Astronomers refer to all the elements heavier than helium as "metals," even elements that are typically found in gaseous form. In the big bang only hydrogen and helium (and a trace of lithium) were created while the "metals" ...
Astronomy
Aug 2, 2021
4
666
Messier 82 (M82) is a luminous infrared galaxy about twelve million light-years away from the Milky Way. Its burst of star formation powers the radiation and drives a bipolar superwind that originates near the core of the ...
Astronomy
Jul 30, 2021
2
625
When a star like our sun gets to be old, in another seven billion years or so, it will no longer be able to sustain burning its nuclear fuel. With only about half of its mass remaining it will shrink to a fraction of its ...
Astronomy
Jul 26, 2021
0
2740
The supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy, Sagittarius A*, is by far the closest such object to us, about 27,000 light-years away. Although it is not nearly so active or luminous as other galactic ...
Astronomy
Jul 12, 2021
100
725
Submillimeter galaxies (SMGs) are a class of the most luminous, distant, and rapidly star-forming galaxies known and can shine brighter than a trillion Suns (about one hundred times more luminous in total than the Milky Way). ...
Astronomy
Jun 25, 2021
17
436
Motions of a remarkable cosmic structure have been measured for the first time, using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. The blast wave and debris from an exploded star are seen moving away from the explosion site and colliding ...
Astronomy
Jun 24, 2021
1
340
The triggering of star formation, and also its quenching, is regulated by young massive stars in galaxies which inject energy and momentum into the interstellar medium. Feedback from the supermassive black holes at galaxies' ...
Astronomy
Jun 18, 2021
1
362
The long relationships between stars and the planets around them—including the Sun and the Earth—may be even more complex than previously thought. This is one conclusion of a new study involving thousands of stars using ...
Astronomy
Jun 16, 2021
0
381
At the center of our Milky Way lies a supermassive black hole (SMBH) called Sagittarius A* (SgrA*). Supermassive black holes reside at the centers of most galaxies, and when they actively accrete gas and dust onto their surrounding ...
Astronomy
Jun 11, 2021
2
24
Forty years ago, astronomers using sensitive new imaging techniques discovered a class of large, faint galaxies they named low-surface-brightness galaxies. Giant low-surface-brightness galaxies (gLSBGs) are a subset whose ...
Astronomy
Jun 4, 2021
27
963
