We understand cosmology by building models that we can trace back through time, but nothing about these models limits them to the past. As the universe expands, faster and faster pushed by dark energy, when does that acceleration outstrip gravity? And when do the last stars form?
There are nearly 10,000 galaxies in this image, with a staggering variety of shapes, colors, sizes, and ages. But buried beneath that variety, we can find patterns in how galaxies morph and evolve over time. Today’s astrobite explores one such set of links in the giant chains of galaxy evolution.
Today’s paper uses gravitational lensing to find a dusty starburst galaxy so far away that it existed when the universe was less than a billion years old.
Learn more about AAS plenary speakers and their research!
In 1972 astronomers witnessed the first full galaxy collision, not by looking up at the sky but by peering at a small screen in a very large box. The methods and implications are enshrined in modern astrophysics, but it is the results themselves that still truly amaze, stunning simple images of galaxies, playfully strewn and joyfully picked apart. A full exploration of a galaxy of a scale not matched before or since.
Hot and fresh out the kitchen, today’s paper discusses a new way to measure physical properties of galaxies—including, for the first time, “star formation acceleration.”