Mega Merger: Witnessing The Making Of A Giant Galaxy
Watch the Video: Mega Galaxy Merger ] April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Around 11 billion years ago, two hungry young galaxies collided and they are now forming a massive galaxy approximately 10 times the size of the...
Latest Spiral galaxies Stories
Watch the video “Intergalactic Clouds Lurk Between Nearby Galaxies" John P. Millis, PhD for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online As we gaze into space beyond the confines of our own Milky Way, we see a Universe filled with galaxies. But what scientists have come to realize is that the emptiness that spans between these giant pools of stars is not empty at all, but rather is filled with massive amounts of gas. In fact, these gas reservoirs can sometimes outweigh the galaxies...
WATCH VIDEOS: [Animation of a Starburst Galaxy] | [Probing a Galactic Halo] Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Astronomers writing in The Astrophysical Journal say they've observed how bursts of star formation have a major impact beyond the boundaries of their host galaxy. When galaxies form new stars, they can create frantic episodes of activity known as starbursts. Scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope say these events can affect galactic gas at distances...
Brett Smith for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Efficiency experts and green technology proponents can now look to the heavens for inspiration, as astronomers have identified a galaxy that forms stars at almost 100 percent efficiency. According to a new report in Astrophysical Journal Letters, telltale signs from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), the Hubble Space Telescope and the Plateau de Bure interferometer at the Institut de Radioastronomie Millimétrique...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Astronomers say they have discovered a star factory in a galaxy so distant that they see it when the Universe was only six percent of its current age of about 13.7 billion years old. The team wrote in the journal Nature that HFLS3 sits at about 12.8 billion light-years from Earth. They said the distant galaxy is producing about 3,000 Suns per year, which is more than 2,000 times that of our own Milky Way galaxy. "This is the most...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Astronomers report in The Astrophysical Journal that they have determined the positions of over 100 of the most fertile star-forming galaxies in the early Universe. The group used the new Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope during their observations. This telescope can capture just as many observations of this group of galaxies in just a few hours as similar telescopes can in more than a decade. [ Video:...
Subaru Telescope A duo of astronomers, Dr. Youichi Ohyama (Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Academia Sinica or ASIAA, Taiwan) and Dr. Ananda Hota (UM-DAE Centre for Excellence in the Basic Sciences or CBS, India), has discovered a Blue Supergiant star located far beyond our Milky Way Galaxy in the constellation Virgo. Over fifty-five million years ago, it emerged in an extremely wild environment, surrounded by intensely hot plasma (a million degrees centigrade) and amidst raging...
Brett Smith for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online An international team of researchers announced it has found some of the Universe’s earliest starburst galaxies, essentially young energetic clusters of cosmic gas and dust that form stars at an alarming rate. The discoveries, which were detailed in reports published in Nature and the Astrophysical Journal, were made using the newly inaugurated Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope. In its first billions...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Scientists are coming together this summer to try and collaborate on solving the mystery of dark matter. Probes of Dark Matter on Galaxy Scales 2013, will be held July 14–19 in Monterey, California. Scientists at the conference will be meeting to discuss their techniques for solving the secrets of dark matter in the universe. “The idea is to bring together people working on different probes of dark matter from dynamics, which...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Astronomers writing in The Astrophysical Journal have answered a few more important questions about how so-called spiral galaxies get their arms. The team used powerful computer simulations to follow the motions of as many as 100 million "stellar particles" as gravity and other astrophysical forces began to give them shape. Their simulations have answered some long-standing questions about the origin and life history of spiral arms in...
Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Astronomers have found that a region of space known as the Wing has fewer “metals” (elements with more than two protons in the nucleus) compared to most other areas within our own Milky Way galaxy. There are also relatively lower amounts of gas, dust and stars in the Wing compared to the Milky Way. This knowledge makes the Wing an excellent candidate for the study of the life cycle of stars and the gas lying between them. Not...
Latest Spiral galaxies 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 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 Local Group, compromising more than 30 galaxies (including dwarf galaxies and the Milky Way), is a group of galaxies with a gravitational center located somewhere between the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy. With a binary (dumbbell) shape and a total mass of (1.29 ± 0.14) × 1012M the Local group covers a 10 million light-year diameter. The local group is part of the Virgo Supercluster. The two largest galaxies in the group are the Milky Way and the Andromeda both Spiral...
Stephan's Quintet in the constellation Pegasus is a visual grouping of five galaxies which four form the first compact galaxy group ever discovered. The group was discovered by Édouard Stephan in 1877 at Marseilles Observatory and is the most studied of all the compact galaxy groups. NGC 7320, which has extensive H II regions, is the brightest member of the visual grouping and is where active star formation is occurring. Hickson Compact Group 92, which contains four of the five...
![Sagittarius Galaxy Impacts Milky Way\](/media/gallery/national-science-foundation-gallery/thumbs/thumbs_pf3134_sgr_h.jpg "Sagittarius Galaxy Impacts Milky Way\")
