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Redshift is the name given to the change in colour of objects which are moving away from us. At normal speeds this change is so small we do not notice, but when we use powerful telescopes to look at distant … Continue reading
Category Archives: Astronomy
The images below show how galaxies similar in mass to our home galaxy, the Milky Way, evolved over time. The images taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reveal that Milky Way-like galaxies grow larger in size and in stellar mass … Continue reading
In analyzing data from deep-sky census assembled from surveys taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and other observatories, a team led by Christopher Conselice of the University of Nottingham, U.K., found that 10 times as many galaxies were packed into … Continue reading
The Orion Arm is a minor spiral arm of the Milky Way some 3,500 light-years (1,100 parsecs) across and approximately 10,000 light-years (3,100 parsecs) in length. The Solar System, including the Earth, lies within the Orion Arm. It is also … Continue reading
On September 14, 2015 at 09:50:45 UTC, for the first time in history, the two detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory both observed a transient gravitational-wave signal. Based on previous simulations of possible observations, the Ligo Collaboration Team was able … Continue reading
Stars form within clouds of gas and dust as they collapse under gravity. Over time, the surrounding dust particles acquire icy mantles which stick them together, forming icy snowballs which gradually grow to form larger-size rocks. Due to the rotation … Continue reading
This the biggest haul ever of exoplanets (planets outside the Solar System) have been identified by analysing data from the Kepler Telescope. All 719 of the new planets are members of multi-planet systems—stars with more than one orbiting satellite. Researchers used … Continue reading
“Almost all sun-like stars have a planetary system,” said Francois Fressin, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who has been exploring statistical models of Kepler data. via Earth-Like Planets Fill the Galaxy | Observations, Scientific American Blog Network. … Continue reading
The spectacular barred spiral galaxy NGC 6872 has ranked among the biggest stellar systems for decades. Now a team of astronomers from the United States, Chile and Brazil has crowned it the largest known spiral, based on archival data from … Continue reading
Astronomers have discovered what appears to be a large asteroid belt around the star Vega, the second brightest star in northern night skies. The scientists used data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and the European Space Agency’s Herschel Space Observatory, … Continue reading