Where are stars made? NASA's Spitzer spies a hot spot

The nebula known as W51 is one of the most active star-forming regions in the Milky Way galaxy. First identified in 1958 by radio telescopes, it makes a rich cosmic tapestry in this image from NASA's recently retired Spitzer ...

Stunning new Hubble images reveal stars gone haywire

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope demonstrates its full range of imaging capabilities with two new images of planetary nebulae. The images depict two nearby young planetary nebulae, NGC 6302, dubbed the Butterfly Nebula, ...

Turbulent convection at the heart of stellar activity

In their interiors, stars are structured in a layered, onion-like fashion. In those with solar-like temperatures, the core is followed by the radiation zone. There, the heat from within is led outwards by means of radiation. ...

Driving massive galaxy outflows with supermassive blackholes

Active galactic nuclei (AGN) are supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies that are accreting material onto their hot circumnuclear disks, releasing the energy in bursts of radiation or as particle jets moving at ...

Bright X-ray galactic nuclei

All massive galaxies are believed to host supermassive black holes (SMBH) at their centers that grow by accreting mass from their environment. The current picture also imagines that the black holes grow in size as their host ...

Active galactic nuclei and star formation

Most galaxies host a supermassive black hole (SMBH) at their nucleus. (A supermassive black hole is one whose mass exceeds a million solar-masses.) A key unresolved issue in galaxy formation and evolution is the role these ...

A peculiar galactic clash

Galaxies are not static islands of stars—they are dynamic and ever-changing, constantly on the move through the darkness of the Universe. Sometimes, as seen in this spectacular Hubble image of Arp 256, galaxies can collide ...

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