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    star formation tagged posts

    Monster black holes are silencing star formation across the universe

    March 31, 2026, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Giant black holes may be secretly controlling how entire clusters of galaxies grow. A blazing supermassive black hole can influence far more than its own galaxy. Scientists found that quasars emit radiation strong enough to shut down star formation in nearby galaxies millions of light-years away. This could explain why some galaxies near early quasars appear faint or missing. The finding suggests galaxies grow and evolve together, not in isolation.

    Powerful radiation from active supermassive black holes, which are believed to sit at the center of most galaxies, can do more than shape their own surroundings. A new study led by Yongda Zhu at the University of Arizona suggests these black holes can also slow the formation of stars in galaxies located millions of light-years away.

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    Gas location drives star formation in distant galaxies

    May 23, 2025, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    The red shade shows the atomic hydrogen gas content of the galaxy overlaid on the optical image. Credit: Legacy Surveys / D. Lang (Perimeter Institute)/ T. Westmeier – ICRAR

    In the intriguing realm of star-forming galaxies, the key factor isn’t the total amount of gas but rather its strategic distribution within the galaxy.

    Researchers at the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) made the discovery about galaxies by studying the gas distribution that helps create stars.

    Using CSIRO’s ASKAP radio telescope located at Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara, the CSIRO Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory, researchers explored the gas distribution in about 1,000 galaxies as part of the WALLABY survey.

    Lead author Seona Lee, a PhD student at The University of Western Au...

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    Webb explores effect of strong magnetic fields on star formation

    April 4, 2025, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    The MeerKAT radio telescope shows the plane of the Milky Way galaxy, with a graphic pullout highlighting a much smaller region on the right, captured by the James Webb Space Telescope’s near-infrared light observations. The MeerKAT image is colored in blue, cyan, and yellow, with a very bright white-yellow center that indicates the location of the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole. Painterly bubbles of various sizes, clouds, and vertical brushstroke-like streaks make up the radio image. The Webb inset shows stars and gas clouds in red, with an arching cloud of bright cyan that contains many straight, needle-like features that appear more crystalline than cloudy.
    An image of the Milky Way captured by the MeerKAT (formerly the Karoo Array Telescope) radio telescope array puts the James Webb Space Telescope’s image of the Sagittarius C region in context. Like a super-long exposure photograph, MeerKAT shows the bubble-like remnants of supernovas that exploded over millennia, capturing the dynamic nature of the Milky Way’s chaotic core. At the center of the MeerKAT image the region surrounding the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole blazes bright. Huge vertical filamentary structures echo those captured on a smaller scale by Webb in Sagittarius C’s blue-green hydrogen cloud.
    NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, SARAO, Samuel Crowe (UVA), John Bally (CU), Ruben Fedriani (IAA-CSIC), Ian Heywood (Oxford)

    Follow-up research on a 2023 image of the Sagittarius ...

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    Pillars of Creation star in New Visualization from NASA’s Hubble and Webb Telescopes

    June 28, 2024, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    A mosaic of visible-light (Hubble) and infrared-light (Webb) views of the same frame from the Pillars of Creation visualization. The visualization sequence fades back and forth between these two models as the camera flies past and amongst the pillars. These contrasting views illustrate how observations from the two telescopes complement each other.
    Greg Bacon, Ralf Crawford, Joseph DePasquale, Leah Hustak, Christian Nieves, Joseph Olmsted, Alyssa Pagan, and Frank Summers (STScI), NASA’s Universe of Learning

    Made famous in 1995 by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, the Pillars of Creation in the heart of the Eagle Nebula have captured imaginations worldwide with their arresting, ethereal beauty.

    Now, NASA has released a new 3D visualization of these towering celestial structures using dat...

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