Related topics: galaxies · star formation

Hubble catches the moment the lights went out

(Phys.org)—The further away you look, the further back in time you see. Astronomers use this fact to study the evolution of the Universe by looking at nearby and more distant galaxies and comparing their features. Hubble ...

The wings of the Seagull Nebula

(Phys.org)—This new image from ESO shows a section of a cloud of dust and glowing gas called the Seagull Nebula. These wispy red clouds form part of the "wings" of the celestial bird and this picture reveals an intriguing ...

Massive stellar winds are made of tiny pieces

(Phys.org)—ESA's XMM-Newton space observatory has completed the most detailed study ever of the fierce wind from a giant star, showing for the first time that it is not a uniform breeze but is fragmented into hundreds of ...

Astronomers measure nearby Universe's 'cosmic fog'

Researchers from the Laboratoire Leprince-Ringuet (CNRS/École Polytechnique) have carried out the first measurement of the intensity of the diffuse extragalactic background light in the nearby Universe, a fog of photons ...

Light from the darkness

(Phys.org)—An evocative new image from ESO shows a dark cloud where new stars are forming, along with a cluster of brilliant stars that have already emerged from their dusty stellar nursery. The new picture was taken with ...

Cygnus OB2: Probing a nearby stellar cradle

(Phys.org)—The Milky Way and other galaxies in the universe harbor many young star clusters and associations that each contain hundreds to thousands of hot, massive, young stars known as O and B stars. The star cluster ...

X-raying stellar winds in a high-speed collision

(Phys.org)—Two massive stars racing in orbit around each other have had their colliding stellar winds X-rayed for the first time, thanks to the combined efforts of ESA's XMM-Newton and NASA's Swift space telescopes.

The Helix nebula: Bigger in death than life

(Phys.org)—A dying star is refusing to go quietly into the night, as seen in this combined infrared and ultraviolet view from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX), which NASA has lent ...

Fireworks in the early universe

Galaxies in the early universe grew fast by rapidly making new stars. Such prodigious star formation episodes, characterized by the intense radiation of the newborn stars, were often accompanied by fireworks in the form of ...

page 4 from 6