galactic evolution Archives

Hubble Finds a Galaxy with Almost no Dark Matter

30 Mar , 2018 by Matt Williams

Using data from the Hubble Space Telescope and other ground-based observatories, a team of astronomers have found a galaxy that appears to have no dark matter.

The Universe’s Galaxy Population Just Grew Tenfold

14 Oct , 2016 by Matt Williams

New research from a team of UK scientists shows how the early Universe had 10 times more galaxies than previously thought!

The Milky Way is like NGC 4594 (pictured), a disc shaped spiral galaxy with around 200 billion stars. The three main features are the central bulge, the disk, and the halo. Credit: ESO

Best Picture Yet Of Milky Way’s Formation 13.5 Billion Years Ago

8 Sep , 2016 by Evan Gough

A new study of the Milky Way galaxy reveals the ages of different parts of the galaxy, and tells the story of the Milky Way’s formation and evolution.

Hubble Vision: Galaxy DDO 68 – Young Or Old?

25 Sep , 2014 by Tammy Plotner

Only astronomers know for sure… Or do they? In this assembly of images taken with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys, scientists have utilized both visible and infrared light to survey a most unusual galaxy. When looking for a newly formed galaxy in our “cosmic neighborhood”, they spied DDO 68 (a.k.a. UGC 5340). Normally to witness […]

Nearby Stream of Stars Reveals Past Cosmic Collision

27 Feb , 2014 by Shannon Hall

The tangled remains of vast cosmic collisions can be seen across the universe, such as the distant Whirlpool Galaxy’s past close encounter with a nearby galaxy, which resulted in the staggering beauty we see today. Such colossal collisions between galaxies appear to be common. It’s likely giant galaxies, such as our own, originated long ago […]

Pushy Black Holes Stop Elliptical Galaxies From Forming Stars

25 Feb , 2014 by Elizabeth Howell

Contradicting past theories, cold gas has been found in abundance in some elliptical galaxies — showing that there must be some other explanation why these types of galaxies don’t form new stars. Astronomers believe that the jets from supermassive black holes in these galaxies’ center must push around the gas and prevent stars from forming. […]

The Great Galactic Turn-Off

1 Aug , 2013 by Tammy Plotner

Are you ready for a new galactic puzzle? Then let’s start with some clues. It has been long assumed that some galaxies reach a point in their evolution when star formation stops. In the distant past, these saturated galaxies appeared smaller than those formed more recently. This is what baffles astronomers. Why do some galaxies […]

Stacking Galactic Signals Reveals A Clearer Universe

12 Jun , 2013 by Tammy Plotner

Very similar to stacking astronomy images to achieve a better picture, researchers from the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) are employing new methods which will give us a clearer look at the history of the Universe. Through data taken with the next generation of radio telescopes like the Square Kilometer Array (SKA), scientists […]

How Can Growing Galaxies Stay Silent?

17 Dec , 2011 by Jon Voisey

[/caption] Beginning around 2005, astronomers began discovering the presence of very large galaxies at a distance of around 10 billion lightyears. But while these galaxies were large, they didn’t appear to have a similarly large number of formed stars. Given that astronomers expect galaxies to grow through mergers and mergers tend to trigger star formation, […]

Is M85 Missing a Black Hole?

16 Oct , 2011 by Jon Voisey

[/caption] The conventional wisdom of galaxies is that they should have a central massive black hole (CMBH). The presence of such objects has been confirmed in our own galaxy as well as numerous other galaxies, including the Andromeda galaxy (M31) and even some dwarf galaxies. The mass of these objects, several million times the mass […]

Universe TodaySpace and astronomy news