ring-like structure is evident in the blue map of the cluster's dark matter distribution; the map is superimposed on a Hubble image of the cluster. Image credit: NASA / ESA / M.J. Jee and H. Ford, Johns Hopkins University.

X-Ray Signal from Andromeda, Other Galaxies Could Be Evidence of Dark Matter

Dec 12, 2014 by News Staff

European scientists have detected a mysterious photon emission in X-ray spectra of the Andromeda galaxy, the Draco dwarf galaxy and some other galaxies...

Some of 22,000 merging galaxies identified within the GAMA survey. Image credit: Simon Driver / Aaron Robotham / ICRAR.

Massive Galaxies Grow by Snacking on Smaller Neighbors

Sep 20, 2014 by News Staff

Astronomers conducting a broad survey of galaxies called Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA) have found that the Universe’s most massive galaxies gain weight...

X-ray image of the Perseus galaxy cluster: a new study of the cluster has revealed a mysterious X-ray signal; this signal is represented in the circled data points in the inset, which is a plot of X-ray intensity as a function of X-ray energy. Image credit: Chandra / NASA / CXC / SAO / XMM / ESA / E. Bulbul et al.

Astronomers Detect Mysterious X-ray Signal in Andromeda Galaxy, 74 Galaxy Clusters

Jun 26, 2014 by News Staff

Astronomers using ESA’s XMM-Newton and NASA’s Chandra X-ray observatories have detected an unidentified X-ray emission line – a spike...

This image shows the Tadpole galaxy (Arp 188), a disrupted barred spiral galaxy located 420 million light-years from our planet. Material stripped from the galaxy during its collision with a smaller galaxy (seen in the upper left corner of the larger interaction partner) forms a long tidal tail. Young blue stars, star clusters and tidal dwarf galaxies are born in the tidal debris. These objects move in a common direction within a plane defined by the orientation and motion of their tidal tail. A similar galaxy interaction might have occurred in the Local Group in the past, which could explain the distribution of dwarf galaxies in co-rotating planes. Image credit: H. Ford, JHU / M. Clampin, STScI / G. Hartig, STScI / G. Illingworth, UCO, Lick / ACS Science Team / ESA / NASA.

Nearby Dwarf Galaxies Don’t Fit Standard Model of Cosmology, Study Says

Jun 11, 2014 by News Staff

According to a study led by Dr Marcel Pawlowski of Case Western Reserve University in Ohio, dwarf galaxies that orbit our Milky Way Galaxy and the Andromeda...

An artist’s impression shows a stage in the merger between Milky Way Galaxy and the neighboring Andromeda galaxy (NASA / ESA / Z. Levay / R. van der Marel / STScI / T. Hallas / A. Mellinger)

Milky Way Galaxy Collided with Andromeda 10 Billion Years Ago, Astronomers Suggest

Jul 4, 2013 by News Staff

Our Milky Way Galaxy and the Andromeda galaxy had a close encounter around 10 billion years ago, according to European astronomers led by Dr Hongsheng...

This wide-field view of Andromeda contains optical data from the Burrell Schmidt telescope of the Warner and Swansey Observatory on Kitt Peak in Arizona. The marked area shows the region of the Chandra observations (NOAO / AURA / NSF / REU Prog. / B. Schoening, V. Harvey / Descubre Fndn. / CAHA / OAUV / DSA / V.Peris)

Astronomers Find 26 Possible Black Holes in Andromeda Galaxy

Jun 17, 2013 by Enrico de Lazaro

An international group of astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has reported the detection of 26 black hole candidates in Messier 31,...

Microquasar in Andromeda Galaxy Amazes Astronomers

Dec 14, 2012 by Sergio Prostak

With the combined power of Earth-orbiting X-ray telescopes, including NASA’s Swift and ESA’s XMM-Newton, an international team of astronomers has...