galaxies
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Wild Theory Suggests Dark Matter Could Make Stars Immortal
Stars very close to the center of our galaxy could be fueled by dark matter in perpetuity, according to a team of astronomers who recently studied the distant light sources. The group of stars, known as S-cluster stars, is just three light-years from the center of the Milky Way (for reference, we are about 26,000…
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Webb Spots Most Distant Galaxy Ever Seen—and It’s Weirdly Bright
Researchers recently observed a record-breaking galaxy beaming with young stars, which existed only 290 million years after the universe came into existence, challenging our view of the Cosmic Dawn with its unexpected luminosity. On Thursday, a team of astronomers announced the discovery of the most distant and earliest galaxy ever seen, observed at a time…
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Some of the Oldest Stars Were Just Found in Our Own Galaxy
Some stars in our very own Milky Way are some of the earliest ever seen, according to researchpublished today in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. The stars are in the Milky Way’s halo, a shroud of stars that surrounds the galactic disk. The stars are also relatively close, at just 30,000 light-years…
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New App Points You Toward the Milky Way’s Supermassive Black Hole
If you want to stay grounded—which is to say, you want a haunting reminder of your own diminutive size and mortality—do I have the tool for you. Meet Galactic Compass: an app which will point the user towards the whopping black hole at the center of our galaxy, Sagittarius A*. As you read this article,…