Dark matter is (probably) more complex than you think

Scientists typically believe that dark matter behaves in a simple way: if one clump encounters another, the two interact solely through gravity. However, researchers have published findings which suggest that there’s more involved. They’ve noticed dark matter (the blue lines in the photo above) lagging behind a galaxy due to friction, hinting that there are factors beyond gravity at work. […]

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A star-devouring galaxy

star devouring galaxy

New images of a galaxy located 60 million light-years from Earth have revealed that / it’s a cannibal. Composite pictures from the La Silla Observatory in Chile show that the NGC 1316 galaxy is strewn with dust N and small star clusters, space debris that astronomers say is the remains of another galaxy that was swallowed up by the black […]

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Our Galaxy’s Explosive Past

Our Galaxy's Explosive Past

A huge energy flare ripped through the heart of our galaxy about 3.5 million years ago. A blast so extremely powerful, it could be felt 200k light-years away and lasted more than 300k years. A study concluded by researchers in Australia and the U.S. found that the former belief that “our galaxy was an inactive galaxy” may in fact not […]

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Black holes that wander

Supermassive black holes that have escaped their host galaxies may be wandering the universe alone. Intriguing new observations i by NASA’s Chandra X-ray telescope have | revealed what appears to be a supermassive | black hole being “kicked out of a galaxy at enormous speed,” Francesca Civano of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics tells Space.com. Astronomers observed two distinct light […]

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