Nearly 3 billion years ago, a dwarf galaxy plunged into the center of the Milky Way and was ripped apart by the gravitational forces of the collision. Astrophysicists announced today that the merger produced a series of telltale ...
Astronomy
Oct 20, 2020
3
415
Active galactic nuclei (AGNs) play a major role in galaxy evolution. Astronomers from SRON and RuG have now used a record-setting sample of galaxies to confirm that galaxy mergers have a positive effect on igniting AGNs. ...
Astronomy
May 29, 2020
6
501
When two galaxies merge, there are brief periods of stellar baby booms. A group of astronomers led by Lingyu Wang (SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research) has now used a sample of over 200,000 galaxies to confirm that ...
Astronomy
Oct 21, 2019
9
1310
Over 30 years ago, the Infrared Astronomy Satellite discovered that the universe contained many extremely luminous galaxies, some more than a thousand times brighter than our own Milky Way, but which are practically invisible ...
Astronomy
Aug 19, 2019
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298
Three images from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope show pairs of galaxies on the cusp of cosmic consolidations. Though the galaxies appear separate now, gravity is pulling them together, and soon they will combine to form new, ...
Astronomy
Feb 27, 2019
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221
Today, at the 233rd AAS meeting in Seattle, astronomers from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) announce that they have developed a new tool to find otherwise-hidden galaxy mergers in data from the Mapping Nearby Galaxies ...
Astronomy
Jan 09, 2019
0
87
Galaxy mergers—in which two galaxies join together over billions of years in sometimes-dramatic bursts of light—aren't always easy for astronomers to spot. Now, scientists from the University of Colorado Boulder have ...
Astronomy
Jan 08, 2019
3
209
Some 10 billion years ago, the Milky Way merged with a large galaxy. The stars from this partner, named Gaia-Enceladus, make up most of the Milky Way's halo and also shaped its thick disk, giving it its inflated form. A description ...
Astronomy
Oct 31, 2018
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1189
Two of the closest galaxies to the Milky Way—the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds—may have had a third companion, astronomers believe.
Astronomy
Sep 18, 2018
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148
University of Groningen astronomers have discovered relics of merger events in the Milky Way halo. Five small groups of stars appear to represent mergers with smaller galaxies, while a big 'blob' comprising hundreds of stars ...
Astronomy
Jun 13, 2018
1
270
