“Calm Before the Storm” by Julie Fletcher

Using the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA), a team of astronomers has delved remarkably deep into the heart of a nearby elliptical galaxy to study the motion of a disc of gas encircling the supermassive black hole at its centre. These observations provide one of the most accurate mass measurements to date for a black hole outside of our galaxy.

Researchers have discovered that the hot gas in the halo of the Milky Way galaxy is spinning at about 400,000 mph in the same direction as the galaxy’s disc. For comparison, the disc of the Milky Way, which contains our stars, planets, gas and dust, is spinning at around 540,000 mph.

Astronomers using data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and other observatories have performed an accurate census of the number of galaxies in the universe. The researchers came to the surprising conclusion that the observable universe contains at least two trillion galaxies. The results also help solve an ancient astronomical paradox — why is the sky dark at night?