Using the Subaru Telescope, a team of astronomers led by Jun Toshikawa (The Graduate University for Advanced Studies, Japan), Dr. Nobunari Kashikawa (National Astronomical Observatory of Japan), and Dr. Kazuaki Ota (Kyoto University) has discovered the most distant protocluster of galaxies ever found–one that existed less than one billion years after the Big Bang. Since [continue reading]
This mottled landscape showing the impact crater Tycho is among the most violent-looking places on our moon. Astronomers didn’t aim NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to study Tycho, however. The image was taken in preparation to observe the transit of Venus across the sun’s face on June 5-6. This mottled landscape showing the impact [continue reading]
Astronomers have gathered the most direct evidence yet of a supermassive black hole shredding a star that wandered too close. Supermassive black holes, weighing millions to billions times more than the Sun, lurk in the centers of most galaxies. These hefty monsters lay quietly until an unsuspecting victim, such as a star, wanders close [continue reading]