Knowtex

Researchers from the CEA (French Atomic Energy Commission) study different hypotheses to understand the fertility of galaxies in the distant Universe. A new paradigm is emerging: a network of gas filaments may link the galaxies with each other and feed them with matter to create new stars.

This animated flight through the universe was made by Miguel Aragon of Johns Hopkins University with Mark Subbarao of the Adler Planetarium and Alex Szalay of Johns Hopkins.

In celebration of the twenty-firstt anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope's deployment in April 2011, astronomers at the Space Telescope Science Institute pointed Hubble's eye to an especially photogenic group of interacting galaxies called Arp 273.

Outstanding night sky timelapse footage.

On April 24th, 1990, the Space Shuttle Discovery roared into space, carrying HST into orbit and into history. In honor of this anniversary, astronomers have released a new image of the interacting galaxies Arp 273, and it’s a beaut.

Size comparison between several familiar (and not so familiar) objects, starting from a single water molecule and ending in the largest known galaxy.

I still get a thrill every time I see a particularly beautiful image of an astronomical object. But there are some that transcend that beauty, adding a dimension of what-the-what? that makes them just that much cooler. Like, say, this amazing image of the core of the nearby galaxy M51.

Today, astronomers announced that they have found a new exoplanet, a planet orbiting another star. Nearly 500 exoplanets have been found in the past 15 years, so what’s the big deal, you may ask?

Spiral galaxies are among the most magnificent objects in space. Grand and sprawling, they are icons of the night sky. Like a snapshot of coins tossed in the air, we see them at all angles, from face-on disks to nearly edge-on lines.

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has imaged a striking galaxy called NGC 4452, which appears to lie exactly edge-on as seen from Earth. The result is an extraordinary picture of billions of stars observed from an unusual angle.