Galaxy mergers shed light on galactic evolution model

An Australian astronomer has solved a century-old mystery regarding how galaxies evolve from one type to another. The same study shows that the Milky Way, the galaxy we live in, was not always a spiral.

Chemical cartography reveals the Milky Way's spiral arms

Keith Hawkins, assistant professor of astronomy at The University of Texas at Austin, has used chemical cartography—also known as chemical mapping—to identify regions of the Milky Way's spiral arms that have previously ...

Tidal capture of an asteroid by a magnetar

Recently astronomers have been able to associate two seemingly unrelated phenomena: an explosive event known as a fast radio burst and the change in speed of a spinning magnetar. And now new research suggests that the cause ...

Webb locates dust reservoirs in two supernovae

Supernovae, the explosive deaths of stars, are some of the universe's biggest bursts of energy and light. When they erupt, one supernova can shine even brighter than an entire galaxy.

Astronomers witness energetic switch on of black hole

A team of astronomers led by researchers from the University of Birmingham, University College London and Queen's University Belfast have discovered one of the most dramatic 'switches on' of a black hole ever seen. They will ...

'Sandwich' discovery offers new explanation for planet formation

Scientists have made a new discovery on how small planets might form. Researchers at the University of Warwick investigated the "birth environment" of planets—areas of gas and dust that swirl around a central star—known ...

Heat spots reveal growth rate of a galaxy 12 billion years ago

An international team of astronomers has drawn a temperature map of the dust drifting within one of the oldest spiral galaxies of the universe which provides new insights into how fast the galaxy is growing. Until now researchers ...

Evidence of the amino acid tryptophan found in space

Using data from the Spitzer space observatory, Dr. Susana Iglesias-Groth, a researcher from The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), has found evidence for the existence of the amino acid tryptophan in the interstellar ...

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