Galaxies are gravitationally bound, large-scale astrophysical systems composed primarily of dark matter, stars, stellar remnants, gas, and dust, often embedded in extended dark matter halos. They exhibit diverse morphologies, including spiral, elliptical, and irregular types, and span mass scales from roughly 10⁷ to over 10¹² solar masses. Their internal dynamics are governed by gravity and angular momentum distribution, with baryonic components organized into disks, bulges, and halos, and frequently hosting central supermassive black holes. Galaxies are fundamental units of cosmic structure formation, participating in hierarchical assembly, mergers, and interactions within larger environments such as groups, clusters, and filaments of the cosmic web.
When astronomers look at distant objects—far away in both space and time—all too often, dust gets in their eyes. Well, not eyes, exactly—in their telescopes' line of vision. It's hard to take a close look at a galaxy formed, ...
Astronomy
Jun 9, 2025
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Researchers led by a Rutgers University-New Brunswick astrophysicist, who looked deeply into space at a period known as "Cosmic Noon," about 2 billion to 3 billion years after the Big Bang, have found that a special class ...
Astronomy
Jun 4, 2025
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New observations from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes have captured a rare cosmic event: Two galaxy clusters have collided and are now poised to head back for another swipe at each other.
Astronomy
Jun 4, 2025
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The Sombrero galaxy has long had a place in astronomical history as an intriguing object. The first written record of this galaxy was noted in 1781, almost 250 years ago, by Pierre Méchain, a French astronomer and surveyor. ...
Astronomy
Jun 3, 2025
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Quasars are some of the brightest objects in the universe. A quasar is powered by large amounts of matter falling into the supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy. Collisions and mergers between galaxies can cause ...
Astronomy
Jun 3, 2025
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Scientists from Helsinki, Durham and Toulouse universities used data from NASA's Hubble and the European Space Agency's Gaia space telescopes to simulate how the Milky Way and Andromeda will evolve over the next 10 billion ...
Astronomy
Jun 2, 2025
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A research team led by Shuo Huang (NAOJ and Nagoya University) has observed a massive and extremely active barred spiral galaxy in the early universe with ALMA and the James Webb Space Telescope. They found that compared ...
Astronomy
May 22, 2025
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The JWST has done it again. The powerful space telescope has already revealed the presence of bright galaxies only several hundred million years after the Big Bang. Now, it's sensed light from a galaxy only 280 million years ...
Astronomy
May 22, 2025
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Researchers at the International Center for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) made the discovery about galaxies by studying the gas distribution that helps create stars.
Astronomy
May 21, 2025
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My telescope, set up for astrophotography in my light-polluted San Diego backyard, was pointed at a galaxy unfathomably far from Earth. My wife, Cristina, walked up just as the first space photo streamed to my tablet. It ...
General Physics
May 20, 2025
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