Blog Archive

During the second close passage, the cores of the Milky Way and Andromeda appear as a pair of bright lobes. Star-forming nebulae are much less prominent because the interstellar gas and dust has been significantly decreased by previous bursts of star formation.

Artist's views of a night sky transformed by a galaxy merger

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/06/04 12:25 CDT | 2 comments

A measurement of the Andromeda galaxy's proper motion shows it's coming directly at us, and will collide with the Milky Way in 4 billion years. The event will transform the appearance of our night sky.

This is how far human radio broadcasts have reached into the galaxy

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/02/24 05:26 CST

There is an ever-expanding bubble announcing Humanity's presence to anyone listening in the Milky Way.

The Scale of the Universe, by Cary and Michael Huang

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/02/16 10:14 CST

Cary and Michael Huang present a basic "powers of ten" visualization starting at human scale from which you can scrub downward smaller than quarks or upward to the scale of the entire universe.

NuSTAR telescope to get close look at black holes, supernovae

Posted by Jason Davis on 2012/02/07 02:40 CST

The NuSTAR X-ray telescope will enable scientists to get a much-improved look at black holes and supernovae in both the Milky Way and other galaxies.

A little fun with Deep Impact deep-sky data

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/11/14 05:44 CST

Last week, the team put all of the data from Deep Impact's deep-sky imaging session online, and challenged visitors to see what they could make from it. I made some photos of M51, but there were some challenges.

An Auspicious Week for Astronomy

Posted by Mark Adler on 2009/05/11 11:54 CDT | 1 comments

On Monday, if all goes well, we will launch the Space Shuttle to rejuvenate one the greatest scientific missions launched on or off the Earth: the Hubble Space Telescope.