Image: Black hole caught in a stellar homicide

(Phys.org) -- This computer-simulated image shows gas from a star that is ripped apart by tidal forces as it falls into a black hole. Some of the gas also is being ejected at high speeds into space.

A pinwheel in many colors

(Phys.org) -- This image of the Pinwheel Galaxy, or also known as M101, combines data in the infrared, visible, ultraviolet and X-rays from four of NASA's space-based telescopes. This multi-spectral view shows that both young ...

Galaxies in the young cosmos

(Phys.org) -- The universe was born about 13.7 billion years ago in the big bang. The Sun and its system of planets formed about five billion years ago. What happened, then, during that long, intervening stretch of nearly ...

NASA lends ultraviolet space telescope to Caltech

(Phys.org) -- Caltech has taken over operation from NASA of the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX), a space telescope that for the last nine years has been surveying the cosmos in ultraviolet light. In this first agreement ...

Is a new form of life really so alien?

The idea of discovering a new form of life has not only excited astronomers and astrobiologists for decades, but also the wider public. The notion that we are the only example of a successful life form in the galaxy has, ...

The JCMT celebrates 25 years on top of the world

The James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) on Mauna Kea in Hawaii, is celebrating its 25th birthday this week. It first turned its dish to the heavens this week in 1987, and now, a quarter of a century later, the JCMT continues ...

Spitzer finds galaxy with split personality

(Phys.org) -- While some galaxies are rotund and others are slender disks like our spiral Milky Way, new observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope show that the Sombrero galaxy is both. The galaxy, which is a round ...

Cosmic 'leaf blower' robs galaxy of star-making fuel

(PhysOrg.com) -- Supernova explosions and the jets of a monstrous black hole are scattering a galaxy's star-making gas like a cosmic leaf blower, a new study finds. The findings, which relied on ultraviolet observations from ...

Galaxy cluster hidden in plain view

(PhysOrg.com) -- A team of astronomers has discovered the most distant cluster of red galaxies ever observed using FourStar, a new and powerful near-infrared camera on the 6.5m Magellan Baade Telescope. The galaxy cluster ...

page 8 from 12