Dark matter makes up most of the universe — and we still don’t really know what it is.
Researchers discover a planet so big it might not be a planet after all
Too big for a planet, too small for a star.
Another Einstein predication is confirmed by scientists: gravitational lensing measures star’s mass for the 1st time
Einstein — right again!
An old looking galaxy found in a young Universe
Many people change a lot after their youth… and so to did our Universe. Nowadays, galaxies contain both dust and gas, but back in the early Big-Bang days, the earliest galaxies had no dust, only gas. Now, a team of astronomers has discovered a very young galaxy with lots of dust – the equivalent of a white-bearded young man.
NASA’s great observatories combine to probe deeper in the Universe
Each of NASA’s Great Observatories – Hubble, Spitzer and Chandra – have been designed to peer through the Universe in a characteristic manner. The telescopes have provided along the years massive amount of astronomical data and have helped scientists make important discoveries. What if you combine each of the telescopes’ strong points to assemble one massive probe capable of seeing
Massive dark energy survey launched set to probe its secrets
Dark energy is the mysterious force that drives the Universe’s expansion at an ever increased pace. Probing and understanding this force is thus imperative for astronomers’ and cosmologists’ efforts of peering through the Universe’s secrets. Recently, a new massive project set on probing the nature of dark energy was launched, called the Dark Energy Survey (DES), and its future findings are
Extremely rare double Einstein ring imaged by Hubble
Hubble just never ceases to surprise. The latest astronomical find discovered using the ever resourceful space telescope is a never before encountered double ring pattern known as an Einstein ring. This very rare pattern is the result of a peculiar optical alignment in which three galaxies are perfectly aligned with each other, like beads on a string. The occurrence isn’t
Farthest known object in the Universe is 13.3 billion years old
NASA scientists have announced they have discovered the farthest object discovered so far in the Universe, a 13.3 billion old galaxy or a mere 420 million years after the Big Bang. That’s not to say that its 13.3 billion light years away from Earth, since the Universe has expanded greatly since then and the actual distance might be much greater
Faint galaxy sheds light on the dawn of the Universe – many more to be found
The first galaxies formed very fast after the Big Bang – in cosmic time, that is. It’s estimated that the earliest ones appeared some 500 million years after the Big Bang, a period about which researchers know very little. How they observed it Even though they are typically very bright, such galaxies are quite hard to observe because they are
Nomad planets may litter Milky Way
According to a recent study published by researchers from the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC), our galaxy may be ‘infested’ with nomad planets, which wander aimlessly instead of orbiting a star. Furthermore, the study concluded there may actually be 100,000 times more “nomad planets” in the Milky Way than stars. If this theory is proven correct, it
Astronomers use massive objects in space as huge telescopes, find brightest galaxy via gravity lens
Whenever a massive object, with an equally massive gravitational pull, like black holes or galaxy clusters, falls between an observer, say a telescope, and a distant target in the background to be observed, than a gravitational lens is formed. Light emitted from the distant object gets twisted by the massive object, and ends up distorted at the telescope – this
Hubble captures disk of matter around black hole – birth of a quasar
The Hubble telescope has captured through an innovative technique, which harnessed light bent from a distant galaxy in a optical lens-like manner, a direct image of a disk of matter surrounding a black hole. The disk, made out of gas and dust, slowly swirls around a giant black hole’s center gradually getting consumed. Powered by the disk of matter, huge
