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Hundreds of nearby galaxies found hidden behind the Milky Way

An international team of scientists used the 64-metre Parkes Radio Telescope equipped with an innovative receiver to see through the stars and dust of the Milky Way, into a previously unexplored region of space. Hundreds of hidden nearby galaxies have therefore been studied for the first time, shedding light on a mysterious gravitational anomaly dubbed the Great Attractor.

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Citizen scientists make good black-hole hunters

Trained volunteers are as good as professional astronomers at finding jets shooting from massive black holes and matching them to their host galaxies, research suggests. Scientists working on citizen science project Radio Galaxy Zoo developed an online tutorial to teach volunteers how to spot black holes and other objects that emit energy through radio waves.

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Galaxy survey charts the fading and slow death of the universe

An international team of astronomers studying more than 200,000 galaxies has made the most comprehensive assessment of the energy output of the nearby universe. The Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) project confirms that the energy produced is only about half what it was two billion years ago and this fading is occurring across all wavelengths from the ultraviolet to the far infrared. The universe is slowly dying.

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Dead galaxies may be packed with dark matter

Research using powerful computer simulations to study galaxies that have fallen into the Coma Cluster, one of the largest gravitationally-bound structures in the universe roughly 300 million light-years from Earth, suggests that it could contain as much as 100 times more dark matter than visible matter, according to an Australian study.