Friday, 25 May, 2012

A new report on the ancient universe shows that most galaxies – even all of them – had a black hole at the center, much like modern galaxies. We can understand why a black hole would need to be surrounded by millions of stars, but why should galaxies require black holes?

400 years ago, Galileo discovered the moons of Jupiter. We discover water from 11 billion years ago, volcanoes at Titan, a moon of Saturn, and good reasons to shun light pollution.

When the Large Hadron Collider starts running this summer near Geneva, Switzerland, some physicists have predicted that some of its high-energy proton collisions could produce microscopic black holes. Concerned about the ramifications of such black holes, two men filed a lawsuit in March in Hawaii contending that safety concerns have been inadequately addressed at the [...]

Think you know the Milky Way, our home galaxy? Think again. There’s a large bar at the center, and it’s open for business. It might even be feeding a black hole… Meet the newest galactic doo-dad…

In astronomy, it helps to get above it all. Three cool orbiting telescopes are collecting visible, infrared and X-ray light. We ogle their greatest hits.

Chandra, the X-ray astronomy telescope, is three years old. We ogle some of its greatest hits. Caution: These bangs are BIG!

Hubble Space Telescope is fixed, will add to history of discovery. Get a gander of galaxies, quasars, gamma ray sources, and other greatest hits of the greatest spyglass.

X-ray astronomers will study black holes, neutron stars and dark matter with the orbiting Chandra telescope. Like explosions? Then you gotta love X-ray astro!