Galaxy

A mystery object in a galaxy far, far away could be a supermassive black hole that got booted from its home galaxy’s center, according to a new study.

Then again, the strange body could be a rare type of supernova or an oddball “midsize” black hole—more massive than black holes born when single stars explode but “lighter” than the supermassive ones at the centers of galaxies.

“All three of those [options] are exotic and have something peculiar to them,” said study co-author Peter Jonker, an astronomer with the Netherlands Institute for Space Research in Utrecht.

The space rock that recently plowed into Jupiter and gave it a black eye the size of the Pacific Ocean served up a not-so-gentle reminder of the rough and tough side of our universe. Check out this and nine more bouts of violence in outer space

Check out ten images featured in “From Earth to the Universe,” one of several projects organized for the International Year of Astronomy. More than 40 countries have announced plans to participate. About 125 space images are available for display in airports, parks and other public places around the world. Some of the images here just might show up at an exhibit near you.

Astronomers unveiled today what they are calling the best map ever produced of the Milky Way galaxy. The new view shows our spiral galaxy as it would look face-on to a very distant observer.

Astronomers have found three galaxies in a never before seen perfect alignment—a discovery that may help scientists better understand the mysterious dark matter and dark energy believed to dominate the universe.

The three galaxies are like beads on a string, one directly behind the other, scientists announced yesterday at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Austin, Texas.

In galaxy clusters, the rough-and-tumble outer suburbs are where most galactic change occurs, a team of astronomers announced today.

There, galaxies harass, strangle, and strip away at each other as they are pulled from the outskirts of a cluster to the inner core by the gravity of dark matter, according to the new research.

Scientists have peered back into the earliest epochs of the universe and discovered the types of galaxies that form modern galaxies, including spiral types like our Milky Way.

The newfound galaxies represent some of the first to form in the universe—their light has traveled between 9 and 12 billion years to reach Earth, the bulk of the universe’s 13.7-billion-year existence.