https://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. A new study has mapped out the gravitational basins of attraction in the local universe, offering fresh insights into the large-scale cosmic structures that shape the movement of galaxies. The study has been published in Nature Astronomy. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-advanced-gravitational-basins-movement-galaxies.html Astronomy Fri, 27 Sep 2024 05:00:01 EDT news646560661 The reason we call dark matter dark isn't that it's some shadowy material. It's because dark matter doesn't interact with light. The difference is subtle, but important. Regular matter can be dark because it absorbs light. It's why, for example, we can see the shadow of molecular clouds against the scattered stars of the Milky Way. This is possible because light and matter have a way to connect. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-dark-slight-interaction-regular.html Astronomy Thu, 26 Sep 2024 15:10:05 EDT news646582201 In a surprise finding, astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have discovered that the blowtorch-like jet from a supermassive black hole at the core of a huge galaxy seems to cause stars to erupt along its trajectory. The stars, called novae, are not caught inside the jet, but are apparently in a dangerous neighborhood nearby. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-hubble-black-hole-stellar-eruptions.html Astronomy Thu, 26 Sep 2024 14:47:20 EDT news646580833 Is our home galaxy, the Milky Way galaxy, a special place? A team of scientists started a journey to answer this question more than a decade ago. Commenced in 2013, the Satellites Around Galactic Analogs (SAGA) Survey studies galaxy systems like the Milky Way. Now, the SAGA Survey has published three new research articles on the arXiv preprint server that provide us with new insights into the uniqueness of our own Milky Way galaxy after completing the census of 101 satellite systems similar to the Milky Way's. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-special-milky-galaxy-survey-team.html Astronomy Wed, 25 Sep 2024 15:54:28 EDT news646498461 The discovery of a "weird" and unprecedented galaxy in the early universe could "help us understand how the cosmic story began," astronomers say. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-webb-weird-galaxy-gas-outshining.html Astronomy Wed, 25 Sep 2024 12:04:03 EDT news646484641 Noctilucent clouds were once thought to be a fairly modern phenomenon. A team of researchers recently calculated that Earth and the entire solar system may well have passed through two dense interstellar clouds, causing global noctilucent clouds that may have driven an ice age. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-climate-earth-interstellar-clouds.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 24 Sep 2024 14:13:03 EDT news646405981 An atlas doesn't seem to be an essential item in cars these days, but think about them and most people will think about distances. An atlas of the stars not only covers distances but must also take into account time too. The Andromeda galaxy, for example, is so far away that its light takes 2.5 million years to reach us. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-evolution-universe.html Astronomy Mon, 23 Sep 2024 16:53:03 EDT news646329182 A Doppler shift is defined as a change of frequency of light or sound when an object is moving toward or away from an observer. Edwin Hubble observed in 1929 that galaxies appear on average to be moving away from us (see figure above), which could indicate that the universe is expanding, an effect that became known as the Hubble Law. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-quantized-redshift-big-hypothesis.html Astronomy Mon, 23 Sep 2024 12:40:01 EDT news646303513 Quasars are the most luminous objects in the universe and are powered by material accreting onto supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-early-universe-quasar-neighborhoods-densely.html Astronomy Mon, 23 Sep 2024 12:00:01 EDT news646299422 The magnificent galaxy featured in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is NGC 1559. It is a barred spiral galaxy located in the constellation Reticulum, approximately 35 million light-years from Earth. The brilliant light captured in the current image offers a wealth of information. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-hubble-multiwavelength-view-galaxy-ngc.html Astronomy Fri, 20 Sep 2024 12:42:03 EDT news646054921 The X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM) has revealed the structure, motion and temperature of the material around a supermassive black hole and in a supernova remnant in unprecedented detail. Astronomers presented the first scientific results of the new X-ray telescope today, less than a year after the telescope's launch. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-ray-imaging-spectroscopy-mission-unveils.html Astronomy Fri, 20 Sep 2024 10:58:04 EDT news646048682 The largest known black hole jets, 23 million light years across, have been discovered in the distant universe. This pair of particle beams launched by a supermassive black hole is over a hundred times larger than our galaxy, the Milky Way. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-astronomers-biggest-black-hole-jets-1.html Astronomy Thu, 19 Sep 2024 20:20:01 EDT news645967168 Astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory have found a galaxy cluster has two streams of superheated gas crossing one another. This result shows that crossing the streams may lead to the creation of new structure. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-nasa-chandra-galaxy-cluster-streams.html Astronomy Thu, 19 Sep 2024 16:36:56 EDT news645982614 A new catalog providing information on millions of distant galaxies, which determines their distances with unprecedented precision over a field of view and depth never before explored, has been published today. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-cosmic-distance-mysteries-universe-formation.html Astronomy Wed, 18 Sep 2024 16:42:35 EDT news645896549 An interaction between an elliptical galaxy and a spiral galaxy, collectively known as Arp 107, seems to have given the spiral a happier outlook thanks to the two bright "eyes" and the wide semicircular "smile." The region has been observed before in infrared by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope in 2005. However, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope displays it at much higher resolution. This image is a composite, combining observations from Webb's MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) and NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera). https://phys.org/news/2024-09-webb-telescope-galactic-collisions.html Astronomy Wed, 18 Sep 2024 16:38:39 EDT news645896311 In a rare and extraordinary discovery, researchers have identified a unique configuration of galaxies that form the most exquisitely aligned gravitational lens found to date. The Carousel Lens is a massive cluster-scale gravitational lens system that will enable researchers to delve deeper into the mysteries of the cosmos, including dark matter and dark energy. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-magnifying-deep-space-carousel-lens.html Astronomy Wed, 18 Sep 2024 12:57:31 EDT news645883047 Astronomers have spotted the biggest pair of black hole jets ever seen, spanning 23 million light-years in total length. That's equivalent to lining up 140 Milky Way galaxies back to back. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-astronomers-biggest-black-hole-jets.html Astronomy Wed, 18 Sep 2024 11:00:01 EDT news645870738 With the help of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, an international team of researchers led by scientists in the Department of Astronomy at Stockholm University has found more black holes in the early universe than has previously been reported. The new result can help scientists understand how supermassive black holes were created. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-hubble-black-holes-early-universe.html Astronomy Tue, 17 Sep 2024 12:49:56 EDT news645796190 Astronomers have used the NASA/ESA James Webb Space Telescope to confirm that supermassive black holes can starve their host galaxies of the fuel they need to form new stars. The results are reported in the journal Nature Astronomy. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-astronomers-black-hole-starving-host.html Astronomy Mon, 16 Sep 2024 05:00:01 EDT news645436261 For the past few years, a series of controversies have rocked the well-established field of cosmology. In a nutshell, the predictions of the standard model of the universe appear to be at odds with some recent observations. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-cosmology-verge-physics.html Astronomy Sun, 15 Sep 2024 11:00:01 EDT news645443890 A new study by MIT physicists proposes that a mysterious force known as early dark energy could solve two of the biggest puzzles in cosmology and fill in some major gaps in our understanding of how the early universe evolved. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-early-dark-energy-cosmology-biggest.html Astronomy Fri, 13 Sep 2024 09:12:05 EDT news645437521 Using the Gemini Observatory, Argentinian astronomers have conducted comprehensive photometric and spectroscopic observations of an early-type dwarf galaxy known as CGCG014-074. Results of the observational campaign, published September 3 in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, shed more light on the properties and evolution of this galaxy. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-spectrophotometric-explores-early-dwarf-galaxy.html Astronomy Wed, 11 Sep 2024 10:09:40 EDT news645268173 Have you ever wanted to make a $150,000 gamble? If you're right, you open a new window to the universe. But if you're wrong, you've just wasted a lot of money and time. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-reveal-enormous-halos-shroud-galaxies.html Astronomy Sun, 08 Sep 2024 14:10:01 EDT news644839690 Astronomers exploring the faraway universe with the James Webb Space Telescope, NASA's most powerful telescope, have found a class of galaxies that challenges even the most skillful creatures in mimicry—like the mimic octopus. This creature can impersonate other marine animals to avoid predators. Need to be a flatfish? No problem. A sea snake? Easy. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-hidden-compact-galaxies-distant-universe.html Astronomy Sun, 08 Sep 2024 13:20:01 EDT news644840369 The origins of aptly named supermassive black holes—which can weigh in at more than a million times the mass of the sun and reside in the center of most galaxies—remain one of the great mysteries of the cosmos. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-massive-merger-reveals-evidence-supermassive.html Astronomy Fri, 06 Sep 2024 13:41:29 EDT news644848884 This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the spiral galaxy IC 4709 located around 240 million light-years away in the southern constellation Telescopium. Hubble beautifully captures its faint halo and swirling disk filled with stars and dust bands. The compact region at its core might be the most remarkable sight. It holds an active galactic nucleus (AGN). https://phys.org/news/2024-09-image-hubble-spiral-galaxy-ic.html Astronomy Fri, 06 Sep 2024 11:40:01 EDT news644840645 Dark matter is the invisible force holding the universe together—or so we think. It makes up about 85% of all matter and around 27% of the universe's contents, but since we can't see it directly, we have to study its gravitational effects on galaxies and other cosmic structures. Despite decades of research, the true nature of dark matter remains one of science's most elusive questions. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-ai-distinguish-dark-cosmic-noise.html Astronomy Fri, 06 Sep 2024 05:00:01 EDT news644756344 It's 7 billion years ago, and the universe's heyday of star formation is beginning to slow. What might our Milky Way galaxy have looked like at that time? Astronomers using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope have found clues in the form of a cosmic question mark, the result of a rare alignment across light-years of space. The research paper is published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-webb-reveals-distorted-galaxy-cosmic.html Astronomy Wed, 04 Sep 2024 12:01:04 EDT news644670062 Clusters of stars set the interstellar medium ablaze in the Andromeda galaxy about 2.5 million light-years away. Also known as M31, Andromeda is the Milky Way's closest major galaxy. It measures approximately 152,000 light-years across and, with almost the same mass as our home galaxy, is headed for a collision with the Milky Way in 2–4 billion years. In the meantime, Andromeda remains an object of study for many astronomers. https://phys.org/news/2024-08-hubble-rosy-tendrils-andromeda.html Astronomy Fri, 30 Aug 2024 11:18:02 EDT news644235481 Astronomers have spotted a pair of galaxies in the act of merging 12.8 billion years ago. The characteristics of these galaxies indicate that the merger will form a monster galaxy, one of the brightest types of objects in the universe. https://phys.org/news/2024-08-astronomers-merging-galaxies-billion-years.html Astronomy Fri, 30 Aug 2024 09:12:03 EDT news644227921