Latest Extragalactic astronomy Stories
BENTON HARBOR, Mich., Dec. 21, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Whirlpool Corporation (NYSE: WHR) has been named to the 2012-2013 Ocean Tomo 300® Patent Index for the seventh consecutive year. The equity index is the first based on the value of corporate intellectual property. It is priced and published by NYSE Euronext. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20040202/DETU004LOGO ) The index is objectively based on the value of a company's intellectual property, especially patents, which...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online According to a study using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, there may be more ultramassive black holes in the Universe than previously thought. A new analysis has looked at the brightest galaxies in a sample of 18 galaxy clusters in order to target the largest black holes. The scientists' work suggests that at least ten of the galaxies contain an ultramassive black hole, weighing between 10 and 40 billion times the mass...
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online As grand and colorful as it is, our solar system is a fleck in the grander cosmos. Our Milky Way galaxy has hundreds of billions of solar systems, yet it is only just a drop in the sea of galaxies. Galaxy clusters, the rarest and largest of galaxy groupings, can be the hardest to find, which is where NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) becomes helpful. So far, the mission's all-sky infrared maps have revealed one...
[ Video 1 ] | [ Video 2 ] | [ Video 3 ] Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online A new Hubble Space Telescope image has been unveiled of NGC 922, revealing the cosmic structure to be an unusual spiral galaxy. The ring structure and distorted spiral shape of NGC 922 was imaged with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory to reveal even more chaos in the form of ultra luminous X-ray sources. The galaxy's unusual form is due to a cosmic bulls eye millions of years ago. A smaller...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online A new project, named The Andromeda Project, is asking the public's help to search through Hubble Space Telescope images to identify star clusters and increase our understanding of how galaxies evolve. The new project is a collaboration between scientists at the University of Washington, the University of Utah and other partners, aiming to study thousands of high-resolution Hubble images. “It’s an amazing opportunity to discover...
[ Watch the Video: Hercules A Zoom Sequence ] Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online A new Hubble Space Telescope image released today shows off a multi-wavelength view of radio galaxy Hercules A. The image was produced through a collaboration of the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3, and the upgraded Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope in New Mexico. The yellowish elliptical galaxy seen in the image is about 1,000 times more massive than...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Astronomers have measured the mass of what may be the most massive black hole observed so far by using the Hobby-Eberly Telescope at The University of Texas at Austin's McDonald Observatory. The black hole makes up 14 percent of its galaxy's mass, rather than the usual 0.1 percent, according to the study published in the journal Nature. NGC 1277 is about 220 million light-years away from Earth, and is just ten percent the size and...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Astronomers have reported in The Astrophysical Journal that they have found a quasar with the most energetic outflow ever seen. The quasar, SDSS J1106+1939, is at least five times more powerful than any that have been observed to date. Quasars are bright galactic centers powered by supermassive black holes. These cosmic objects outflows have never been observed as powerful as theorists have predicted, until now. The new study looked...
BENTON HARBOR, Mich., Nov. 20, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Whirlpool Corporation (NYSE: WHR) received a score of 100 from the Human Rights Campaign on the 2013 U.S. Corporate Equality Index. This is the ninth consecutive year that Whirlpool has attained a perfect score on the index, the first and only appliance company to do so. The Corporate Equality Index rates American workplaces on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Equality. (Logo:...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online The European Space Agency (ESA) released an image this week of an interactive diagram known as the Hubble Tuning Fork. The diagram helps to describe the shape of galaxies, which can come in all different sizes. It ranges between elliptical galaxies, intermediate spirals, barred spirals and irregular shapes. The interactive map gives the examples of the different shapes of the galaxies, as well as a description in type, morphology,...
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).
