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.
Astronomers have captured the most detailed look yet at faraway galaxies at the peak of their youth, an active time when the adolescent galaxies were fervently producing new stars.
Astronomy
Jan 6, 2026
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Scientists at the University of Missouri have identified a small group of unusual objects in the early universe. Using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), Haojing Yan and his team at Mizzou's College of Arts and Science ...
Astronomy
Jan 6, 2026
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A team using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has uncovered a new type of astronomical object—a starless, gas-rich, dark-matter cloud that is considered a "relic" or remnant of early galaxy formation. Nicknamed "Cloud-9," ...
Astronomy
Jan 5, 2026
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An international team of astronomers has uncovered multiple evolutionary paths for the universe's most massive galaxies. Observations of ultramassive galaxies, each containing more than 100 billion stars, show that less than ...
Astronomy
Jan 5, 2026
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Nearly every galaxy has a supermassive black hole in its core. Whether the black hole forms first and then the galaxy around it—or the other way around—is still a matter of some debate, but we know the evolution of both are ...
Astronomy
Jan 5, 2026
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Using the Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder (ASKAP), an international team of astronomers has discovered a spectacular bipolar outflow from the disk of a nearby galaxy known as ESO 130-G012. The finding was reported ...
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope captured two nearby dwarf galaxies interacting with each other in this image released on Dec. 2, 2025.
Astronomy
Dec 22, 2025
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Black holes are notorious for gobbling up everything that comes their way, but astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have discovered that even supermassive black holes can be picky eaters, ...
Astronomy
Dec 22, 2025
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How galaxies assemble their stars and grow over billions of years remains one of the central questions in astronomy. Recent results from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), including reports of surprisingly massive and ...
Astronomy
Dec 18, 2025
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Our universe is filled with galaxies, in all directions as far as our instruments can see. Some researchers estimate that there are as many as 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe. At first glance, these galaxies ...
Astronomy
Dec 15, 2025
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