Studying the physics of galaxies

Assistant Professor of Astronomy Evan Kirby arrived on campus in August. Born and raised in New Orleans, Kirby earned his BS in 2004 from Stanford University; his undergraduate thesis involved trips to Pasadena to test an ...

Mysterious dance of dwarfs may force a cosmic rethink

(Phys.org) —The discovery that many small galaxies throughout the universe do not 'swarm' around larger ones like bees do but 'dance' in orderly disc-shaped orbits is a challenge to our understanding of how the universe ...

Merging galaxies illuminate the cosmic food chain

(Phys.org) —Scientists studying a 'twin' of the Milky Way have used the W. M. Keck Observatory and Subaru Observatory to accurately model how it is swallowing another, smaller galaxy. Their findings have opened the way ...

Image: Pulsar encased in a supernova bubble

(Phys.org) —Massive stars end their lives with a bang: exploding as spectacular supernovas, they release huge amounts of mass and energy into space. These explosions sweep up any surrounding material, creating bubble remnants ...

The search for seeds of black holes

(Phys.org) —How do you grow a supermassive black hole that is a million to a billion times the mass of our sun? Astronomers do not know the answer, but a new study using data from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, ...

Dwarf galaxies give clues to origin of supermassive black holes

(Phys.org) —Poring through data from a large sky survey, astronomers have found more than 100 small, dwarf galaxies with characteristics indicating that they harbor massive black holes feeding on surrounding gas. The discovery ...

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