Caltech astronomers describe the bar scene at the beginning of the universe Bars abound in spiral galaxies today, but this was not always the case. A group of 16 astronomers, led by Kartik Sheth of NASA's Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology, has found that bars tripled in number over the past seven billion years, indicating that spiral galaxies evolve in shape. view more (2008-07-30)
Newly discovered galaxy cluster in early stage of formation is farthest ever identified UC Irvine scientists have discovered a cluster of galaxies in a very early stage of formation that is 11.4 billion light years from Earth - the farthest of its kind ever to be detected. view more (2008-04-01)
Seeing the Invisible - Astronomers Pin Down Dark Matter Distribution The mysterious invisible Dark Matter in the Universe is distributed just like galaxies on large scales, according to findings by scientists in Edinburgh, Rutgers/Princeton and Cambridge, using data from the Anglo-Australian telescope 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey. What is more, there isn`t enough of it to cause the Universe to stop expanding. The... view more... (2001-12-10)
Stripped down: Hubble highlights 2 galaxies that are losing it Ram pressure is the drag force that results when something moves through a fluid - much like the wind you feel in your face when bicycling, even on a still day - and occurs in this context as galaxies orbiting about the centre of the cluster move through the intra-cluster medium, which then sweeps out gas from within the galaxies. view more (2009-09-30)
Baffling boxy bulge When targeting spiral galaxy bulges, astronomers often seek edge-on galaxies, as their bulges are more easily distinguishable from the disc. view more (2009-11-18)
Old Galaxies in the Young Universe Very Large Telescope Unravels New Population of Very Old Massive Galaxies [1] Current theories of the formation of galaxies are based on the hierarchical merging of smaller entities into larger and larger structures, starting from about the size of a stellar globular cluster and ending with clusters of galaxies. According to this scenario, it is... view more... (2004-07-06)
First Stars Seen In Distant Galaxies UK and US astronomers have used the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope to detect light coming from the first stars to form in some of the most distant galaxies yet seen. view more (2005-04-02)
Galaxies coming of age in cosmic blobs The "coming of age" of galaxies and black holes has been pinpointed, thanks to new data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes. view more (2009-06-25)
UCI scientists discover minimum mass for galaxies By analyzing light from small, faint galaxies that orbit the Milky Way, UC Irvine scientists believe they have discovered the minimum mass for galaxies in the universe - 10 million times the mass of the sun. view more (2008-08-28)
Dancing around the Black Hole ISAAC Finds "Cool" Young Stellar Systems at the Centres of Active Galaxies Supermassive Black Holes are present at the centres of many galaxies, some weighing hundreds of millions times more than the Sun. These extremely dense objects cannot be observed directly, but violently moving gas clouds and stars in their strong gravitational fields are... view more... (2001-08-14)
heic0812: The Antennae Galaxies move closer New research on the Antennae Galaxies using the Advanced Camera for Surveys onboard the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows that this benchmark pair of interacting galaxies is in fact much closer than previously thought - 45 million light-years instead of 65 million light-years view more (2008-05-12)
Hubble finds hundreds of young galaxies in the early Universe Astronomers analysing two of the deepest views of the cosmos made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have uncovered a gold mine of galaxies, more than 500, that existed less than a thousand million years after the Big Bang. view more (2006-09-25)
A Hungry Quasar Caught in the Act The VLT Secures Spectacular Image of Distant Gravitational Interaction A new image of a distant quasar (the luminous core of an "active" galaxy) shows that it is engaged in a gravitational battle with its neighbouring galaxies. It also provides information on how supermassive black holes present in the center of quasars are fed. Using the FORS2... view more... (2001-05-31)
Hubble finds hundreds of young galaxies in the early universe The discovery is scientifically invaluable for understanding the origin of galaxies, considering that just a decade ago early galaxy formation was largely uncharted territory. view more (2006-09-22)
Ultrafast star escapes black hole Galactic nuclei are the cores of galaxies, groups of thousands to millions of stars that are held together by gravity. As stars in the nucleus are so close together, interactions readily occur. view more (2006-10-05)
Quasars help trace ancestors of giant elliptical galaxies By using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) as a `time machine`, astronomers from the Universities of Edinburgh and Oxford in the UK and the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore in the USA have been able to trace back the history of massive elliptical galaxies. They have found that galaxies of this kind, which still exist today,... view more... (2002-04-04)
Monster galaxy pileup sighted Four galaxies are slamming into each other and kicking up billions of stars in one of the largest cosmic smash-ups ever observed. view more (2007-08-07)
The universe just became a little simpler Using images from the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have concluded that two of the most common types of galaxies in the universe are in reality different versions of the same thing. In spite of their similar-sounding names, astronomers had long considered "dwarf elliptical" and "giant elliptical" galaxies... view more... (2003-06-18)
ESA's XMM-Newton gains deep insights into the distant Universe Using XMM-Newton, astronomers have obtained the world's deepest 'wide screen' X-ray image of the cosmos to date. Their observations show newly discovered clusters of galaxies and provide insights into the structure of the distant Universe"¦ Unlike grains of sand on a beach, matter is not uniformly spread throughout the Universe. Instead, it... view more... (2003-07-14)
Old galaxies stick together in the young universe UK astronomers have developed the most sensitive infrared map of the distant universe ever produced, revealing the origins of the most massive galaxies in the cosmos. view more (2008-04-07)
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