Webb spots 'Infinity Galaxy' that sheds light on black hole formation
Although "Infinity Galaxy" sounds like a place Thanos would hang out, it merely describes its appearance. Two compact, red nuclei, each surrounded by a ring, give the cluster the shape of an infinity symbol.
What's inside is more interesting. (After all, this is a much lower-res image than some of the eye candy the Webb telescope has yielded.) Researchers believe the Infinity Galaxy formed when two spiral galaxies (the nuclei in the image) collided. Between them lies a young supermassive black hole within an enormous cloud of gas.
Supermassive black holes can range from hundreds of thousands of times the size of our sun to millions or billions of times its size. This one is about a million times as big. The Infinity Galaxy, overlaid with a contour map indicating the supermassive black hole (NASA / JWST)
The Infinity Galaxy lends weight to the direct collapse theory of black hole formation. As you probably know, most black holes form when massive stars collapse. The presence of supermassive ones is harder to explain.
One theory proposes that smaller black holes merge over time to form a supermassive one. The problem there is that some supermassive black holes formed soon after the Big Bang. So, scientists think some supermassive ones form instead from the collapse of gas clouds, much like the one we see here. The Infinity Galaxy may be the best evidence yet for that direct collapse hypothesis.
One of the paper's lead authors summarized the findings. "By looking at the data from the Infinity Galaxy, we think we've pieced together a story of how a direct collapse could have happened here," Pieter van Dokkum wrote in a press release. "Two disk galaxies collide, forming the ring structures of stars that we see. During the collision, the gas within these two galaxies shocks and compresses. This compression might just be enough to form a dense knot, which then collapsed into a black hole."
The team can't definitively confirm the theory from their current data. "But we can say that these new data strengthen the case that we're seeing a newborn black hole, while eliminating some of the competing explanations," van Dokkum added. "We will continue to pore through the data and investigate these possibilities."
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'Doghouse' days of summer — Boeing's Starliner won't fly again until 2026, and without astronauts aboard
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Traffic at the International Space Station (ISS) is busy, with spacecraft coming and going almost every few weeks recently. Astronauts with the private Ax-4 mission undocked early July 14 to make way for SpaceX's upcoming Crew-11 mission for NASA, a SpaceX Cargo Dragon left the station at the end of May, and a Russian Progress cargo spacecraft arrived July 5, with its predecessor set to depart next month. By the end of the year, nearly a half-dozen other spacecraft will launch to the ISS, delivering crew, cargo, research and technology demonstrations. It's one of the busiest eras the orbital laboratory has ever experienced, as recent years, especially, have seen a high increase of activity. But absent from the mix of shuffling spacecraft, at least for the rest of 2025, is Boeing's Starliner. The last update provided about the stalled but stalwart space capsule announced a suite of tests set for this summer at NASA's White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico. NASA and Boeing had hoped to have those tests completed and fixes determined to ready Starliner for another flight by the end of this year, but that timeline seems to have slipped. NASA officials say they are now working toward the goal of launching Starliner again no sooner than early 2026. Starliner launched on its first astronaut mission, known as Crew Flight Test (CFT), in June 2024, carrying NASA astronauts Sunita "Suni" Williams and Butch Wilmore to the ISS on a mission expected to last about a week. It wasn't the spacecraft's first flight — Starliner launched on two uncrewed orbital flight tests (OFTs), one in 2019 and the other in 2022. OFT-1 was meant to dock with the ISS, but a software anomaly led to an incorrect orbital insertion burn that prevented the rendezvous altogether. A few inflight hiccups notwithstanding, OFT-2 addressed the issues of its predecessor mission, reached the ISS and successfully paved the way for the spacecraft's first flight with astronauts onboard. On their way to the ISS, Williams and Wilmore put Starliner through its paces, performing a series of maneuvering tests before its final approach and docking with the space station. Unfortunately, their shakedown cruise was a little too shaky. Four protective enclosures known as "doghouses" are mounted around the perimeter of Starliner's service module. Each contains a cluster of reaction control system (RCS) thrusters used for attitude control and fine maneuvering. Starliner's OMAC (Orbital Maneuvering and Attitude Control) thrusters are also located within the doghouses. Both systems use helium pressurization and the same propellants delivered through a shared network of feed lines and valves, creating a complex and interconnected system within each housing. 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He was originally assigned to fly as pilot for Starliner-1, and he has therefore trained extensively aboard the Boeing spacecraft. Despite the problems Starliner has faced, Fincke says he would still love to fly aboard the Boeing capsule. "When NASA says it's ready to go fly again with people, I hope they sign me up," he said. Solve the daily Crossword
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50 years after a historic handshake in space, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project's legacy still resonates
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. "Soyuz and Apollo are shaking hands now!" Fifty years ago today (July 17), at 12:09 p.m. EDT (1609 GMT), history was made as two crewed spacecraft launched by two countries docked together in orbit for the first time. Three American astronauts and two Russian (then Soviet) cosmonauts met up for just under two days of joint operations, setting the stage for future cooperation in space. "Very good to see you!" exclaimed Alexei Leonov, commander of the Soyuz side of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP, or Experimental-Flight Soyuz-Apollo in the Soviet Union), after the hatch between his spacecraft and the docking adapter was opened. "Very happy, my friend!" replied U.S. commander Thomas Stafford in "Oklahomski," his unique version of Russian with a heavy Oklahoma drawl. And then the Cold War rivals and space race competitors shook hands. Soon after, the rest of the crew — cosmonaut Valery Kubasov and astronauts Vance Brand and Donald "Deke" Slayton — joined in on the greetings. It was those two Americans' first time in space and Kubasov's second. Leonov had previously performed the world's first spacewalk, and Stafford was on his fourth flight; his previous off-Earth experiences included a trip around the moon. Glasnost and gifts "Your flight is a momentous event and a very great achievement, not only for the five of you but also for the thousands of American and Soviet scientists and technicians who have worked together for three years to ensure the success of this very historic and very successful experiment in international cooperation," said then-U.S. President Gerald Ford during a call to space from the White House at the time. "It has taken us many years to open this door to useful cooperation in space between our two countries, and I am confident that the day is not far off when space missions made possible by this first joint effort will be more or less commonplace," Ford said. To mark the occasion, the crew members exchanged gifts. Plaques and medallions that had been designed to separate into halves — so one half could launch on Apollo and the other on Soyuz — were reassembled in space. The crew also signed formal documents, known as the "Space Magna Carta," that certified that this was this was first international space docking. The commanders exchanged small flags of each others' countries and tree seeds to be planted later in their respective nations. The Soyuz crew also launched with a United Nations flag, which the American crew then brought back to Earth and which is on display today in the U.N.'s New York headquarters. 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Leonov and Kubasov returned to Earth on July 21, landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan, while Stafford, Brand and Slayton stayed in orbit for another three days, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean on July 24, 1975. "It made a big impression, not just on me, but on the rest of the world." NASA astronaut Mike Fincke 50-year-old foundation Despite preliminary talks about follow-up missions sending an Apollo capsule or space shuttle to a Soviet Salyut space station, the next time Russians and Americans would meet up in orbit coincided with the 100th U.S. human spaceflight, 20 years (almost to the day) after the ASTP crews exchanged handshakes. On June 29, 1995, NASA's space shuttle Atlantis docked with Roscosmos' Mir space station. This time it was Vladimir Dezhurov, the commander of Mir's 18th crew, who clasped hands with STS-71 commander Robert "Hoot" Gibson. 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"It made a really huge impression on me to see some people from the Soviet Union, which at the time we were not very good friends with in the middle of the Cold War, and then these brave American astronauts get along really well and cordially and with friendship," Mike Fincke, who as a NASA astronaut is set to return to the International Space Station for his fourth time on SpaceX's Crew-11 launch at the end of this month, said during a July 10 press conference in Houston. Fincke was 8 years old when the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project occurred. "It made a big impression, not just on me, but on the rest of the world — that if the Soviet Union and United States can work together in space, maybe we can work together here on Earth," he said. Solve the daily Crossword
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James Webb telescope reveals 'Sleeping Beauty' galaxies in the early universe — snoozing where they weren't supposed to exist
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Astronomers have discovered over a dozen "dormant" galaxies that paused their star formation within the first billion years after the Big Bang. The discovery, made with data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), illuminates a fascinating phase in the lives of early galaxies and could provide more clues about how galaxies evolve. There are several reasons why galaxies may stop forming new stars. One is the presence of supermassive black holes at their centers. These behemoths emit intense radiation that heats and depletes cold gas, the most important ingredient for star formation. Additionally, larger neighboring galaxies can strip away this cold gas or heat it, leading to a halt in star formation. As a result, these galaxies may remain dormant indefinitely, or become "quenched." Another reason galaxies become inactive is stellar feedback. That's when the gas in the galaxy gets warmed and expelled due to stellar processes like supernovas, intense stellar winds, or the pressure associated with starlight. The galaxy thus goes through a temporary "quiet" period. "This is usually a temporary phase, which usually lasts about 25 million years," Alba Covelo Paz, a doctoral student at the University of Geneva and the lead author of a new study describing the findings, told Live Science in an email. Over millions of years, the gas that was pushed out falls back in, and the warm gas cools again. Once there is enough cold gas again, the galaxy can start forming new stars. While the dormant phase is commonly observed in nearby galaxies, astronomers have found only four dormant galaxies in the first billion years of the universe. Of those, three had masses below a billion solar masses and one had a mass above 10 billion solar masses. The limited observations and scattered properties of dormant galaxies were not sufficient to get a clear picture of early star formation. Related: 'Previously unimaginable': James Webb telescope breaks its own record again, discovering farthest known galaxy in the universe But using JWST's sensitive spectroscopic data, an international team of astronomers discovered 14 dormant galaxies with a wide range of masses in the early universe, showing that dormant galaxies are not limited to low or very high mass ranges. The findings were uploaded to the preprint database arXiv on June 27 and have not been peer-reviewed yet. Taking a breather Researchers didn't expect to see dormant galaxies in the early universe. Because these galaxies are young, they should be vigorously forming many new stars, astronomers thought. But in a 2024 paper, researchers described the first discovery of a dormant galaxy in the early universe. "The first discovery of a dormant galaxy in the early universe was such a shock because that galaxy had been observed before with Hubble, but we could not know it was dormant until JWST," Paz said. That's because, unlike the Hubble Space Telescope, JWST's NIRSpec instrument can both see light from these galaxies that has been redshifted to near-infrared wavelengths, and also provide spectroscopic details about it. Astronomers were curious to know why early galaxies stopped forming stars and whether this was common among a wide range of stellar masses. One hypothesis was that the galaxies had bursts of star formation and then quiet periods, before starting again. Paz and her team looked for the galaxies that were in between bursts of star formation. They used publicly available galaxy data in the DAWN JWST Archive. They examined the light of about 1,600 galaxies, looking for signs of new stars not forming. They also focused on clear signatures of middle-aged or old stars in the galaxies' light. The team found 14 galaxies, ranging from about 40 million to 30 billion solar masses, that had paused star formation. "We now found 14 sources supporting this burstiness process, and we found that all of them have halted star formation between 10 [million] and 25 million years before we observed them," Paz explained. That means these 14 galaxies were found to follow a stop-and-go fashion of star formation rather than continuously forming stars, and they have been quiet for at least 10 million to 25 million years. This relatively short snooze hints that stellar feedback, such as supernovas or stellar winds, caused them to go quiet and that they may eventually restart their stellar factories, Paz said. However, there is still uncertainty, she added. "We cannot confirm it for sure because we don't know how long they will remain dormant, and if they happen to stay dormant for another 50 million years, this would mean the cause of their quenching is different," Paz explained. RELATED STORIES —Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS transforms into a giant 'cosmic rainbow' in trippy new telescope image —'Ice cube' clouds discovered at the galaxy's center shouldn't exist — and they hint at a recent black hole explosion —Behold, 'The Beast': Gigantic animal-like plasma plume 13 times wider than Earth hovers over the sun This scenario would suggest that the galaxies are dead. Nevertheless, the current properties of these galaxies support a cycle of fits and starts. Because dormant galaxies are so rare, much about them remains mysterious. However, astronomers hope future observations will help shed light on these snoozing star factories. An upcoming JWST program called "Sleeping Beauties" will be dedicated to discovering dormant galaxies in the early universe, Paz said. This program will allow astronomers to estimate how long a galaxy remains in this quiet phase and help them understand the bursty star formation process. "There are still many unknowns for us, but we are one step closer to unravelling this process," Paz said.
