Astronomers are discovering more Earth-like planets almost every day. Now an international team of astrophysicists has discovered a ring system in the constellation Centaurus that can be compared to Saturn.
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Galaxies may be churning out planets at an astounding rate, but astronomers now know that they don’t need to look for planets with moons in order to determine if a planet may harbor life–they’ve decided that moons are no longer needed. This means that the universe may be teeming with living planets.
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Using its near-infrared vision to peer 9 billion years back in time, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has uncovered an extraordinary population of tiny, young galaxies that are brimming with star formation. Most of these galaxies are a hundred times less massive than the Milky Way, yet they churned out stars at a furious pace. However, it’s a mystery why these newly found dwarf galaxies were making batches of stars at such a high rate.
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Even though a dwarf galaxy clear across the Milky Way looks to be a mouse, it may have once been a bear that slashed through the Milky Way and created the galaxy’s spiral arms. What does all this mean?
Astronomer Curtis Struck thinks the Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy collided with the Milky Way, creating the galaxy’s spiral arms, its central bar structure and the flaring at its outer disk. Along the way, the dwarf galaxy’s stars were scattered and the galaxy shrunk to an object that’s so small and unimpressive it’s hard to see. Maybe the evolution of our Milky Way galaxy did include collisions and wasn’t as peaceful as astronomers had thought.
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