NASA/ESA research discovers slow-growing galaxies can offer a window to the early universe

(Sextans A, a small galaxy involved in the research – Photo Credit: ESA/NASA/JPL-Caltech/NRAO)

A new study from the European Space Agency’s Herschel mission and NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) has made some of the most accurate measurements yet of the meager rates at which small, sluggish galaxies create stars, helping researchers figure out how the very first stars in our universe were created.

After a 40 year search, have astronomers finally found a Thorne-Zytkow object?

(The Small Magellanic Cloud, pictured here, is the location of the potential TZO – Photo Credit: ESA/Hubble)

A strange hybrid star, known as a Thorne-Zytkow object (TZO), has for decades simply existed as a theory. It was first proposed by physicist Kip Thorne and astronomer Anna Zytkow in 1975 and had since been cited as simply a myth, until now.

Image of the Day: 1/10/14

(Photo Credit: ESO)

The European Southern Observatory’s La Silla Observatory captured this beautiful image of Messier 11 (also known as NGC 6705 or the Wild Duck Cluster): one of the most star-rich open clusters known.