Centaurus A, an elliptical galaxy 13 million light-years from Earth, hosts a group of dwarf satellite galaxies co-rotating in a narrow disk, a distribution not predicted by dark-matter-influenced cosmological models. Credit: Christian Wolf and the SkyMapper team / Australian National University

An international team has determined that Centaurus A, a massive elliptical galaxy 13 million light-years from Earth, is accompanied by a number of dwarf satellite galaxies orbiting the main body in a narrow disk. This is the first time such a galactic arrangement has been observed outside the Local Group, home to the Milky Way...

Jean-Phillipe MacLean works in his lab. Credit: Image courtesy of University of Waterloo

Scientists at the Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) at the University of Waterloo have captured the first images of ultrafast photons that are energy-time entangled. The new technique will have direct applications for quantum cryptography and communication protocols, including the possibility for establishing highly secure communication channels over long distances. “This technique will allow us to explore all sorts of quantum effects that were inaccessible because the detectors were simply too slow,” said Jean-Philippe MacLean, lead author of the study and a PhD candidate in the Department of Physics and Astronomy in the Faculty of Science.

To capture one of the shortest quantum events possible, t...

Printing a liquid-filled foam and including living cells. Credit: Image courtesy of University of Twente

Using a new technique they call ‘in-air microfluidics’, University of Twente scientists succeed in printing 3D structures with living cells. This special technique enable the fast and ‘in-flight’ production of micro building blocks that are viable and can be used for repairing damaged tissue, for example.

Microfluidics is all about manipulating tiny drops of fluid with sizes between a micrometer and a millimeter. Most often, chips with tiny fluidic channels, reactors and other components are used for this: lab-on-a-chip systems...

Andromeda galaxy

CU Boulder researchers have discovered a mechanism that explains the persistence of asymmetrical stellar clusters surrounding supermassive black holes in some galaxies and suggests that during post-galactic merger periods, orbiting stars could be flung into the black hole and destroyed at a rate of one per year.

A supermassive black hole’s gravity creates a nuclear star cluster surrounding it, which gravitational physics would expect to be spherically symmetric. However, several galaxies – including nearby Andromeda – have been observed with an asymmetrical star cluster that takes the form of a disk instead. Eccentric disks are suspected to be formed in the wake of a recent merger between two gas-rich galaxies.

Within the disk, each star follows an elliptical orbit that re...