Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have found that Markarian 231, the nearest galaxy to Earth that hosts a quasar, is powered by two central black holes. The finding suggests that quasars — the brilliant cores of active galaxies — may commonly host two central supermassive black holes that fall into orbit about one another as a result of galactic mergers.
A team of international scientists, led by astronomers from Cardiff University, has shown for the first time that galaxies can change their structure over the course of their lifetime. The researchers have shown that a large proportion of galaxies have undergone a major ‘metamorphosis’ since they were initially formed after the Big Bang.
This new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image of the Twin Jet Nebula highlights the shimmering colours, shells and knots of expanding gas in striking detail. Two iridescent lobes of material stretch outwards from a central star system. Within these lobes two huge jets of gas are streaming from the star system at speeds in excess of one million kilometres per hour.
Astronomers have uncovered a unique process for how the universe’s largest elliptical galaxies continue making stars long after their peak years of star birth. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope revealed brilliant knots and chains of hot, blue stars forming along the jets of active black holes found in the centres of giant elliptical galaxies.
This new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows the Lagoon Nebula (Messier 8) an object with a deceptively tranquil name. The region is filled with intense winds from hot stars, churning funnels of gas, and energetic star formation, all embedded within an intricate haze of gas and pitch-dark dust.
A dying star’s final moments are captured in this image of planetary nebula NGC 6565 in Sagittarius from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The death throes of this star may only last mere moments on a cosmological timescale, but this star’s demise is still quite lengthy by our standards, lasting tens of thousands of years.
The ghostly shells of galaxy ESO 381-12 are captured here in a new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, set against a backdrop of distant galaxies. Some 270 million light-years from Earth in the constellation of Centaurus, ESO 381-12 is categorised as a lenticular galaxy — a hybrid type that shares properties with both spiral and elliptical galaxies.
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