Topic: Pamela Gay
At cosmic high noon, black holes fired their jets

At cosmic high noon, black holes fired their jets

An artist's illustration of an active galaxy with jets with an inlaid image of an actual galaxy with jets as seen by Chandra. Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/J. Maithil et al.; Illustration: NASA/CXC/SAO/M. Weiss; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk Most large galaxies have massive black holes in their core, and woe to the star, dust cloud, or other object that gets too close to their gravity wells. These giant monsters are capable of shredding stars and transforming any material into a luminous accretion disk rich in charged particles that can drive magnetic fields that stream high-energy...

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Black Holes Formed Before Stars

Black Holes Formed Before Stars

An illustration of a magnetic field generated by a supermassive black hole in the early universe, showing turbulent plasma outflows that help turn nearby gas clouds into stars. New findings suggest this process might be responsible for accelerated star formation in...

Mimas’ Baby Ocean

Mimas’ Baby Ocean

In this view captured by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on its closest-ever flyby of Saturn's moon Mimas, large Herschel Crater dominates Mimas, making the moon look like the Death Star in the movie "Star Wars." Herschel Crater is 130 kilometers, or 80 miles, wide and...

Caught on Camera and Apprehended

Caught on Camera and Apprehended

Mohutsiwa Gabadirwe (center of photo) and Peter Jenniskens (left, kneeling) at the site of the second find of a piece of asteroid 2018 LA recovered in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in central Botswana. Credit: SETI Institute Our Solar System contains a whole lot...

Unexpected Galaxy Photobombs Cluster

Unexpected Galaxy Photobombs Cluster

A color-composite image of PEARLSDG made with JWST NIRCAM data. Individual stars are visible as small points of light in the image. Its somewhat dull color and lack of many bright stars is consistent with its old age and lack of ongoing star formation. Credit: Image...

Quasars Spotted Blowing Away Gas

Quasars Spotted Blowing Away Gas

Artist’s impression of an outflow of molecular gas from the quasar J2054-0005. Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO) Gas dynamics are more than a little complicated no matter where you look. The dynamics of gas in and around forming galaxies makes is particularly...

Explaining Early Bright Galaxies

Explaining Early Bright Galaxies

A composite of Stephan’s Quintet, a visual grouping of five galaxies, constructed from almost 1,000 separate image files from the James Webb Space Telescope. UCLA astrophysicists believe if cold dark matter theories are correct, the Webb telescope should find tiny,...

Iron Identified in Planet-Forming Disk

Iron Identified in Planet-Forming Disk

Observations with the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) found various silicate compounds and potentially iron, substances we also find in large amounts in the Solar System’s rocky planets. Credit: Jenry I’ve said it...