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Dwarf dark galaxy hidden in ALMA gravitational lens image

Subtle distortions hidden in a stunning Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA) image of the gravitational lens SDP.81 are telltale signs that a dwarf dark galaxy is lurking in the halo of a much larger galaxy nearly 4 billion light-years away. This discovery could help astronomers address important questions on the nature of dark matter.

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A cosmic kaleidoscope seen through multi-spectral eyes

At first glance, this cosmic kaleidoscope of purple, blue and pink offers a strikingly beautiful — and serene — snapshot of the cosmos. However, this multi-coloured haze actually marks the site of two colliding galaxy clusters, forming a single object known as MACS J0416.1-2403 (or MACS J0416 for short), 4.3 billion light-years away from Earth.

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Telescopes combine to push frontier on galaxy clusters

Galaxy clusters are enormous collections of hundreds or even thousands of galaxies and vast reservoirs of hot gas embedded in massive clouds of dark matter. To learn more about clusters, including how they grow via collisions, astronomers have used some of the world’s most powerful X-ray, optical and radio telescopes. The name for this galaxy cluster project is the “Frontier Fields”.

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Most distant massive galaxy cluster identified

The early universe was a chaotic mess of gas and matter that only began to coalesce into distinct galaxies hundreds of millions of years after the Big Bang. It would take several billion more years for such galaxies to assemble into massive galaxy clusters — or so scientists had thought. Now astronomers have detected a massive, sprawling, churning galaxy cluster that formed only 3.8 billion years after the Big Bang, some 10 billion light years from Earth.

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How big can a black hole grow?

Black holes at the heart of galaxies could swell to 50 billion times the mass of the Sun before losing the discs of gas they rely on to sustain themselves, according to research conducted by Professor Andrew King from the University of Leicester’s Department of Physics and Astronomy.

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Where Alice in Wonderland meets Albert Einstein

The latest results from the “Cheshire Cat” group of galaxies 4.6 billion light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major show how manifestations of Einstein’s 100-year-old Theory of General Relativity can lead to new discoveries today. Astronomers have given the group this name because of its resemblance to the smiling feline from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.