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galaxies

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An illustration. Four scientists are standing around a spherical table. An illuminated, partially built spiral galaxy hovers above the table. The scientists are adding curved, glowing pieces to the galaxy. On the floor beside them are additional galactic building blocks including stars and star clusters.
Milky Way

In the Milky Way’s Stars, a History of Violence

By Rebecca Boyle
September 28, 2023
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Our galaxy’s stars keep a record of its past. By reading those stories, astronomers are learning more about how the Milky Way came to be — and about the galaxy we live in today.

A composite of 15 images from the James Webb Space Telescope. Each image has a glowing red dot — a young galaxy — in its center.
astrophysics

JWST Spots Giant Black Holes All Over the Early Universe

By Charlie Wood
August 14, 2023
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Giant black holes were supposed to be bit players in the early cosmic story. But recent James Webb Space Telescope observations are finding an unexpected abundance of the beasts.

A photo illustration showing a research station in Antarctica with a map plotting neutrinos’ arrival directions imprinted on the sky.
astrophysics

A New Map of the Universe, Painted With Cosmic Neutrinos

By Thomas Lewton
June 29, 2023
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Physicists finally know where at least some of these high-energy particles come from, which helps make the neutrinos useful for exploring fundamental physics.

astrophysics

Astronomers Dig Up the Stars That Birthed the Milky Way

By Lyndie Chiou
March 28, 2023
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There once was a cosmic seed that sprouted the Milky Way galaxy. Astronomers have discovered its last surviving remnants.

cosmology

Shadows in the Big Bang Afterglow Reveal Invisible Cosmic Structures

By Zack Savitsky
March 13, 2023
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Cosmologists are using secondary signatures from the cosmic microwave background to map the universe’s hidden matter.

golden planets look like they're moving through a twisting current
The Joy of Why

How Will the Universe End?

By Steven Strogatz
February 22, 2023
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Big Freeze, Big Rip, Big Crunch, Bounce or vacuum decay? Steven Strogatz speaks with theoretical cosmologist Katie Mack about the five ways that scientists think the universe could come to an end.

A panoramic image of the cosmos shows hundreds of galaxies, including four blobs of light that are magnified and labeled with their corresponding redshifts.
astrophysics

Standard Model of Cosmology Survives a Telescope’s Findings

By Rebecca Boyle
January 20, 2023
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Reports that the James Webb Space Telescope killed the reigning cosmological model turn out to have been exaggerated. But astronomers still have much to learn from distant galaxies glimpsed by Webb.

cosmology

Asymmetry Detected in the Distribution of Galaxies

By Katie McCormick
December 5, 2022
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Two new studies suggest that certain tetrahedral arrangements of galaxies outnumber their mirror images, potentially reflecting details of the universe’s birth. But confirmation is needed.

astrophysics

The Enduring Mystery of the Dragonfly 44 Galaxy

By Lyndie Chiou
November 7, 2022
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A growing catalog of huge but dim galaxies such as Dragonfly 44 is forcing astronomers to invent new theories of galactic evolution.


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