Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik

Major supercluster of galaxies found hidden by the Milky Way

17 November 2016 Astronomy Now

An international team of astronomers has discovered a previously unknown major concentration of galaxies in the constellation Vela, which they have dubbed the Vela supercluster. The gravitational attraction from this large mass concentration in our cosmic neighbourhood may have an important effect on the motion of our Local Group of galaxies.

Unexpected excess of giant planets found in star cluster Messier 67

17 June 2016 Astronomy Now

Astronomers have found far more planets of the hot Jupiter type than expected in the star cluster Messier 67 in the constellation of Cancer. This surprise result was obtained using a number of telescopes and instruments, among them the HARPS spectrograph at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile.

Messier 87 has swallowed an entire galaxy in the last billion years

26 June 2015 Astronomy Now

M87 is a giant elliptical galaxy with a total mass more than a million million times that of the Sun that lies at the centre of the Virgo Cluster about 50 million light-years away. New observations with the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope have revealed the full extent of the galaxy’s cannibalistic nature.