By Ashley Strickland, CNN A new telescope image showcases two entangled galaxies that will eventually merge into one millions of years from now — and previews the eventual, similar fate of our own Milky Way galaxy. The Gemini North telescope, located on the summit of Maunakea in Hawaii, spotted the interacting spiral galaxies about 60 … Read more
It has never been detected, only speculated. But scientists estimate that up to 85% of the matter in the universe could be made of what’s called dark matter. Scientists cannot define dark matter with any certainty, but that hasn’t stopped the search for it. Our largest and newest space-based telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope … Read more
Ask astronomers about dark matter and one of the things they talk about is that this invisible, mysterious ‘stuff’ permeates the universe. In particular, it exists in halos surrounding most galaxies. The mass of the halo exerts a strong gravitational influence on the galaxy itself, as well as on others in the neighborhood. That’s pretty … Read more
It’s a record that has been broken multiple times over the past two years alone, and one that we expect to see broken again soon. Astronomers using the newly operational James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have announced the discovery of what appears to be the most distant galaxy yet. If this sounds familiar, it’s already … Read more
Video above: NASA quietly releases terrestrial test photos of Jupiter captured by the James Webb Space TelescopeThe James Webb Space Telescope has peered through cosmic dust to reveal new details and a stunning image of a rare type of galaxy. galaxy, a ring galaxy located 500 million light-years away that formed when a large spiral … Read more
The Universe is literate with galaxy clusters – huge structures piled up at the intersections of the cosmic web. A single cluster can span millions of light-years across and be made up of hundreds, or even thousands, of galaxies. However, these galaxies represent only a few percent of a cluster’s total mass. About 80 percent … Read more
Not all stars are happy to just hang around, orbiting the galactic center with all the other stars. Some stars go rogue, punted out across the Milky Way with significant force. These are the runaway stars, and we can trace their trajectories to understand violent events that can take place in the Universe. One such … Read more
There’s something very odd about this image from the Hubble Space Telescope. If you look closely, you can see two almost-mirror image, orange-colored galaxies, seemingly connected by a long filament. Fascinatingly, that’s not two galaxies at all, but one, named SGAS J143845+145407. It just appears to be two, thanks to the way the gravity of … Read more
Just a week after its first images were shown to the world, the James Webb Space Telescope may have found a galaxy that existed 13.5 billion years ago, a scientist who analyzed the data said Wednesday. Known as GLASS-z13, the galaxy dates back to 300 million years after the Big Bang, about 100 million years … Read more
As if cracking open a cosmic Russian nesting doll, astronomers have peered into the center of the Milky Way and discovered what appears to be a miniature spiral galaxy, swirling daintily around a single large star. The star – located about 26,000 light-years from Earth near the dense and dusty galactic center – is about … Read more