Milky Way galaxy tagged posts

Hubble Glimpses Globular Cluster NGC 6652

A spherical cluster of stars with a bright core, and stars spread out to the edges gradually giving way to an empty, dark background. A few stars with cross-shaped diffraction spikes appear larger and stand out in front.
Text credit: European Space Agency (ESA)
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Sarajedini, G. Piotto

The glittering, glitzy contents of the globular cluster NGC 6652 sparkle in this star-studded image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The core of the cluster is suffused with the pale blue light of countless stars, and a handful of particularly bright foreground stars are adorned with crisscrossing diffraction spikes. NGC 6652 lies in our own Milky Way galaxy in the constellation Sagittarius, just under 30,000 light-years from Earth and only 6,500 light-years from the galactic center.

Globular clusters are stable, tightly gravitationally bound clusters containing anywhere from tens of thousands to millions of stars...

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Scientists find Elusive Gas from Post-Starburst Galaxies Hiding in Plain Sight

Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/S. Dagnello (NRAO/AUI/NSF)

Post-starburst galaxies were previously thought to scatter all of their gas and dust — the fuel required for creating new stars — in violent bursts of energy, and with extraordinary speed. Now, new data from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) reveals that these galaxies don’t scatter all of their star-forming fuel after all. Instead, after their supposed end, these dormant galaxies hold onto and compress large amounts of highly-concentrated, turbulent gas. But contrary to expectation, they’re not using it to form stars.

In most galaxies, scientists expect gas to be distributed in a way similar to starlight. But for post-starburst galaxies, or PSBs, this isn’t the case...

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Blue Ring Nebula: 16-year-old Cosmic Mystery Solved, revealing Stellar missing Link

Blue Ring Nebula
The Blue Ring Nebula, which perplexed scientists for over a decade, appears to be the youngest known example of two stars merged into one.

Astronomers have solved the 16-year-old mystery surrounding the Blue Ring Nebula – an unusual, large, faint blob of gas with a star at its center. This object is unlike any they’d ever seen before in our Milky Way galaxy. The team has discovered the nebula appears to be the first known example of a merged star system at this stage.

In 2004, scientists with NASA’s space-based Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) spotted an object unlike any they’d seen before in our Milky Way galaxy: a large, faint blob of gas with a star at its center...

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The Milky Way Galaxy has a Clumpy Halo

milky way against treeline
Astronomers at the University of Iowa have determined our galaxy is surrounded by a clumpy halo of hot gases that is continually being supplied with material ejected by birthing or dying stars. The halo also may be where matter unaccounted for since the birth of the universe may reside. Photo courtesy of Christien Nielsen/Unsplash.

Astronomers at the University of Iowa have determined our galaxy is surrounded by a clumpy halo of hot gases that is continually being supplied with material ejected by birthing or dying stars. The halo also may be where matter unaccounted for since the birth of the universe may reside. Results published in the journal Nature Astronomy.

University of Iowa astronomers have determined our galaxy is surrounded by a clumpy halo of hot gases that is continuall...

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