Fat or flat: Getting galaxies into shape

Australian astronomers have discovered what makes some spiral galaxies fat and bulging while others are flat discs—and it's all about how fast they spin.

NGC 4945: The Milky Way's not-so-distant Cousin

(PhysOrg.com) -- ESO has released a striking new image of a nearby galaxy that many astronomers think closely resembles our own Milky Way. Though the galaxy is seen edge-on, observations of NGC 4945 suggest that this hive ...

Forget Planet X! New technique could pinpoint Galaxy X

(PhysOrg.com) -- Planet X, an often-sought 10th planet, is so far a no-show, but Sukanya Chakrabarti has high hopes for finding what might be called Galaxy X – a dwarf galaxy that she predicts orbits our Milky Way Galaxy.

A star with spiral arms

For more than four hundred years, astronomers have used telescopes to study the great variety of stars in our galaxy. Millions of distant suns have been catalogued. There are dwarf stars, giant stars, dead stars, exploding ...

Radio galaxy discovery near Earth spurs more questions

Western Australia astronomers have discovered a radio galaxy near Earth by accident. The previously unknown radio galaxy is considered quite close to Earth, and was discovered late last year.

15 spectacular photos from the Dark Energy Camera

From high atop a mountain in the Chilean Andes, the Dark Energy Camera has snapped more than one million exposures of the southern sky. The images have captured around 2.5 billion astronomical objects, including galaxies ...

Galaxy caught blowing bubbles

(PhysOrg.com) -- Hubble's famous images of galaxies typically show elegant spirals or soft-edged ellipses. But these neat forms are only representative of large galaxies. Smaller galaxies like the dwarf irregular galaxy Holmberg ...

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