Astronomers have glimpsed the largest cluster of galaxies ever seen in the distant, early universe. The discovery of this far-off group, estimated to contain as much mass as a thousand large galaxies, offers further proof of the existence of the enigmatic force called dark energy. picked by AutumnLotus 1 year ago

A furious rate of star formation discovered in a distant galaxy shows that galaxies in the early universe developed either much faster or in a different way from what astronomers have thought. The galaxy is forming the equivalent of 4,000 Suns a year. This is a thousand times more violent than our own Milky Way galaxy. picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

Astronomers have argued for years over whether massive galaxies form from scratch, or by chunking together smaller galaxies. Lately, evidence is building for the latter theory, and a new study adds to the growing picture of galaxy formation as a clumpy affair. picked by AutumnLotus 1 year ago

An ambitious study of active and inactive galaxies has given new insights into the complex interaction between super-massive black holes at the heart of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) and star formation in the surrounding galaxy. The study finds that gas ejected during the quasar stage of AGN snuffs out star formation, leaving the host galaxies to evolve passively. picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

A distant galaxy cluster has turned into a giant particle accelerator, spinning electrons over vast distances at high speeds. Scientists discovered this phenomenon by observing highly energetic X-rays emanating from the Ophiuchus cluster of galaxies. picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

An international team of researchers led by a UC Riverside astronomer has completed the largest ever survey designed to find very distant clusters of galaxies. Named the Spitzer Adaptation of the Red-sequence Cluster Survey, "SpARCS" detects galaxy clusters using deep ground-based optical observations from the CTIO 4m and CFHT 3.6m telescopes, combined with Spitzer Space Telescope infrar... read full post picked by AutumnLotus 5 months ago

Astronomers have glimpsed what may be the farthest galaxy we've ever seen, providing a picture of a baby galaxy born soon after the beginning of the universe. picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

First results from the GOODS NICMOS survey, the largest Hubble Space Telescope program ever led from outside of the United States, reveal how the most massive galaxies in the early Universe assembled to form the most massive objects in the Universe today. picked by AutumnLotus 7 months ago

With the conventional theory of gravitation, based on Newton’s ideas and refined by Einstein 92 years ago, dark matter helps to explain the motion of galaxies, and clusters of galaxies, on the largest scales. Now two Canadian researchers suggest that the motion of galaxies in a distant cluster is more easily explained by a Modified Gravity (MOG) theory than by the presence of dark matter. picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

Looking almost 11 billion years into the past, astronomers have measured the motions of stars for the first time in a very distant galaxy and clocked speeds upwards of one million miles per hour, about twice the speed of our Sun through the Milky Way. picked by AutumnLotus 4 months ago

Recently, two groups of astronomers were able to see two classes of unique galaxies from the early universe. One group glimpsed galaxies that looked old even when the universe was young, suggesting they must have been some of the first galaxies to form after the birth of the universe. The other group found galaxies dating from the strongest burst of star formation in the universe. picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

The joint Japan-U.S. Suzaku mission is providing new insight into how assemblages of thousands of galaxies pull themselves together. For the first time, Suzaku has detected X-ray-emitting gas at a cluster's outskirts, where a billion-year plunge to the center begins. picked by AutumnLotus 6 months ago

A team of astronomers looking at the universe’s distant past found nine young, unusually compact galaxies, each weighing in at 200 billion times the mass of the Sun.

These young galaxies are the equivalent of a human baby that is 20 inches long, yet weighs 180 pounds. picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

The orbiting X-ray telescopes XXM-Newton and Chandra have caught a pair of galaxy clusters merging into a giant cluster. The discovery adds to existing evidence that galaxy clusters can collide faster than previously thought. picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

Anyone who has wondered what it might be like to dive into a pool of millions of distant galaxies of different shapes and colours, will enjoy the latest image released by ESO. Obtained in part with the Very Large Telescope, the image is the deepest ground-based U-band image of the Universe ever obtained. It contains more than 27 million pixels and is the result of 55 hours of observations with the... read full post picked by AutumnLotus 1 year ago

Through some of the very first scientific observations with the brand-new Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) in Arizona, astronomers has found that a recently discovered tiny companion galaxy to our Milky Way, named the Hercules Dwarf Galaxy, has truly exceptional properties: while basically all of its known peers in the realm of these tiny dwarf galaxies are rather round, this galaxy at a distance o... read full post picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

In the early 1900s, Edwin Hubble made the startling discovery that our Milky Way galaxy is not alone. It is just one of many galaxies, or "island universes," as Hubble dubbed them, swimming in the sea of space. Now, a century later, NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer is helping piece together the evolution of these cosmic species. picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago

Dubbed SDSSJ0737+3216, the just discovered galaxy is 100 times lighter than our own Milky Way and is the smallest galaxy ever identified at that distance. It is about half the size and approximately one-tenth the "weight" of typical small galaxies found closer to Earth. picked by julea 2 years ago

The Hubble Space Telescope has found a large galaxy 10.6 billion light-years away from Earth that is stuffing itself with smaller galaxies caught like flies in a web of gravity. The galaxy is so far away that astronomers are seeing it as it looked in the early formative years of the Universe, only 2 billion years after the Big Bang. picked by 2manyusernames 3 years ago

Diamonds more than 4 billion years old -- nearly as old as the Earth itself -- have been discovered in Western Australia, giving scientists vital clues about the early history of our planet. picked by AutumnLotus 2 years ago