Latest Irregular galaxies Stories

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports - Your Universe Online Shockwaves originating from the central starburst region of galaxy Messier 82 (M82) are most likely the source of bright clouds within a “cap” of gas clouds located some 40,000 light years away, astronomers have discovered. Kyoto University’s Dr. Kazuya Matsubayshi and an international team of colleagues observed the nearby starburst galaxy, which is located approximately 12 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa...

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports - Your Universe Online An image of an isolated galaxy located approximately nine million light years from the Milky Way has been captured using the Hubble Space Telescope, NASA officials announced on Friday. The picture features a relatively isolated, dwarf irregular galaxy known as DDO 190, which officials from the US space agency describe as relatively small and lacking in structure. The galaxy, which was identified and code named in honor of the...

  Astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory discovered the first pair of supermassive black holes in a spiral galaxy similar to the Milky Way. Approximately 160 million light years from Earth, the pair is the nearest known such phenomenon. The black holes are located near the center of the spiral galaxy NGC 3393. Separated by only 490 light years, the black holes are likely the remnant of a merger of two galaxies of unequal mass a billion or more years ago. "If this galaxy...

A new Chandra X-ray Observatory image of Messier 82, or M82, shows the result of star formation on overdrive. M82 is located about 12 million light years from Earth and is the nearest place to us where the conditions are similar to those when the Universe was much younger with lots of stars forming.M82 is a so-called starburst galaxy, where stars are forming at rates that are tens or even hundreds of times higher than in a normal galaxy. The burst of star birth may be caused by a close...

Lowell Observatory astronomer Deidre Hunter and her team studies small, diffuse galaxies to learn about star formation in those regions and, perhaps, shed light on the birth of the first stars after the Big BangWhen you picture a galaxy in your mind's eye, it's often a spiral with magnificent structure--long, swirling, milky-white arms of stars and gas.Lowell Observatory astronomer Deidre Hunter has spent most of the last 17 years methodically studying galaxies that you might not...

A U.S. astronomer says he discovered a galaxy in which gas is distributed over a much larger area than researchers expected to find. Macalester College Professor John Cannon said the giant disk dwarf galaxy he discovered has the largest size difference between stars and gas of any known galaxy. That finding, he said, is important for furthering the understanding of how galaxies form and how they remain stable over time. Cannon said data from the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona and...

Astronomers think that there are enormous black holes at the centers of most, if not all, galaxies. These black holes, which can be millions or even billions of times more massive than the Sun, can greatly affect the galaxy and the environments around them. One way such black holes shape their surroundings is by generating powerful jets of high-energy particles. The jets, which are bright in radio waves, have been seen to push around the hot gas that envelopes the galaxy. When this happens,...

This new image taken with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope depicts bright, blue, newly formed stars that are blowing a cavity in the center of a star-forming region in the Small Magellanic Cloud.At the heart of the star-forming region, lies star cluster NGC 602. The high-energy radiation blazing out from the hot young stars is sculpting the inner edge of the outer portions of the nebula, slowly eroding it away and eating into the material beyond. The diffuse outer reaches of the nebula prevent...

Since 1999, a lot of things have come and gone -- the Y2K bug, a slew of boy bands and a new Star Wars trilogy. But NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, which unveiled its first images just a few months shy of the new millennium, continues to make headlines seven years later. Maybe it's because Chandra's subjects are timeless -- black holes, distant galaxies, and stars that don't reside in Hollywood. And they're long-lasting -- with stellar lives that span billions of years. Or maybe it's...

To celebrate the Hubble Space Telescope's 16 years of success, the two space agencies involved in the project, NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), are releasing this image of the magnificent starburst galaxy, Messier 82 (M82). This mosaic image is the sharpest wide-angle view ever obtained of M82. The galaxy is remarkable for its bright blue disk, webs of shredded clouds, and fiery-looking plumes of glowing hydrogen blasting out of its central regions. Throughout the galaxy's center,...