An analysis of more than 200,000 spiral galaxies has revealed unexpected links between spin directions of galaxies, and the structure formed by these links might suggest that the early universe could have been spinning, according ...
Astronomy
Jun 1, 2020
33
16891
During radio continuum observations of a spiral galaxy known as NGC 2082, Australian astronomers have discovered a mysterious bright and compact radio source, which received designation J054149.24–641813.7. The origin and ...
Is the Milky Way special, or, at least, is it in a special place in the universe? An international team of astronomers has found that the answer to that question is yes, in a way not previously appreciated. A new study shows ...
Astronomy
Jan 23, 2023
62
951
A large team of space scientists working in Canada has found evidence of a fast radio burst with a steady 16-day cycle. The team has published a paper describing their findings on the arXiv preprint server.
If you're expecting to hear from aliens from across the universe, it could be a while.
Astronomy
Jun 17, 2016
126
1409
Signs of a planet transiting a star outside of the Milky Way galaxy may have been detected for the first time. This intriguing result, using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, opens up a new window to search for exoplanets ...
Astronomy
Oct 25, 2021
2
42457
We live in a galaxy that is called the Milky Way. It's called a barred spiral galaxy, which means that it has a spiral shape with a bar of stars across its middle. The galaxy is rather huge—at least 100,000 light-years ...
Astronomy
Feb 11, 2015
29
96
Using the National Science Foundation's Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array radio telescope, a team of astronomers has captured for the first time an image of large-scale, coherent, magnetic fields in the halo of a faraway spiral ...
Astronomy
Dec 31, 2019
19
1489
A major revision is required in our understanding of our Milky Way Galaxy according to an international team led by Prof Noriyuki Matsunaga of the University of Tokyo. The Japanese, South African and Italian astronomers find ...
Astronomy
Aug 1, 2016
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1650
For thousand of years, astronomers and astrologers believed that the Earth was at the center of our Universe. This perception was due in part to the fact that Earth-based observations were complicated by the fact that the ...
Space Exploration
Jul 14, 2016
1
39
A spiral galaxy is a galaxy belonging to one of the three main classes of galaxy originally described by Edwin Hubble in his 1936 work “The Realm of the Nebulae” and, as such, forms part of the Hubble sequence. Spiral galaxies consist of a flat, rotating disk containing stars, gas and dust, and a central concentration of stars known as the bulge. These are surrounded by a much fainter halo of stars, many of which reside in globular clusters.
Spiral galaxies are named for the (usually two-armed) spiral structures that extend from the center into the disk. The spiral arms are sites of ongoing star formation and are brighter than the surrounding disk because of the young, hot OB stars that inhabit them. Roughly half of all spirals are observed to have an additional component in the form of a bar-like structure, extending from the central bulge, at the ends of which the spiral arms begin. Our own Milky Way has been recently (in the 1990s) been confirmed to be a barred spiral, although the bar itself is difficult to observe from our position within the Galactic disk. The most convincing evidence for its existence comes from a recent survey, performed by the Spitzer Space Telescope, of stars in the Galactic center.
Together with irregulars, spiral galaxies make up approximately 60% of galaxies in the local Universe. They are mostly found in low-density regions and are rare in the centers of galaxy clusters.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
