The infrared vision of NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has revealed that the Sombrero galaxy — named after its appearance in visible light to a wide-brimmed hat — is in fact two galaxies in one. It is a large elliptical galaxy (blue-green) with a thin disk galaxy (partly seen in red) embedded within. Previous visible-light images… [Read more…]
December 18, 2011
This magnificent 360-degree panoramic image, covering the entire southern and northern celestial sphere, reveals the cosmic landscape that surrounds our tiny blue planet. This gorgeous starscape serves as the first of three extremely high-resolution images featured in the GigaGalaxy Zoom project, launched by ESO within the framework of the International Year of Astronomy 2009 (IYA2009). The… [Read more…]
July 19, 2011
Evidence is emerging that a small galaxy, with a huge central black hole, must have recently collided with the Milky Way, say astronomers The Milky Way gives the impression of a beautiful, calm field of stars. At the heart of all this is a supermassive black hole that sits, innocently, at the galactic centre. In… [Read more…]
July 9, 2011
We present a model of the Galactic Habitable Zone (GHZ), described in terms of the spatial and temporal dimensions of the Galaxy that may favour the development of complex life. The Milky Way galaxy is modelled using a computational approach by populating stars and their planetary systems on an individual basis using Monte-Carlo methods. We… [Read more…]
June 14, 2011
Our Milky Way galaxy, like other spiral galaxies, has a disk with sweeping arms of stars, gas, and dust that curve around the galaxy like the arms of a huge pinwheel. The Sun, Earth, and solar system are located in a spur of material that lies between two of the spiral arms, collectively orbiting around… [Read more…]
June 10, 2011
Read more: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/swift/bursts/monster-black-holes.html
May 16, 2011
The discovery of a new arm in the Milky Way suggests that our galaxy is warped, say astronomers In 1852, Stephen Alexander, an astronomer at the College of New Jersey, put forward the radical suggestion that the Milky Way galaxy is a spiral. But while today’s astronomers agree on this general shape, they disagree over the… [Read more…]
May 14, 2011
sphotopicskysurvey-interactive360 Read more:newscientist.com
May 7, 2011
The S Stars in the Galactic-center region are found to be on near-perfect Keplerian orbits around presumably a supermassive black hole, with periods of 15–50 yr. Since these stars reach a few percent of light speed at pericenter, various relativistic effects are expected, and have been discussed in the literature. We argue that an elegant test of the… [Read more…]
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April 25, 2012
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