Galaxies News

November 20, 2024

Top Headlines

Three Galactic 'Red Monsters' in the Early Universe

Nov. 13, 2024 — Astronomers have identified three ultra-massive galaxies -- nearly as massive as the Milky Way -- already in place within the first billion years after the Big Bang. This surprising discovery was made possible by the James Webb Space Telescope's ...

Astronomers' Theory of How Galaxies Formed May Be Upended

Nov. 12, 2024 — The standard model for how galaxies formed in the early universe predicted that the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) would see dim signals from small, primitive galaxies. But data are not confirming the popular hypothesis that invisible dark matter ...

Astrophysicists Use Echoes of Light to Illuminate Black Holes

Nov. 7, 2024 — Researchers have developed an innovative technique to search for black hole light echoes. Their novel method, which will make it easier for the mass and the spin of black holes to be measured, represents a major step forward, since it operates ...

Mighty Radio Bursts Linked to Massive Galaxies

Nov. 6, 2024 — Researchers have uncovered where FRBs are more likely to occur in the universe -- massive star-forming galaxies rather than low - mass ...

Latest Headlines

updated 11:04pm EST

New ESO Image Captures a Dark Wolf in the Sky

Oct. 31, 2024 — For Halloween, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) reveals a spooktacular image of a dark nebula that creates the illusion of a wolf-like silhouette against a colourful cosmic backdrop. Fittingly ...

Astronomers Detect Ancient Lonely Quasars With Murky Origins

Oct. 17, 2024 — Astronomers observed ancient quasars that appear to be surprisingly alone in the early universe. The findings challenge physicists' understanding of how such luminous objects could have formed so ...

'Inside-Out' Galaxy Growth Observed in the Early Universe

Oct. 11, 2024 — Astronomers have used the NASA/ESA James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to observe the 'inside-out' growth of a galaxy in the early universe, only 700 million years after the Big ...

Space Oddity: Most Distant Rotating Disc Galaxy Found

Oct. 7, 2024 — Researchers have discovered the most distant Milky-Way-like galaxy yet observed. Dubbed REBELS-25, this disc galaxy seems as orderly as present-day galaxies, but we see it as it was when the Universe ...

In Odd Galaxy, NASA's Webb Finds Potential Missing Link to First Stars

Oct. 3, 2024 — Looking deep into the early universe with NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have found something unprecedented: a galaxy with an odd light signature, which they attribute to its gas ...

Our Cosmic Neighborhood May Be 10x Larger

Sep. 27, 2024 — The Cosmicflows team has been studying the movements of 56,000 galaxies, revealing a potential shift in the scale of our galactic basin of ...

ESO Telescope Captures the Most Detailed Infrared Map Ever of Our Milky Way

Sep. 26, 2024 — Astronomers have published a gigantic infrared map of the Milky Way containing more than 1.5 billion objects -- the most detailed one ever made. Using the European Southern Observatory's VISTA ...

NASA's Hubble Finds That a Black Hole Beam Promotes Stellar Eruptions

Sep. 26, 2024 — In a surprise finding, astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have discovered that the blowtorch-like jet from a supermassive black hole at the core of a huge galaxy seems to cause stars to ...

How Special Is the Milky Way Galaxy?

Sep. 25, 2024 — The SAGA Survey just published three new research articles that provide us with new insights into the uniqueness of our own Milky Way Galaxy after completing the census of 101 satellite systems ...

Webb Discovers 'Weird' Galaxy With Gas Outshining Its Stars

Sep. 25, 2024 — The discovery of a 'weird' and unprecedented galaxy in the early Universe could 'help us understand how the cosmic story began', astronomers say. GS-NDG-9422 (9422) was found approximately one ...

Magnifying Deep Space Through the 'Carousel Lens'

Sep. 18, 2024 — A newly discovered cluster-scale strong gravitational lens, with a rare alignment of seven background lensed galaxies, provides a unique opportunity to study ...

Gargantuan Black Hole Jets Are Biggest Seen Yet

Sep. 18, 2024 — Astronomers have spotted the biggest pair of black hole jets ever seen, spanning 23 million light-years in total length. That's equivalent to lining up 140 Milky Way galaxies back to ...

NASA's Webb Provides Another Look Into Galactic Collisions

Sep. 18, 2024 — Astronomers examined galaxy Arp 107 which has revealed a wealth of information about star-formation and how two galaxies collided hundreds of million years ago. Arp 107 is located 465 million ...

More Black Holes Than Expected in the Early Universe

Sep. 17, 2024 — With the help of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, an international team of scientists has found more black holes in the early universe than has previously been reported. The new result can help ...

Astronomers Detect Black Hole 'Starving' Its Host Galaxy to Death

Sep. 16, 2024 — Astronomers have used the NASA/ESA James Webb Space Telescope to confirm that supermassive black holes can starve their host galaxies of the fuel they need to form new ...

NASA's Webb Peers Into the Extreme Outer Galaxy

Sep. 12, 2024 — Astronomers have directed NASA's James Webb Space Telescope to examine the outskirts of our Milky Way galaxy. Scientists call this region the Extreme Outer Galaxy due to its location more than ...

AI Helps Distinguish Dark Matter from Cosmic Noise

Sep. 6, 2024 — An AI-powered tool can distinguish dark matter's elusive effects from other cosmic phenomena, which could bring us closer to unlocking the secrets of dark ...

Massive Merger: Study Reveals Evidence for Origin of Supermassive Black Hole at Galaxy's Center

Sep. 6, 2024 — Researchers have discovered compelling evidence suggesting that the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy, known as Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), is likely the result of a past ...

Distorted Galaxy Forming Cosmic Question Mark

Sep. 4, 2024 — It's 7 billion years ago, and the universe's heyday of star formation is beginning to slow. What might our Milky Way galaxy have looked like at that time? Astronomers have found clues in ...

Dancing Galaxies Make a Monster at the Cosmic Dawn

Aug. 29, 2024 — Astronomers have spotted a pair of galaxies in the act of merging 12.8 billion years ago. The characteristics of these galaxies indicate that the merger will form a monster galaxy, one of the ...

Dark Matter Could Have Helped Make Supermassive Black Holes in the Early Universe

Aug. 28, 2024 — Supermassive black holes typically take billions of years to form. But the James Webb Space Telescope is finding them not that long after the Big Bang -- before they should have had time to form. ...

Highest-Resolution Observations Yet from the Surface of Earth

Aug. 27, 2024 — Astronomers have achieved the highest resolution ever obtained from the surface of Earth. They managed this feat by detecting light from distant galaxies at a frequency of around 345 GHz, equivalent ...

First Low Frequency Search for Alien Technology in Distant Galaxies

Aug. 26, 2024 — Researchers have announced a groundbreaking study using the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) in Western Australia. The research is the first to search for signs of alien technology in galaxies beyond ...

Galaxies in Dense Environments Tend to Be Larger, Settling One Cosmic Question and Raising Others

Aug. 14, 2024 — A new study has found galaxies with more neighbors tend to be larger than their counterparts that have a similar shape and mass, but reside in less dense environments. The team, which used a ...

Dark Matter Flies Ahead of Normal Matter in Mega Galaxy Cluster Collision

July 24, 2024 — Astronomers have untangled a messy collision between two massive clusters of galaxies in which the clusters' vast clouds of dark matter have decoupled from the so-called normal ...

Another Intermediate-Mass Black Hole Discovered at the Center of Our Galaxy

July 18, 2024 — So far, only about ten intermediate-mass black holes have been discovered in the entire universe. The newly identified black hole causes surrounding stars in a cluster to move in an unexpectedly ...

Want to Spot a Deepfake? Look for the Stars in Their Eyes

July 17, 2024 — In an era when the creation of artificial intelligence (AI) images is at the fingertips of the masses, the ability to detect fake pictures -- particularly deepfakes of people -- is becoming ...

Cosmic Wrestling Match

July 15, 2024 — Our universe is around 13.8 billion years old. Over the vastness of this time, the tiniest of initial asymmetries have grown into the large-scale structures we can see through our telescopes in the ...

Vivid Portrait of Interacting Galaxies Marks Webb's Second Anniversary

July 12, 2024 — Two for two! A duo of interacting galaxies commemorates the second science anniversary of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, which takes constant observations, including images and highly ...

How the 'Heart and Lungs' of a Galaxy Extend Its Life

July 12, 2024 — Galaxies avoid an early death because they have a 'heart and lungs' which effectively regulate their 'breathing' and prevent them growing out of control, a new study suggests. If ...