Our Galaxys Magnetic Center
18.06.2019

What's the magnetic field like in the center of our Milky Way Galaxy? To help find out, NASA's SOFIA -- an observatory flying in a modified 747 -- imaged the central region with...

APOD: 2024 October 20 Б Dark Matter in a Simulated Universe
19.10.2024

Is our universe haunted? It might look that way on this dark matter map. The gravity of unseen dark matter is the leading explanation for why galaxies rotate so fast, why galaxies orbit clusters...

Ice Fishing for Cosmic Neutrinos
12.02.2011

Scientists are melting holes in the bottom of the world. In fact, almost 100 holes melted near the South Pole are now being used as astronomical observatories. Astronomers with the IceCube Neutrino Observatory lowered into each vertical lake a long string knotted with basketball-sized light detectors. The water in each hole soon refreezes.

The Matter of the Bullet Cluster
14.01.2017

What's the matter with the Bullet Cluster? This massive cluster of galaxies (1E 0657-558) creates gravitational lens distortions of background galaxies in a way that has been interpreted as strong evidence for the leading theory: that dark matter exists within.

The Local Fluff
24.09.2013

The stars are not alone. In the disk of our Milky Way Galaxy about 10 percent of visible matter is in the form of gas, called the interstellar medium (ISM). The ISM is not uniform, and shows patchiness even near our Sun.

Gamma Ray Bursting
3.11.1999

Using graphics and data from NASA's Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, this animation illustrates one of the most exciting mysteries of modern astrophysics, gamma-ray bursts. Incredibly gamma-ray bursts, sudden flashes of radiation with over 100,000 times the energy of visible light photons, occur several times a day.

Dark Matter Movie from the Bolshoi Simulation
3.10.2011

What if you could fly through the universe and see dark matter? While the technology for taking such a flight remains under development, the technology for visualizing such a flight has taken a grand leap forward with the completion of the Bolshoi Cosmological Simulation.

The El Gordo Massive Galaxy Cluster
22.04.2014

It is bigger than a bread box. In fact, it is much bigger than all bread boxes put together. Galaxy cluster ACT-CL J0102-4915 is one of the largest and most massive objects known. Dubbed...

Descending Toward Asteroid Bennu
11.10.2020

What would it be like to land on an asteroid? Although no human has yet done it, NASA's robotic OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is scheduled to attempt to touch the surface of asteroid 101955 Bennu next week.

Solar Neutrino Astronomy
17.05.2001

Neutrinos are subatomic particles generated by the nuclear reactions which power stars like our Sun. Flying outward from the Sun's core, they easily pass through the Sun (and almost anything else!) unimpeded and should be detectable by earth-based neutrino "telescopes".