Galaxy Megamergers 1.4 – 1.5 Billion Years after the Big Bang
Two teams of astronomers have used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX), in Chile, to observe dense concentrations of so-called “starburst” galaxies. With these galaxies packing together so closely, the scientific teams realized that they were getting ready to violently collide and merge with each other, which would eventually […]
Study: Dinosaurs Roamed Before Saturn’s Moons and Rings Formed
A new study from researchers at the SETI Institute (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) and the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) has found that most of Saturn’s 62 moons and perhaps even its celebrated rings may only be a hundred million years old. That’s more recent than when dinosaurs were roaming Earth. One of the study authors, Matija […]
Astronomers Spot 80 of the Oldest Galaxies
Advancing technology is making it possible for scientists to investigate the early universe. About 200 million years after the Big Bang, it is thought that clumps of condensed primordial cold gas clouds provided material for the first stars to be born. As stars were created they formed small galaxies. An international team of researchers are […]
Zika Kills Cells Crucial to Brain Development; Did Volcanoes Cause Mars to Tilt?
Study: Zika Virus Infects and Kills Fetal Cerebral Cortex Cells This birth defect can cause babies to be born with an unusually small head and inhibited brain development. The scientists, who made their findings based on experiments performed with lab-grown human stem cells, discovered that the Zika virus is attracted to and infects the cells […]
New Maps Reveal Red Spot Changes and Odd New Features on Jupiter
Scientists have created two new maps of Jupiter with data and images gathered over a nearly 21-hour period on January 19, 2015 by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s high performance Wide Field Camera 3. The maps are a representation of two nearly continuous rotations of the Jovian planet. The maps and series of images will […]
Astronomers Find Massive Star Making Galaxy Cluster
Astronomers have discovered a distant and massive galaxy cluster with a gigantic and prolific galaxy at its heart that’s pumping out hundreds of stars each year. The galaxy cluster is named SpARCS 1049+56 and is located about 9.8 billion light years from Earth in the Ursa Major constellation. Galaxy clusters are areas of the universe […]
Extrasolar Object’s Ring System is 200 Times Larger Than Saturn’s
One of our solar system’s most fascinating planets is Saturn. It’s the 2nd largest planet, after Jupiter. But what makes Saturn stand out from the others is the dazzling system of rings that surround it. Recently, a Dutch and an American astronomer found that an extrasolar object, discovered back in 2012, is surrounded by a […]
Astronomers May Have Spotted A Moon Orbiting an Extrasolar Planet
According to NASA, more than 1,000 extrasolar planets have been confirmed in recent years. There are also thousands more potential planets beyond our solar system that are waiting to be discovered. Now, an international group of astronomers think they may have found the first exomoon, or moon circling an exoplanet, some 1,800 light years away […]
Hubble Helps Astronomers Solve 40 Year-Old Mystery
Astronomers finally have been able to solve a 40-year mystery thanks to the Hubble Space Telescope. For over four decades astronomers have been trying to find the origin of the Magellanic Stream, a long ribbon of hydrogen gas clouds that stretch almost halfway around our own Milky Way galaxy. The Magellanic Stream is connected to […]
60 Billion Earth-like Planets Could Exist in Milky Way Galaxy
A new study finds there could be about 60 billion Earth-sized habitable planets orbiting red dwarfs – the most common stars in our universe – in the Milky Way galaxy. That’s more than twice as many potentially habitable planets than was previously thought. The new report from two Chicago area universities finds that clouds surrounding […]