News tagged with milky way

Hubble spies edge-on beauty

(Phys.org) -- Visible in the constellation of Andromeda, NGC 891 is located approximately 30 million light-years away from Earth. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope turned its powerful wide field Advanced ...

May 21, 2012 3.4 / 5 (5) 16 | with audio podcast

How nature shapes the birth of stars

(Phys.org) -- Using state of the art computer simulations, a team of astronomers from the University of Bonn in Germany have found the first evidence that the way in which stars form depends on their birth ...

May 11, 2012 4.7 / 5 (6) 6 | with audio podcast

VISTA views a vast ball of stars

(Phys.org) -- A new image of Messier 55 from ESO's VISTA infrared survey telescope shows tens of thousands of stars crowded together like a swarm of bees. Besides being packed into a relatively small space, ...

May 09, 2012 3.7 / 5 (6) 15 | with audio podcast

Diagnosing a black hole flare

(Phys.org) -- Black holes can come in a wide range of masses. Some, with only about one solar mass, result from the supernova death of a massive star, while those at the center of galaxies (called supermassive ...

May 07, 2012 5 / 5 (4) 0 | with audio podcast

Old star, new trick

The Big Bang produced lots of hydrogen and helium and a smidgen of lithium. All heavier elements found on the periodic table have been produced by stars over the last 13.7 billion years. Astronomers analyze starlight to determine ...

Apr 30, 2012 5 / 5 (10) 30 | with audio podcast

The earth is not at rest

(Phys.org) -- The Earth is not at rest. It orbits the Sun, which in turn orbits the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, which in turn moves within the Local Group of Galaxies - a collection of about fifty four ...

Apr 18, 2012 4.5 / 5 (19) 4 | with audio podcast

Recycling galaxies caught in the act

(PhysOrg.com) -- When astronomers add up all the gas and dust contained in ordinary galaxies like our own Milky Way, they stumble on a puzzle: There is not nearly enough matter for stars to be born at the ...

Mar 30, 2012 3.6 / 5 (5) 14 | with audio podcast

Ultra-luminous x-ray sources

(PhysOrg.com) -- An ultra-luminous X-ray source (ULX) emits more radiation in the X-rays than do a million suns at all wavelengths. ULXs are rare: Most galaxies, including our own Milky Way, have none, and ...

Mar 19, 2012 5 / 5 (7) 1 | with audio podcast

Glittering jewels of Messier 9

(PhysOrg.com) -- The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has produced the most detailed image so far of Messier 9, a globular star cluster located close to the center of the galaxy. This ball of stars is too faint ...

Mar 16, 2012 4.6 / 5 (8) 3 | with audio podcast