Globular clusters are gravitationally bound ensembles of stars, as many as a million stars in some cases, grouped in roughly spherical clusters with diameters as small as only tens of light-years. Globular clusters are typically ...
Astronomy
Mar 23, 2015
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The Universe is pervaded by a mysterious form of matter, dubbed dark matter, about five times more abundant than the ordinary matter—made of atoms—we are familiar with. Its existence in galaxies was robustly established ...
General Physics
Feb 9, 2015
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A five-year analysis of an event captured by a tiny telescope at McDonald Observatory and followed up by telescopes on the ground and in space has led astronomers to believe they witnessed a giant black hole tear apart a ...
Astronomy
Jan 26, 2015
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This image captures the stunning NGC 6535, a globular cluster 22,000 light-years away in the constellation of Serpens (The Serpent) that measures one light-year across.
Astronomy
Jan 5, 2015
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Quasars are galaxies with very active supermassive black holes at their centres. These black holes are surrounded by spinning discs of extremely hot material that is often spewed out in long jets along their axes of rotation. ...
Astronomy
Nov 19, 2014
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Observations from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have for the first time directly mapped out the molecular gas and dust in the host galaxies of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs)—the biggest explosions in ...
Astronomy
Jun 11, 2014
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(Phys.org) —NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has shed new light on the mystery of why giant elliptical galaxies have few, if any, young stars. This new evidence highlights the important role that supermassive black holes ...
Astronomy
May 30, 2014
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(Phys.org) —New Herschel Space Observatory findings have given scientists a remarkable insight into the internal dynamics of two young galaxies. Surprisingly, they have shown that just a few billion years after the big ...
Astronomy
Apr 30, 2014
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(Phys.org) —How do you grow a supermassive black hole that is a million to a billion times the mass of our sun? Astronomers do not know the answer, but a new study using data from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, ...
Astronomy
Mar 27, 2014
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The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has snapped the best ever image of the Antennae Galaxies. Hubble has released images of these stunning galaxies twice before, once using observations from its Wide Field and Planetary Camera ...
Astronomy
Nov 18, 2013
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