Using the near infrared integral field spectrograph CIRPASS at Gemini South, Ruben Diaz and an international team of astronomers have discovered a previously unknown hidden mass concentration that looks like a second nucleus in the starburst galaxy M83.
Kategorie: Kosmologie
Head-on collision explains Andromeda’s strange shape
A two-decade-long riddle about the bizarre shape of the Milky Way’s nearest spiral-shaped galaxy, Andromeda, has been solved, suggests a new study. Instead of having the flat plane and outflung arms that are the hallmarks of a mature spiral galaxy, Andromeda has a warped plane and several rather chaotic, overlapping outer rings. The reason, according to an international team of astronomers, is that Andromeda suffered a head-on collision with a smaller galaxy some 210 million years ago. The evidence comes from infrared images taken by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. They show a previously hidden, tilted second ring that protrudes from the heart of the galaxy. This ring is likely to be the shockwave of gas and dust from a colossal collision. The theory has been put to the test in a computer simulation. It suggests a dwarf galaxy called M32 probably drove straight into the heart of Andromeda.
Antennae galaxies‘ fertile marriage
A new Hubble image of the Antennae galaxies is the sharpest yet of this merging pair of galaxies. As the two galaxies smash together, thousand of millions of stars are born, mostly in groups and clusters of stars.
https://hubblesite.org/contents/media/images/2006/46/1995-Image.html
https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Antennae_galaxies_fertile_marriage
The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Ever Taken
This video may change your life…
Galaxy caught in the making
New Hubble images have provided a dramatic glimpse of a large massive galaxy under assembly as smaller galaxies merge. Hubble observations of the galaxy MRC 1138-262, nicknamed the „Spiderweb Galaxy“, have shown dozens of star-forming satellite galaxies in the actual process of merging.
https://esahubble.org/news/heic0614/
Filme vom Kosmos
Mit einer gigantischen Überwachungskamera wollen Astronomen künftig Vorgänge am Nachthimmel erfassen. Ein entsprechendes Konsortium haben die Max-Planck-Institute in Heidelberg und Garching mit weiteren Partnern aus Europa und den Vereinigten Staaten gebildet. Ihre Arbeit soll unter anderem den ersten digitalen Farbfilm astronomischer Vorgänge liefern.
Pan-STARRS – PS1 Science Consortium
Planck to build on Nobel-prize-winning science
The 2006 Nobel Prize for physics has been awarded to Americans John C. Mather and George F. Smoot for their work on NASA’s 1989 Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite. In 2008, ESA’s Planck satellite will launch and build on this award-winning legacy by showing cosmologists new details of the Universe’s origins.
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2006
Scientists Nudge Closer to the Edge of a Black Hole
NASA scientists and their international partners using the new Japanese Suzaku satellite have collected a startling new set of black hole observations, revealing details of twisted space and warped time never before seen with such precision. The observations include clocking the speed of a black hole’s spin rate and measuring the angle at which matter pours into the void, as well as evidence for a wall of X-ray light pulled back and flattened by gravity.
https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2006/spinning_blackhole.html
Supernova radioisotopes show sun was born in star cluster
The death of a massive nearby star billions of years ago offers evidence the sun was born in a star cluster, say astronomers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Rather than being an only child, the sun could have hundreds or thousands of celestial siblings, now dispersed across the heavens. In a paper accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal, astronomy professors Leslie W. Looney and Brian D. Fields, and undergraduate student John J. Tobin take a close look at short-lived radioactive isotopes once present in primitive meteorites. The researchers‘ conclusions could reshape current theories on how, when and where planets form around stars.
Astronomers see inside a quasar for the first time
For the first time, astronomers have looked inside quasars – the brightest objects in the universe – and have seen evidence of black holes. The study lends further confirmation to what scientists have long suspected – that quasars are made up of super-massive black holes and the super-heated disks of material that are spiraling into them. The results of the Ohio State University-led project was reported on Thursday at the meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) High Energy Astrophysics Division in San Francisco.
Research News Story @ Ohio State University