galaxys

Behold, the stringy, rainbowesque melange of one-dimensional structures hidden in plain sight across the galactic center. Or should we say plane sight? The tendrils measure 5 to 150 light-years in length, and now a team of scientists hasfound filaments that stretch out parallel to the galactic plane surrounding the supermassive black hole at the galaxy’s center, like fingers on a splayed hand.What Is Planet Nine and Why Can’t We Find It?These one-dimensional structures were first discovered in the 1980s by Farhad…

Image via Marvel Studios A great ending not only enhances what’s come before it but imbues the story with fresh meaning, and thankfully that’s exactly what Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 does. Unlike pretty much the entire rest of the MCU, this trilogy was planned from the beginning, with James Gunn always knowing where the journey of the cosmic super-team would go from the off. In the wake of the threequel’s arrival, then, fans are revisiting the first two movies in the Guardians saga and discovering new…

Image via Marvel Studios Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is officially in theaters, and while you’ll likely shed a tear as our favorite intergalactic heroes set off to face their most brutal enemy yet; there’s also a piece of your heart that will grow larger in love. Not only are we going on another grand adventure with our favorite group of vagabonds, but we’re also opening up a tightly guarded piece of Rocket’s past, one he kept close to his chest for many reasons. Fans knew that Rocket Raccoon had a tragic…

No matter what happens to all the individual characters in this week’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, it marks the end of an era for Marvel Studios. James Gunn, one of the filmmakers who helped bring the MCU to a whole new level with the first Guardians, is leaving—and if you believe everything you see and read, some of the actors who portray those characters will be leaving too.Watch Chris Pratt and the Guardians of the Galaxy Cast Open Their Own ToysNow, does that reflect what actually happens in the movie? Just…

One of the wildest exoplanets ever found in the Milky Way has just gotten even more interesting.In the atmosphere of KELT-9b, astronomers have detected the rare earth metal terbium swirling around in clouds of vaporized metal, the first time this extremely rare element has been found on a distant world.The team also made new detections of vanadium, barium, strontium, nickel, and other elements, confirming previous detections and suggesting that whatever is going on with KELT-9b is very strange indeed."We have developed a…

A photo of the huge elliptical galaxy M87 is compared to its three-dimensional shape as gleaned from meticulous observations made with the Hubble and Keck telescopes . Because the galaxy is too far away for astronomers to employ stereoscopic vision, they instead followed the motion of stars around the center of M87, like bees around a hive. This created a three-dimensional view of how stars are distributed within the galaxy. Credit: NASA, ESA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI), Frank Summers (STScI), Chung-Pei Ma (UC Berkeley)A…

The compact radio jet in the center of the Teacup galaxy blows a lateral turbulent wind in the cold dense gas, as predicted by the simulations. Credit: HST/ ALMA/ VLA/ M. Meenakshi/ D. Mukherjee/ A. AudibertA study led by Anelise Audibert, a researcher at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), reveals a process that explains the peculiar morphology of the central region of the Teacup galaxy, a massive quasar located 1.3 billion light-years away from us. This object is characterized by the presence of expanding…

Image via Illumination More characters in the Mario franchise have received their time in the spotlight in the third and final Super Mario Bros. Movie trailer, but not in the way that you expect, unless you’re familiar with the Super Mario lore. During the first scene in the newest trailer, Luigi was lowered down in a cage inside a lava dungeon. Surrounding him were the penguins that were featured in the first trailer, and another newly introduced character. It was a Lumalee, a Luma from the Super Mario Galaxy…

While everyone's favorite talking tree might seem like an odd choice to become a bad guy, Groot's original backstory had him debut as a villain in "Tales of Astonish #13" . In that comic, the giant-sized plant creature tries to steal a piece of Earth to study the planet. So now, as the upcoming "Guardians of the Galaxy #1" hits stores, Groot's surprising new role echoes back to his very first appearance for Marvel Comics. While the main cast of Guardians tries to find a new normal in the lawless, uncharted…

The galactic center is basically the Wild West of the Milky Way. Dominated by a supermassive black hole 4.3 million times the mass of the Sun, the environment is the most hostile in the galaxy. Black holes, as we know, are where stars risk certain death. Stars that venture too close to one can be teased into streamers of gas and dust by the extreme tidal forces, ending what could have been a long and productive life fusing atoms.Imagine the surprise astronomers felt when they found the opposite – a star not dying but in…