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    galaxy formation tagged posts

    First-ever direct image of the cosmic web reveals the Universe’s hidden highways

    May 20, 2026, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Image of the sky in the direction of the MUDF observations (MUSE Ultra Deep Field, the region targeted by MUSE). The cosmic filament is shown in purple; the galaxies visible in front and behind are shown in colour. The two galaxies at the edge of the structure, surrounded by clouds of gas, host supermassive black holes at their centres, visible in blue.
    © Joseph DePasquale/Space Telescope Science Institute

    Astronomers have revealed the sharpest image ever captured of a filament in the cosmic web — the enormous hidden structure connecting galaxies across the Universe. The glowing strand stretches 3 million light-years and links two galaxies from nearly 12 billion years ago...

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    Space Oddity: Most Distant Rotating Disc Galaxy found

    October 8, 2024, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Researchers have discovered the most distant Milky-Way-like galaxy yet observed. Dubbed REBELS-25, this disc galaxy seems as orderly as present-day galaxies, but we see it as it was when the Universe was only 700 million years old. This is surprising since, according to our current understanding of galaxy formation, such early galaxies are expected to appear more chaotic. The rotation and structure of REBELS-25 were revealed using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), in which the European Southern Observatory (ESO) is a partner.

    The galaxies we see today have come a long way from their chaotic, clumpy counterparts that astronomers typically observe in the early Universe...

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    New Insights on How Galaxies are Formed

    March 4, 2024, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    An image from the simulation
    Part of the simulated universe. In the center, a galaxy is born through gas that later transforms into stars. The whole process takes billions of years but is simulated in just a few months by supercomputers (Photo: The AGORA Collaboration)

    New insights on how galaxies are formed
    Astronomers can use supercomputers to simulate the formation of galaxies from the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago to the present day. But there are a number of sources of error. An international research team, led by researchers in Lund, has spent a hundred million computer hours over eight years trying to correct these.

    The last decade has seen major advances in computer simulations that can realistically calculate how galaxies form...

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    Scientists Map Gusty Winds in a far-off Neutron Star System

    April 12, 2023, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    In black space, the accretion disk is represented as a flat swirling disk with blue, pink red colors, and in the middle of it is tiny, glowing white sphere, the neutron star. Behind the accretion disk is a large teal sphere, the sun-like star. A teal noodle flows from the star to the accretion disk, representing the material drawn away from the star.
    Caption: MIT astronomers mapped the “disk winds” associated with the accretion disk around Hercules X-1, a system in which a neutron star is drawing material away from a sun-like star, represented as the teal sphere. The findings may offer clues to how supermassive black holes shape entire galaxies.
    Credits:Credit: Jose-Luis Olivares, MIT. Based on an image of Hercules X-1 by D. Klochkov, European Space Agency

    The 2D map of this ‘disk wind’ may reveal clues to galaxy formation.

    Astronomers have mapped the ‘disk winds’ associated with the accretion disk around Hercules X-1, a system in which a neutron star is drawing material away from a sun-like star. The findings may offer clues to how supermassive black holes shape entire galaxies.

    An accretion disk is a colossal whirlpool o...

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