Astronomers find spark of star birth across billions of years

Astronomers have completed the largest and most detailed study of what triggers stars to form in the universe's biggest galaxies, using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes. They were surprised to find that ...

Did the last great galactic merger create the Milky Way's bar?

The Milky Way is a spiral galaxy. More specifically, it is a barred spiral galaxy, meaning that within its central region, there is a bar shape off of which the spirals emanate. About two-thirds of spiral galaxies are barred ...

Image: Hubble captures a cluster in the Large Magellanic Cloud

This striking Hubble Space Telescope image shows the densely packed globular cluster known as NGC 2210, which is situated in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). The LMC lies about 157,000 light-years from Earth and is a so-called ...

Image: Hubble views a double cluster of glowing galaxies

This Hubble image features a massive cluster of brightly glowing galaxies, first identified as Abell 3192. Like all galaxy clusters, this one is suffused with hot gas that emits powerful X-rays, and it is enveloped in a halo ...

Astronomers spot giant stream of stars between galaxies

To their surprise, an international team of researchers has discovered a giant and extremely faint stream of stars between galaxies. While streams are already known in our own galaxy and in nearby galaxies, this is the first ...

The universe can't hide behind the Zone of Avoidance any longer

Our view of the cosmos is always limited by the fact we are located within a galaxy filled with interstellar gas and dust. This is most dramatically seen in the central region of the Milky Way, which is filled with so much ...

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