News tagged with galaxy formation

Giant ultraviolet rings found in resurrected galaxies

Astronomers have found mysterious, giant loops of ultraviolet light in aged, massive galaxies, which seem to have a second lease on life. Somehow these "over-the-hill galaxies" have been infused with fresh ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Aug 11, 2010 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (27) | comments 51 | with audio podcast

Mysterious space blob discovered at cosmic dawn (w/Video)

(PhysOrg.com) -- A team of astronomers, led by Carnegie's Masami Ouchi, have discovered a mysterious, giant object that existed when the universe was only 800 million years old. Dubbed an extended "Lyman-Alpha ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Apr 22, 2009 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (25) | comments 7

Dark matter core defies explanation

(PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers using data from NASA's Hubble Telescope have observed what appears to be a clump of dark matter left behind from a wreck between massive clusters of galaxies. The result could ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Mar 02, 2012 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (25) | comments 87 | with audio podcast

Andromeda in a new light

Two ESA observatories have combined forces to show the Andromeda Galaxy in a new light. Herschel sees rings of star formation in this, the most detailed image of the Andromeda Galaxy ever taken at infrared ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jan 05, 2011 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (23) | comments 5 | with audio podcast

Discovery poses challenge to galaxy formation theories

A team led by an Indiana University astronomer has found a sample of massive galaxies with properties that suggest that they may have formed relatively recently. This would run counter to the widely-held belief ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Apr 10, 2009 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (24) | comments 30

Astronomers Witness a Star Being Born

(PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers have glimpsed what could be the youngest known star at the very moment it is being born. Not yet fully developed into a true star, the object is in the earliest stages of star ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jun 17, 2010 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (21) | comments 40 | with audio podcast

Cosmic 'Dig' Reveals Vestiges of the Milky Way's Building Blocks

(PhysOrg.com) -- Peering through the thick dust clouds of our galaxy's "bulge" (the myriads of stars surrounding its center), a team of astronomers has unveiled an unusual mix of stars in the stellar grouping ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 25, 2009 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (21) | comments 1

Researchers say galaxy may swarm with 'nomad planets'

(PhysOrg.com) -- Our galaxy may be awash in homeless planets, wandering through space instead of orbiting a star.

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Feb 23, 2012 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (23) | comments 31 | with audio podcast

The Energy Sources of Ultraluminous Galaxies

(PhysOrg.com) -- Ultraluminous infrared galaxies ((ULIRGs) are galaxies whose luminosity exceeds that of a trillion suns; for comparison, the Milky Way galaxy has a typical (and much more modest) luminosity ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 27, 2009 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (20) | comments 3

NASA's Spitzer Images Out-of-This-World Galaxy

(PhysOrg.com) -- NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has imaged a wild creature of the dark -- a coiled galaxy with an eye-like object at its center.

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jul 23, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (19) | comments 9

Intense heat killed the Universe's would-be galaxies, researchers say

(PhysOrg.com) -- Our Milky Way galaxy only survived because it was already immersed in a large clump of dark matter which trapped gases inside it, scientists led by Durham University's Institute for Computational ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jul 01, 2009 | popularity 3.6 / 5 (25) | comments 33

Supermassive black holes: hinting at the nature of dark matter?

(PhysOrg.com) -- About 23% of the Universe is made up of mysterious ‘dark matter’, invisible material only detected through its gravitational influence on its surroundings. Now two astronomers based at the ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Mar 22, 2010 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (21) | comments 11 | with audio podcast

Scientists release most accurate simulation of the universe to date

(PhysOrg.com) -- The Bolshoi supercomputer simulation, the most accurate and detailed large cosmological simulation run to date, gives physicists and astronomers a powerful new tool for understanding such ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Sep 29, 2011 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (16) | comments 11 | with audio podcast

First super-massive black holes were born 'soon' after Big Bang (w/ Video)

Astronomers believe they have discovered the origin of our universe's first super-massive black holes, which formed some 13 billion years ago.

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Aug 25, 2010 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (16) | comments 31 | with audio podcast

New stars from old gas surprise astronomers

(PhysOrg.com) -- Evidence of star birth within a cloud of primordial gas has given astronomers a glimpse of a previously unknown mode of galaxy formation. The cloud, known as the Leo Ring, appears to lack ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Feb 18, 2009 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (17) | comments 9

Galaxy formation and evolution

The study of galaxy formation and evolution is concerned with the processes that formed a heterogeneous universe from a homogeneous beginning, the formation of the first galaxies, the way galaxies change over time, and the processes that have generated the variety of structures observed in nearby galaxies. It is one of the most active research areas in astrophysics.

Galaxy formation is believed to occur, from structure formation theories, as a result of tiny quantum fluctuations in the aftermath of the Big Bang. It is widely accepted that galaxy evolution occurs within the framework of a Λ Cold Dark Matter cosmology; that is to say that clustering and merging is how galaxies gain in mass, and can also determine their shape and structure.

For more information about Galaxy formation and evolution, read the full article at Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.

Related topics: dark matter , galaxies