galaxies

You were probably taught in school that there are nine planets that make up the Solar System: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto.

Using data from the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer or WISE telescope (40cms in diameter), whose mission is to study infrared radiation, scientists have discovered a remote galaxy that shines as brightly as 300 trillion suns combined. It is undoubtedly the most luminous galaxy in the universe and belongs to a new class of objects recently discovered and cataloged as very luminous infrared galaxies or ELIRGs. The finding has been published in The Astrophysical Journal.

According to current instruments, the odds of finding a quadruple quasar are one in ten million. Given these figures, it is no wonder astronomers are surprised and fascinated to have discovered the first of them. The team of scientists responsible for the discovery has been led by Joseph Hennawi, from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (Germany).

A team of scientists from Italy, the United Kingdom, Canada and two Spanish researchers from the University of Oviedo and the Institute of Physics of Cantabria have managed to detect hundreds of galaxy groupings between 2,000-3,000 million years after the Big Bang, located much more far from what had been explored until now and with a lot of new stars inside.

Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is around 50% larger than previously thought, as confirmed by a new study led by Heidi Jo Newberg of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and whose findings have been published in the Astrophysical Journal.

A team of astronomers from the University of Cambridge, UK, has identified what look like nine tiny galaxies orbiting our own. Although they are not the first objects of this type to be discovered in the vicinity of the Milky Way, it is the first time that so many have been located at once.

A team of astronomers led by Stephan Geier from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Garching (Germany) has discovered a star that moves at an unparalleled speed: about 1,200 kilometers per second, a speed so high that it has broken the record of speed in our galaxy. The finding has been published in the journal Science.

A new hypothesis in which an international team of scientists is working makes us evoke the plot of director Christopher Nolan's science fiction film, "Interstellar": what if our galaxy, the Milky Way, was a gigantic wormhole that allowed travel in space and time? The conclusions of this research have been published in the Annals of Physics journal.