Latest Extragalactic astronomy Stories
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. Dr Chris Conselice from the University of Nottingham will present the results at the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science at the University of Hertfordshire on Wednesday 22nd April.The observations are part of the Great Observatories...
A new image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope offers a rare view of an imminent collision between the cores of two merging galaxies, each powered by a black hole with millions of times the mass of the sun.The galactic cores are in a single, tangled galaxy called NGC 6240, located 400-million light years away in the constellation Ophiuchus. Millions of years ago, each core was the dense center of its own galaxy before the two galaxies collided and ripped each other apart. Now, these cores...
A spectacular new image of an unusual spiral galaxy in the Coma galaxy cluster has been created from data obtained by the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the Hubble Space Telescope. It reveals fine details of the galaxy, NGC 4921, and an extraordinary rich background of more remote galaxies stretching back to the early Universe.The Coma galaxy cluster, in the northern constellation of Coma Berenices, the hair of Queen Berenice, is one of the closest, very rich collections of galaxies in the...
British astronomers say cosmic dust was partially created by the gradual death of carbon stars and not just from stars that exploded. The astronomers have been watching cosmic dust form around a dying star in a nearby galaxy, similar to the primitive galaxies that formed soon after the big bang, said a release from the Science and Technology Facilities Council, which funded the study. The newly observed dust formation was found around the carbon star MAG 29, located 280,000 light years away...
ITHACA, N.Y. "“ A Cornell-led team of astronomers has observed dust forming around a dying star in a nearby galaxy, giving a glimpse into the early universe and enlivening a debate about the origins of all cosmic dust. The findings are reported in the Jan. 16 issue of the journal Science (Vol. 323, No. 5912). Cornell research associate Greg Sloan led the study, which was based on observations with NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The researchers used Spitzer's Infrared Spectrograph, which...
Iowa State University's Martin Pohl is part of a research team that has developed the first complete map of the Milky Way galaxy's spiral arms.The map shows the inner part of the Milky Way has two prominent, symmetric spiral arms, which extend into the outer galaxy where they branch into four spiral arms."For the first time these arms are mapped over the entire Milky Way," said Pohl, an Iowa State associate professor of physics and astronomy. "The branching of two of the arms...
Violent intergalactic collision created the bright pinwheels and broad star sweeps typical in disk galaxies such as the Milky Way, U.S. researchers found. The multiinstitutional team's simulated galaxy formation suggests disk galaxies likely began as flat, centralized star clusters, the University of Pittsburgh, one of the institutions, said in a news release. Smaller galaxies ripped through these disks billions of years ago, casting disk stars outward into the galaxies' current shapes,...
The deepest ultraviolet image of the Universe yetAnyone who has wondered what it might be like to dive into a pool of millions of distant galaxies of different shapes and colors, 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 VIMOS instrument.This uniquely beautiful...
Astronomers studying new images of a nearby galaxy cluster have found evidence that high-speed collisions between large elliptical galaxies may prevent new stars from forming, according to a paper to be published in a November 2008 issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters.Led by Jeffrey Kenney, professor and chair of astronomy at Yale, the team saw a spectacular complex of warm gas filaments 400,000 light-years-long connecting the elliptical galaxy M86 and the spiral galaxy NGC 4438 in the...
Abell 1689, shown in this composite image, is a massive cluster of galaxies located about 2.3 billion light years away that shows signs of merging activity. Hundred-million-degree gas detected by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory is shown as purple in this image, while galaxies from optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope are colored yellow. The X-ray emission has a smooth appearance, unlike other merging systems such as the Bullet Cluster or MACS J0025.4-1222. The temperature pattern...
Latest Extragalactic astronomy Reference Libraries
The Virgo Cluster consists of galaxies at a distance of around 59 Mly away in the constellation Virgo. Containing between 1300 to 2000 galaxies the Virgo Cluster is the heart of the Local Supercluster. Its mass is estimated at 1.2 × 1015 M☉ out to 8 degrees of the cluster's center or a radius of about 2.2 Mpc. Most of the brighter galaxies in the cluster were discovered by Charles Messier in the late 1770's and early 1780's, including the giant elliptical Messier 87. Messier...
The NGC 5866, located in the Draco constellation, is named after the galaxy with the highest magnitude however some catalogs list NGC 5907 as the brightest member. The M51 Group and the M101 Group are NGC 5866 closest neighbor. The distances between these groups are similar which suggest the three groups are part of a single large, loose, elongated group. However, most identification methods consider them separate.
The M101 Group, one of many in the Virgo Supercluster, is located in Ursa Major and named after the brightest galaxy in the group, the Pinwheel Galaxy (M101). The group is composed mostly of members that are companions of the Pinwheel Galaxy. The M51 Group and the NGC 5866 Group are M101's closest neighbor. The distances between these groups are similar which suggest the three groups are part of a single large, loose, elongated group. However, most identification methods consider them...
The M81 Group, containing the well known galaxies Messier 81 and Messier 82, is a group of galaxies within the constellation Ursa Major. Along with Messier 81 and 82 are several other galaxies with apparent brightness. The center, located at an approximate distance of 3.6 Mpc, is one of the nearest groups to the Local Group. The total estimated mass of the group is (1.03 ± 0.17) × 1012M☉. The Virgo Supercluster contains the M81 Group, the Local Group, and some other nearby...
The M51 Group, located in Canes Venatici, is named after the brightest galaxy in the group, the Whirlpool Galaxy (M51A). The few other notable members include the companion galaxy to the Whirlpool Galaxy (M51B) and the Sunflower Galaxy (M63).
![Taken Under the \](/media/gallery/spitzer-space-telescope-sirtf/thumbs/thumbs_738999main_pia16884-full_full.jpg "Taken Under the \")
![Sagittarius Galaxy Impacts Milky Way\](/media/gallery/national-science-foundation-gallery/thumbs/thumbs_pf3134_sgr_h.jpg "Sagittarius Galaxy Impacts Milky Way\")
