Tag Archive for 'Universe'

This artist’s impression shows a supermassive black hole in the center of SDSS J1030+0524 and six galaxies -- four Lyman-break galaxies and two Lyman-alpha emitting galaxies -- trapped in its gas web. The large web-like structure extends over 300 times the size of the Milky Way. Image credit: L. Calçada / ESO.

Web of the Giant: Astronomers Spot Six Galaxies around Monster Quasar

Oct 2, 2020 by News Staff

Using the MUSE and FORS2 instruments on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), astronomers have spotted a group of six galaxies around SDSS J1030+0524, a...

This Chandra/ACIS-S image shows XRSs (colored points) in Messier 51; M51-ULS-1 is the orange source in the center of the blue box; diffuse emission is from hot gas. Image credit: Di Stefano et al., arXiv: 2009.08987.

Chandra Spots Possible Extragalactic Planet in Messier 51

Oct 2, 2020 by Natali Anderson

Astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory have detected an extragalactic candidate planet circling a binary system in Messier 51 (also known...

This Hubble images shows SN 2018gv (a very bright star located on the outer edge of one of the galaxy’s spiral arms in the left portion of the image) in the barred spiral galaxy NGC 2525. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / A. Riess & SH0ES Team / Mahdi Zamani.

Hubble Observes Spectacular Supernova in NGC 2525

Oct 1, 2020 by News Staff

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have tracked the fading light of a Type Ia supernova in NGC 2525, a barred spiral galaxy located...

Abdullah et al. determined that matter makes up about 31% of the total amount of matter and energy in the Universe. Image credit: Mohamed Abdullah, University of California Riverside.

Astrophysicists Measure Total Amount of Matter in Universe

Sep 29, 2020 by News Staff

Using data on a sample of 756 galaxy clusters identified in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), a team of astrophysicists from the United States and Egypt...

An artist’s impression of BOSS-EUVLG1, a star-forming galaxy located some 12 billion light-years away in the constellation of Virgo. Image credit: Gabriel Pérez Díaz, SMM / IAC.

Astronomers Discover Most Luminous, Un-Obscured Star-Forming Galaxy Ever Seen

Sep 28, 2020 by Natali Anderson

A young starburst galaxy named BOSS-EUVLG1 is by far the most luminous, almost un-obscured star-forming galaxy known at any redshift. An artist’s impression...

Physicists seek to understand the underlying laws of the Universe. Image credit: Johnson Martin.

Paradox-Free Time Travel is Mathematically Possible: Study

Sep 25, 2020 by News Staff

Time travel with free will is logically possible in our Universe without any paradox, according to new research from the University of Queensland. Physicists...

Carbide Planets May Be Made Of Silica and Diamonds

Sep 11, 2020 by News Staff

Extrasolar planets hosted by stars with sufficiently high carbon-to-oxygen ratios could be made of diamonds and silica, according to new research by Arizona...

This Hubble image shows the massive galaxy cluster MACSJ 1206. Embedded within the cluster are the distorted images of distant background galaxies, seen as arcs and smeared features. These distortions are caused by the dark matter in the cluster, whose gravity bends and magnifies the light from faraway galaxies, an effect called gravitational lensing. This phenomenon allows astronomers to study remote galaxies that would otherwise be too faint to see. Overlaid on the image are small-scale concentrations of dark matter, represented in this artist’s impression in blue. Dark matter is the invisible glue that keeps stars bound together inside a galaxy and makes up the bulk of the matter in the Universe. These blue halos reflect how the galaxy cluster’s dark matter is distributed, revealed by new results from Hubble. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / G. Caminha, University of Groningen / M. Meneghetti, Observatory of Astrophysics and Space Science of Bologna / P. Natarajan, Yale University / CLASH Team / M. Kornmesser.

New Observations Suggest Missing Ingredient in Current Dark Matter Theories

Sep 11, 2020 by News Staff

The large mass of a galaxy cluster deflects light from background objects, a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing. The large-scale gravitational lens...

SN LSQ14fmg exploded in SDSS J221646.15+152114.2, a star-forming galaxy 100 million light-years away. Image credit: Hsiao et al, doi: 10.3847/1538-4357/abaf4c.

Astronomers Observe Slowest Rising Type Ia Supernova Ever Seen

Sep 10, 2020 by News Staff

The exaggerated properties of a Type Ia supernova dubbed SN LSQ14fmg may help reveal the origin of the ‘super-Chandrasekhar’ group of supernovae it...

An artist’s impression of binary black holes about to collide. Image credit: Mark Myers, ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav), Australian National University.

Astronomers Witness Birth of Intermediate-Mass Black Hole

Sep 2, 2020 by News Staff

Astronomers using the twin LIGO detectors located in Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Washington, and the Virgo detector located near Pisa, Italy, have...

SDSS J141637.44+003352.2, a dual quasar at a distance for which the light reaching us was emitted 4.6 billion years ago. The two quasars are 13,000 light-years apart on the sky, placing them near the center of a single massive galaxy that appears to be part of a group, as shown by the neighboring galaxies in the left panel. In the lower panels, optical spectroscopy has revealed broad emission lines associated with each of the two quasars, indicating that the gas is moving at thousands of kilometers per second in the vicinity of two distinct supermassive black holes. The two quasars are different colors, due to different amounts of dust in front of them. Image credit: Silverman et al, doi: 10.3847/1538-4357/aba4a3.

Astronomers Find Three Luminous Dual Quasars

Aug 27, 2020 by News Staff

Using the Subaru Telescope and W. M. Keck and Gemini observatories, astronomers have spotted three dual quasars — merging galaxy systems that have...

Will Universe End with ‘Black Dwarf’ Supernova Explosions?

Aug 20, 2020 by News Staff

A series of ‘black dwarf’ supernovae will be the last astrophysical events to occur in our Universe prior to the so-called heat death, when the Universe...

A reconstructed image of SPT-S J041839-4751.9. Image credit: ALMA / ESO / NAOJ / NRAO / Rizzo et al, doi: 10.1038/s41586-020-2572-6.

ALMA Finds Young Milky Way-Like Galaxy in Early Universe

Aug 13, 2020 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have discovered an extremely distant galaxy that looks surprisingly like our...

These pre-explosion (left panel and right top panel) and post-explosion (right bottom panel) images from Hubble show SN 2019ehk and its host galaxy Messier 100. The location of SN 2019ehk is marked by red lines and the alignment uncertainty is indicated by pink ellipses. Image credit: Jacobson-Galán et al, doi: 10.3847/1538-4357/ab9e66.

Astronomers Catch X-Rays from Calcium-Rich Supernova

Aug 5, 2020 by News Staff

Astronomers have for the first time used X-ray imaging to examine a calcium-rich supernova. Their findings, published in the Astrophysical Journal, show...

An artist’s impression of the thin stream of stars torn from the Phoenix globular cluster, wrapping around the Milky Way (left). Wan et al targeted bright red giant stars (right) to measure the chemical composition of the disrupted Phoenix globular cluster. Image credit: James Josephides, Swinburne Astronomy Productions / S5 Collaboration.

Ancient Globular Cluster Was Tidally Disrupted by Milky Way Two Billion Years Ago

Jul 30, 2020 by News Staff

The Phoenix stellar stream, a thin over-density of stars in the halo of our Milky Way Galaxy originally identified by the Dark Energy Survey, is composed...

This artist’s impression shows the evolution of the Universe beginning with the Big Bang on the left followed by the appearance of the Cosmic Microwave Background. The formation of the first stars ends the cosmic dark ages, followed by the formation of galaxies. Image credit: M. Weiss / Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Study: Universe Might Be 1.2 Billion Years Younger

Jul 27, 2020 by News Staff

The Universe is assumed to be around 13.8 billion years old, but new calculations suggest it could be younger than that. This artist’s impression shows...

This composite image shows the edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 4217. Magnetic field lines (green), revealed by the VLA, extend far above and below the plane of the galaxy. Image credit: Y. Stein, Centre de Données astronomiques de Strasbourg / NRAO / SDSS / KPNO / J. English, University of Manitoba / R.-J. Dettmar & A. Miskolczi, Ruhr-Universität Bochum / R.J. Rand, U.N.M. / J. Irwin, Queen’s University.

Radio Telescope Sees X-Shaped Magnetic Field of NGC 4217

Jul 21, 2020 by News Staff

An international team of radio astronomers has used data from NSF’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) to generate a detailed map of the magnetic...

Sloan Digital Sky Survey Collaboration Releases New 3D Map of Universe

Jul 20, 2020 by News Staff

Astrophysicists and cosmologists from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) have released the largest 3D map of the Universe ever created, filling in the...

This new picture of the Cosmic Microwave Background, the oldest light in the Universe, was taken by the Atacama Cosmology Telescope. This covers a swath of the sky 50 times as wide as the Moon, representing a region of space 20 billion light-years across. The light, emitted just 380,000 years after the Big Bang, varies in polarization (represented here by redder or bluer colors). Image credit: ACT Collaboration.

Universe is 13.77 Billion Years Old, Astronomers Say

Jul 17, 2020 by News Staff

Astronomers using NSF’s Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) have taken a fresh look at the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), the oldest light in our Universe....

This two-panel illustration shows a black hole surrounded by a disk of gas, before and after the disk is partially dispersed. In the left panel, the ball of white light above the black hole is the black hole corona, a collection of ultra-hot gas particles that forms as gas from the disk falls into the black hole. The streak of debris falling toward the disk is what remains of a star that was torn apart by the black hole’s gravity. The right panel shows the black hole after the debris from the star has dispersed some of the gas in the disk, causing the corona to disappear. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Colliding Star Destroys Supermassive Black Hole’s Corona in Distant Galaxy

Jul 17, 2020 by News Staff

An international team of astronomers has watched as an X-ray corona of a supermassive black hole in the active galactic nucleus 1ES 1927+654 was abruptly...

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