Tag: infrared astronomy
-
Halo star haze helps hidden galaxies look huge
(Not fully alliterative, but it’s the best I can do after driving 6 hours today.) The halos of galaxies are best known for harboring dark matter, but they also contain stars. Only a tiny fraction of the total stars in a galaxy are in the halo, so usually they’re hard to spot, but astronomers are…
-
The darkness at the center of the galaxy
Since 1995, a team of astronomers led by Andrea Ghez has been studying the motion of stars near the center of the Milky Way. They just announced the discovery that one of those stars is the closest to the black hole yet, with an orbital period of about 11.5 years—short enough that they’ve been able…
Bowler Hat Science 