Galaxies

Galaxies are vast collections of stars, gas, dust, and dark matter bound together by gravity. There are hundreds of billions of galaxies in the universe.

Billions of years from now, the night sky will glow with stars, dust, and gas from two galaxies: the Milky Way, in which we live, and the encroaching Andromeda Galaxy (M31). Credit: Lynette Cook for Astronomy magazine.

Galaxies, Science

The Andromeda and Milky Way collision, explained

Light from 23 distant galaxies, identified with red rectangles in the Hubble Space Telescope image at the top, were combined to capture incredibly faint emission from eight different elements, which are labelled in the JWST spectrum at the bottom. Although scientists regularly find these elements on Earth, astronomers rarely, if ever, observe many of them in distant galaxies. Credit: Aaron M. Geller, Northwestern, CIERA + IT-RCDS

Galaxies, Science

JWST uncovers a surprising amount of nickel in adolescent galaxies

Cosmology, Galaxies, Science

The El Gordo galaxy cluster moves faster than you might think

The second- and fourth-most distant galaxies ever seen (UNCOVER z-13 and UNCOVER z-12). The galaxies are located in Pandora’s Cluster (Abell 2744), show here as near-infrared wavelengths of light that have been translated to visible-light colors. Cluster image: NASA, UNCOVER (Bezanson et al., DIO: 10.48550/arXiv.2212.04026) Insets: NASA, UNCOVER (Wang et al., 2023) Composition: Dani Zemba/Penn State

Cosmology, Galaxies, Science

JWST uncovers some of the most distant galaxies yet seen

This panchromatic view of galaxy cluster MACS0416 was created by combining infrared observations from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope with visible-light data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Jose M. Diego (IFCA), Jordan C. J. D'Silva (UWA), Anton M. Koekemoer (STScI), Jake Summers (ASU), Rogier Windhorst (ASU), Haojing Yan (University of Missouri)

Galaxies, Science

Webb and Hubble telescopes unite to image flashy clash of galaxies cluster

The Euclid image of the Horsehead Nebula, an iconic target for backyard astrophotographers and space telescopes alike. Credit: ESA.

Cosmology, Galaxies, Science, Stars

Euclid telescope releases first awe-inspiring images in dark universe hunt

A galactic collision of two galaxies which began more than 300 million years ago, NGC 520 is actually made up of two disk galaxies which will eventually merge together to form one larger, more massive system. NGC 520 was discovered by William Herschel in 1784 and is one of the largest and brightest galaxies in the Siena Galaxy Atlas.

Siena Galaxy Atlas helps categorize nearby galaxies

JWST images of six candidate massive galaxies, seen 500 million to 800 million years after the Big Bang. Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/I. Labbe

Galaxies, Science, Stars

Those puzzling JWST images can be explained by ‘bursty’ star formation

Galaxies, Milky Way

Andromeda’s collision course with the Milky Way: This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher

JADES-GS-z6

Galaxies, Stars

JWST finds carbon-rich dust grains earlier than expected

M89 as imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope

Hubble paints a portrait of elliptical M89

Cosmology, Galaxies

Galaxies in JWST’s mirror are closer than they appear

Popular Science Topics

The new study suggests that miniture solar systems would not necessarily look like our own. This composite of planets in our solar system was taken by various NASA spacecraft. Included in the image are (from top to bottom) Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Credit: NASA/JPL.

Solar system

Our solar system hosts a plethora of fascinating planets and other objects.

Credit: Marco Lorenzi.

Stars

These giant, glowing balls of gas are vital to the evolution of the cosmos.

Artist’s conception of the Milky Way. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (SSC-Caltech).

Milky Way

Our home galaxy hosts hundreds of billions of stars orbited by countless worlds.

Located 12 million light-years away, M82 appears high in the northern spring sky in the direction of the constellation Ursa Major, the Great Bear. It is also called the “Cigar Galaxy” because of the elliptical shape produced by the oblique tilt of its starry disk relative to our line of sight. Credit: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA).

Galaxies

These sprawling star factories are home to millions to trillions of stars.

In this artist’s rendition, the newly discovered planet is shown as a hot, rocky, geologically-active world glowing in the deep red light of its nearby parent star, the M dwarf Gliese 876. Credit: Trent Schindler, National Science Foundation.

Exoplanets

Our cosmos is filled with countless bizarre worlds around other stars.

An artist’s imagination of hydrocarbon pools, icy and rocky terrain on the surface of Saturn’s largest moon. Credit: Steven Hobbs (Brisbane, Queensland, Australia).

Alien life

Only one planet we know of hosts life. But the hunt for extraterrestrial life is on.

This artist’s conception illustrates one of the most primitive supermassive black holes known (central black dot) at the core of a young, star-rich galaxy. Astronomers using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope have uncovered two of these early objects, dating back to about 13 billion years ago. The monstrous black holes are among the most distant known, and appear to be in the very earliest stages of formation, earlier than any observed so far. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

Exotic objects

The universe is filled with extreme objects, from black holes to pulsars and more.

Based on the study, astronomers have updated the timeline of the universe to reflect when the first stars are now thought to have appeared, some 180 million years after the Big Bang. Credit: N. R. Fuller/National Science Foundation.

Cosmology

The origin, evolution, and fate of the universe is shrouded in mystery.

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