Latest Andromeda Galaxy Stories

WASHINGTON, Oct. 19, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A comprehensive study of hundreds of galaxies observed by the Keck telescopes in Hawaii and NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has revealed an unexpected pattern of change that extends back 8 billion years, or more than half the age of the universe. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) "Astronomers thought disk galaxies in the nearby universe had settled into their present form by about 8 billion years ago,...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online The Milky Way Galaxy is known for its spirals, as well as Earth's home in the cosmos, but now it will also be known as a galaxy that features a halo. Astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory found evidence that the Milky Way Galaxy is embedded in a halo of hot gas that extends for hundreds of thousands of light years. Scientists estimated that the mass of the halo found is comparable to the mass of all the stars in the...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 24, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Astronomers have used NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory to find evidence our Milky Way Galaxy is embedded in an enormous halo of hot gas that extends for hundreds of thousands of light years. The estimated mass of the halo is comparable to the mass of all the stars in the galaxy. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) If the size and mass of this gas halo is confirmed, it also could be an explanation for...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com According to recent studies with the National Science Foundation's Green Bank Telescope (GBT), a couple celestial neighbor galaxies may have had a close encounter with each other billions of years ago. Astronomers confirmed a disputed 2004 discovery of hydrogen gas streaming between the giant Andromeda Galaxy and the Triangulum Galaxy with their new study. "The properties of this gas indicate that these two galaxies may have passed close together in the...

[ Watch the Video ] NASA astronomers announced on May 31 that they can now predict with certainty the next major cosmic event to affect our galaxy, sun, and solar system: the titanic collision of our Milky Way galaxy with the neighboring Andromeda galaxy. The Milky Way is destined to get a major makeover during the encounter, which is predicted to happen four billion years from now. It is likely the sun will be flung into a new region of our galaxy, but our Earth and solar system are in...

WASHINGTON, May 31, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA astronomers announced Thursday they can now predict with certainty the next major cosmic event to affect our galaxy, sun, and solar system: the titanic collision of our Milky Way galaxy with the neighboring Andromeda galaxy. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) The Milky Way is destined to get a major makeover during the encounter, which is predicted to happen four billion years from now. It is likely...

Astronomers from the University of Bonn in Germany have discovered a vast structure of satellite galaxies and clusters of stars surrounding our Galaxy, stretching out across a million light years. The work challenges the existence of dark matter, part of the standard model for the evolution of the universe. PhD student and lead author Marcel Pawlowski reports the team’s findings in a paper in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. The Milky Way, the galaxy we live...

More than one billion stars in the Milky Way can be seen together in detail for the first time in an image captured by astronomers More than one billion stars in the Milky Way can be seen together in detail for the first time in an image captured by astronomers. Scientists created the color picture by combining infra-red light images from telescopes in the northern and southern hemispheres. Large structures of the Milky Way galaxy, such as gas and dust clouds where stars have formed and...

Astronomers have discovered the most distant galaxy cluster every found, 10.5 billion light years away from the Milky Way galaxy. Galaxy clusters contain thousands of galaxies and are considered important building blocks with the power to help unravel the mysteries of the early universe. Texas A&M astronomer Dr. Kim-Vy Tran said the cluster is made up of a dense concentration of 30 galaxies that is the seed for a much bigger cluster. "Our galaxy cluster is observed when the...

A spectacularly bright object recently spotted in one of the Milky Way's neighboring galaxies is the result of a "normal" stellar black hole, astronomers have found. An international team of scientists, led by Dr Matt Middleton, of Durham University, analyzed the Ultraluminous X-ray Source (ULX), which was originally discovered in the Andromeda galaxy by NASA's Chandra x-ray observatory. They publish their results in the journals Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society and...