The Daily Galaxy: Great Discoveries Channel

Mining the Giant Molecular Cloud at Milky Way Core for Origins of Life

Scientists are using the giant Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) to prospect in Sagittarius B2(N), a giant molecular cloud near the center of our Galaxy, some 25,000 light-years from Earth for new, complex molecules in interstellar space that may be precursors to life.

Cosmic Michelangelo! NASA's Great Observatories Mosaic of Milky Way's Center & Massive Black Hole

No, it's not a lost Michelangelo masterpiece -it’s a mosaic of the sky 38 x 14 arc minutes across, or about half the size of the full Moon, of the core central region of our 400 million solar-mass galaxy. The bright white spot just to the right of the center behind light years of dust and gas is the monster SagA* -a black hole with four million times the mass of the Sun. 

Were Gigantic "Dark Stars" of the Early Universe Powered by Antimatter? -A Galaxy Insight

Dark matter stars: not an attempt to destroy the rebels in Star Wars IX, but gigantic stars fueled by the annihilation of dark matter.  That's the theory put forward by a team of scientists, with measurable effects which might offer more evidence for what often seems to be the Emperor's New Matter.

Image of the Day: The Ethereal Beauty of Galaxy Group HCG 87

The galaxies of HCG (Hickson Compact Group) 87 are about four hundred million light-years distant interacting gravitationally,influencing their fellow group members' structure and evolution. . The large edge-on spiral near picture center, the fuzzy elliptical galaxy immediately to its right, and the spiral near the top of the image are identified members of the group, while the small spiral galaxy in the middle is likely a more distant background galaxy. In any event, a careful examination of the deep image reveals other galaxies which certainly lie far beyond HCG 87. This image is from the Gemini Observatory's South Telescope at Cerro Pachon, Chile.

Image Credit: GMOS-S Commissioning Team, Gemini Observatory

Are Black Holes Powering the Most Massive Objects in Space? -A Galaxy Classic

"Blobs" might sound as scientific as an astrologer at a NASCAR rally, but it's a real astrophysical term - in fact, it's a giant one.  Blobs are immense clouds of gas -some stretch for tens of thousands of  light years- which failed to form into galaxies and instead glow in the far reaches of space where stars used to be made.  Now scientists say they've found the power source pumping that glow - black holes.

The Largest Impact Crater in Solar System Sparks Intense Interest

Recent analysis of the Red Planet's terrain using NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Global Surveyor spacecraft observations revealed what appeared to be by far the largest impact crater ever found in the solar system. The image left shows how the Earth might look with a similar sized crater, 5,300 miles wide and 6,600 miles long, embedded in it

NASA’s Viking orbiters observed in the 1970s that the bottom two-thirds of Mars was about two miles higher in altitude than its top third. Planetary scientists have since bandied about two hypotheses to explain the dichotomy: either some odd internal dynamics of Mars generated a thicker planetary crust in the south, or the northern surface was blown away by a mega-meteor impact.

The Universe 800 Million Years After the Big Bang: An Epoch of Massive Stars (3-D VIDEO)

Astronomers have completed conducting the broadest survey to date of galaxies from about 800 million years after the Big Bang. They found 22 early galaxies and confirmed the age of one by its characteristic hydrogen signature at 787 million years post Big Bang. The finding is the first age-confirmation of a so-called dropout galaxy at that distant time and pinpoints when an era called the reionization epoch likely began.

Strange Neutron Star Solves Mystery of Milky Way's Youngest Supernova

Scientists have finally identified the mysterious source of X-ray emissions at the center of our galaxy’s youngest supernova: Inside the remains of Cassiopeia A sits a baby neutron star  surrounded by a thin layer of carbon. Discovered in Chandra's "First Light" image obtained in 1999, the point-like X-ray source at the center of Cas A was presumed to be a neutron star, or pulsar, the typical remnant of an exploded star, but it surprisingly did not show any evidence for X-ray or radio pulsations.

Dark Energy Might Nix Einstein at the Edge of the Universe

A young physicist at Cornell says that while gravity tests out on a Solar System scale, when it comes to the distances of the farthest galaxies, which are billions of light years from our own Milky Way, Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity needs to be modified to account for the mysterious effect of dark energy.

“Einstein’s theory of General Relativity tells us how gravity determines the relationship between the matter in the Universe and the Universe’s size,” says Cornell's Rachael Bean. “If matter in the Universe is attracted by gravity, then the Universe’s size should be expanding at an ever slowing rate (decelerating). What observations show, though, is that in the last 6 billion years (out of the Universe’s 13.7 billion year existence), the expansion has been speeding up. So we need new physics, labeled ‘dark energy’, to explain this apparent disparity.”

Milky Way Awe: a 648-Megapixel Panorama of Our Galaxy

 

Piecing together 3000 individual photographs, a physicist has made a new high-resolution panoramic image of the full night sky, with the Milky Way galaxy as its centerpiece. Axel Mellinger, a professor at Central Michigan University, describes the panorama: "This panorama image shows stars 1000 times fainter than the human eye can see, as well as hundreds of galaxies, star clusters and nebulae," Mellinger said. Mellinger spent 22 months and traveled over 26,000 miles to take digital photographs at dark sky locations in South Africa, Texas and Michigan.

Mining the Giant Molecular Cloud at Milky Way Core for Origins of Life

Scientists are using the giant Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) to prospect in Sagittarius B2(N), a giant molecular cloud near the center of our Galaxy, some 25,000 light-years from Earth for new, complex molecules in interstellar space that may be precursors to life.

Cosmic Michelangelo! NASA's Great Observatories Mosaic of Milky Way's Center & Massive Black Hole

No, it's not a lost Michelangelo masterpiece -it’s a mosaic of the sky 38 x 14 arc minutes across, or about half the size of the full Moon, of the core central region of our 400 million solar-mass galaxy. The bright white spot just to the right of the center behind light years of dust and gas is the monster SagA* -a black hole with four million times the mass of the Sun. 

Were Gigantic "Dark Stars" of the Early Universe Powered by Antimatter? -A Galaxy Insight

Dark matter stars: not an attempt to destroy the rebels in Star Wars IX, but gigantic stars fueled by the annihilation of dark matter.  That's the theory put forward by a team of scientists, with measurable effects which might offer more evidence for what often seems to be the Emperor's New Matter.

Image of the Day: The Ethereal Beauty of Galaxy Group HCG 87

The galaxies of HCG (Hickson Compact Group) 87 are about four hundred million light-years distant interacting gravitationally,influencing their fellow group members' structure and evolution. . The large edge-on spiral near picture center, the fuzzy elliptical galaxy immediately to its right, and the spiral near the top of the image are identified members of the group, while the small spiral galaxy in the middle is likely a more distant background galaxy. In any event, a careful examination of the deep image reveals other galaxies which certainly lie far beyond HCG 87. This image is from the Gemini Observatory's South Telescope at Cerro Pachon, Chile.

Image Credit: GMOS-S Commissioning Team, Gemini Observatory

Are Black Holes Powering the Most Massive Objects in Space? -A Galaxy Classic

"Blobs" might sound as scientific as an astrologer at a NASCAR rally, but it's a real astrophysical term - in fact, it's a giant one.  Blobs are immense clouds of gas -some stretch for tens of thousands of  light years- which failed to form into galaxies and instead glow in the far reaches of space where stars used to be made.  Now scientists say they've found the power source pumping that glow - black holes.

The Largest Impact Crater in Solar System Sparks Intense Interest

Recent analysis of the Red Planet's terrain using NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Global Surveyor spacecraft observations revealed what appeared to be by far the largest impact crater ever found in the solar system. The image left shows how the Earth might look with a similar sized crater, 5,300 miles wide and 6,600 miles long, embedded in it

NASA’s Viking orbiters observed in the 1970s that the bottom two-thirds of Mars was about two miles higher in altitude than its top third. Planetary scientists have since bandied about two hypotheses to explain the dichotomy: either some odd internal dynamics of Mars generated a thicker planetary crust in the south, or the northern surface was blown away by a mega-meteor impact.

The Universe 800 Million Years After the Big Bang: An Epoch of Massive Stars (3-D VIDEO)

Astronomers have completed conducting the broadest survey to date of galaxies from about 800 million years after the Big Bang. They found 22 early galaxies and confirmed the age of one by its characteristic hydrogen signature at 787 million years post Big Bang. The finding is the first age-confirmation of a so-called dropout galaxy at that distant time and pinpoints when an era called the reionization epoch likely began.

Strange Neutron Star Solves Mystery of Milky Way's Youngest Supernova

Scientists have finally identified the mysterious source of X-ray emissions at the center of our galaxy’s youngest supernova: Inside the remains of Cassiopeia A sits a baby neutron star  surrounded by a thin layer of carbon. Discovered in Chandra's "First Light" image obtained in 1999, the point-like X-ray source at the center of Cas A was presumed to be a neutron star, or pulsar, the typical remnant of an exploded star, but it surprisingly did not show any evidence for X-ray or radio pulsations.

Dark Energy Might Nix Einstein at the Edge of the Universe

A young physicist at Cornell says that while gravity tests out on a Solar System scale, when it comes to the distances of the farthest galaxies, which are billions of light years from our own Milky Way, Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity needs to be modified to account for the mysterious effect of dark energy.

“Einstein’s theory of General Relativity tells us how gravity determines the relationship between the matter in the Universe and the Universe’s size,” says Cornell's Rachael Bean. “If matter in the Universe is attracted by gravity, then the Universe’s size should be expanding at an ever slowing rate (decelerating). What observations show, though, is that in the last 6 billion years (out of the Universe’s 13.7 billion year existence), the expansion has been speeding up. So we need new physics, labeled ‘dark energy’, to explain this apparent disparity.”

Milky Way Awe: a 648-Megapixel Panorama of Our Galaxy

 

Piecing together 3000 individual photographs, a physicist has made a new high-resolution panoramic image of the full night sky, with the Milky Way galaxy as its centerpiece. Axel Mellinger, a professor at Central Michigan University, describes the panorama: "This panorama image shows stars 1000 times fainter than the human eye can see, as well as hundreds of galaxies, star clusters and nebulae," Mellinger said. Mellinger spent 22 months and traveled over 26,000 miles to take digital photographs at dark sky locations in South Africa, Texas and Michigan.