Latest news with #astronomers
WIRED
16 hours ago
- General
- WIRED
Astronomers Have Detected a Galaxy Millions of Years Older Than Any Previously Observed
Jun 3, 2025 5:00 AM Researchers estimate that MoM z14 was created 280 million years after the Big Bang, 10 million years earlier than the previous most primitive galaxy recorded. The Big Bang is estimated to have taken place 13.8 billion years ago. Illustration: Getty Images With the help of the James Webb Space Telescope, a team of astronomers has broken the record for the oldest, most distant galaxy detected to date by humans. In a preprint study, still awaiting peer review and publication in a journal, astronomers describe this primitive galaxy, giving it the name MoM z14. According to the researchers' calculations, this 'cosmic miracle' originated 280 million years after the Big Bang, beating the record set by the discovery just last year of JADES-GS-Z14-0, a galaxy created 290 million years after the origin of the universe. To put these measurements in context, the current age of the universe is estimated to be 13.8 billion years. Earth has an approximate age of 4.543 billion years. No one expected the James Webb Space Telescope to have the potential to observe things so close in age to the Big Bang just three and a half years after launch. A brief reminder about distances relative to space-time. Because light travels at a finite speed of 300,000 meters per second, and because space is expanding, observing light from very distant objects is equivalent to seeing what they were like long ago. For example, when we say that MoM z14 is roughly 13.5 billion years old, that means you would have to travel 13.5 billion years at the speed of light to reach its destination. So far, there is no point detected by a scientific instrument farther away, and at the same time, older, than this one. The James Webb Space Telescope, with its ability to peer deep into distant space, allows us to study some aspects of the universe in its early stages. How does it do this? By infrared sensors. Due to the expansion of the universe, almost all the galaxies we see from Earth are moving away from us. So, from our point of view, their light appears to have a longer wavelength because it is stretched by this movement. We call this 'redshift': Their wavelengths are redder because they are longer, and so shift towards the red end of the light spectrum. The earlier an object was created, and therefore the farther away it is, having expanded outwards for a longer period of time, the greater the redshift. The James Webb Space Telescope was able to determine that MoM z14 is 50 times smaller than the Milky Way, and also detected the presence of nitrogen and carbon in the galaxy. This is significant because, despite being only 280 million years older than the Big Bang, this shows that MoM z14 does not belong to the first generation of galaxies formed, since stars in these galaxies would be made up only of hydrogen and helium, the elements that predominantly made up the early universe. Heavier elements only arrived later, after being produced in stars. Can the James Webb cross that threshold and find the first generation of galaxies? Such discoveries could be a long way off, but we have to keep looking. This story originally appeared on WIRED en Español and has been translated from Spanish.
South China Morning Post
21 hours ago
- General
- South China Morning Post
Milky Way's chance of colliding with neighbour galaxy? 50-50, billions of years from now
It turns out that looming collision between our Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies might not happen after all. Advertisement Astronomers reported Monday that the probability of the two spiral galaxies colliding is less than previously thought, with a 50-50 chance within the next 10 billion years. That is essentially a coin flip, but still better odds than previous estimates and farther out in time. 'As it stands, proclamations of the impending demise of our galaxy seem greatly exaggerated,' the Finnish-led team wrote in a study appearing in Nature Astronomy. While good news for the Milky Way galaxy, the latest forecast may be moot for humanity. 'We likely won't live to see the benefit,' lead author Till Sawala of the University of Helsinki said in an email. Advertisement Already more than 4.5 billion years old, the sun is on course to run out of energy and die in another 5 billion years or so, but not before becoming so big it will engulf Mercury, Venus and possibly Earth. Even if it does not swallow Earth, the home planet will be left a burnt ball, its oceans long since boiled away.
CNN
a day ago
- General
- CNN
Once inevitable collision between Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies now seems less likely, astronomers say
A collision between our Milky Way galaxy and its largest neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy, predicted to occur in about 4.5 billion years, has been anticipated by astronomers since 1912. But new research suggests that the likelihood of this galactic clash, dubbed 'Milkomeda,' is smaller than it seems. At first glance, it appears likely that the galactic duo — separated by about 2.5 million light-years — is on an inevitable collision course. The Milky Way and Andromeda are barreling toward each other at about 223,694 miles per hour (100 kilometers per second). However, the Local Group, or our corner of the universe, includes 100 known smaller galaxies. A team of astronomers factored in some of the largest among them, including the Large Magellanic Cloud, or LMC, and M33, or the Triangulum galaxy, to see how much of a role they might play on the chessboard of our galaxy's future over the next 10 billion years. After factoring in the gravitational pull of Local Group galaxies and running 100,000 simulations using new data from the Hubble and Gaia space telescopes, the team found there is about a 50% chance of a collision between the Milky Way and Andromeda in the next 10 billion years. There is only about a 2% chance the galaxies will collide in 4 to 5 billion years as previously thought, according to the study published Monday in the journal Nature Astronomy. A merger of the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies would destroy them both, eventually turning both spiral structures into one elongated galaxy, the study authors said. Collisions between other galaxies have been known to create 'cosmic fireworks, when gas, driven to the center of the merger remnant, feeds a central black hole emitting an enormous amount of radiation, before irrevocably falling into the hole,' said study coauthor Carlos Frenk, professor at Durham University in England. 'Until now we thought this was the fate that awaited our Milky Way galaxy,' Frenk said. 'We now know that there is a very good chance that we may avoid that scary destiny.' However, there are many unknown factors that make it difficult to predict the ultimate fate of our galaxy, according to the study authors. And, Frenk warns, the Milky Way has a greater chance of colliding with the LMC within 2 billion years, which could fundamentally alter our galaxy. The LMC orbits the Milky Way, while M33 is a satellite of Andromeda. The LMC's mass is only about 15% of the Milky Way's. But the team found that the satellite galaxy has a gravitational pull, perpendicular to Andromeda, that changes the Milky Way's motion enough to reduce the chance of a merger between the two giant galaxies. It's a similar case for M33. 'The extra mass of Andromeda's satellite galaxy M33 pulls the Milky Way a little bit more towards it,' said lead study author Dr. Till Sawala, astronomer at the University of Helsinki in Finland. 'However, we also show that the LMC pulls the Milky Way off the orbital plane and away from Andromeda. It doesn't mean that the LMC will save us from that merger, but it makes it a bit less likely.' Previous research also has assumed most likely values for unknown data, such as the uncertainties in the present positions, motions and masses of the Local Group galaxies. In the new study, the team accounted for 22 different variables, including those unknowns, that could contribute to a collision. 'We ran many thousands of simulations, which allowed us to account for all the observational uncertainties,' Sawala said. 'Because there are so many variables that each have their errors, that accumulates to rather large uncertainty about the outcome, leading to the conclusion that the chance of a direct collision is only 50% within the next 10 billion years.' In just over half of the simulations predicting what could occur in 8 to 10 billion years, the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies initially sailed somewhat closely past each other before circling back and then losing enough orbital energy to collide and merge as one galaxy. These initial close encounters between each galaxy's halo — a large envelope of gas — would eventually lead to a collision. 'In general, the merger would most likely involve a strong starburst, during which many new stars would form, followed by a period of intense radiation caused by exploding young stars and the newly active supermassive black hole, eventually shutting down star formation completely,' Sawala said. 'A few billion years later, any traces of the former Milky Way and Andromeda would disappear, and the remnant would be a largely featureless elliptical galaxy.' In the other simulations, both galaxies crossed paths without disturbing each other. Geraint Lewis, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Sydney's Institute for Astronomy, finds the results showing the gravitational influence of M33 and the LMC interesting. He has previously authored research on a potential collision between Andromeda and the Milky Way. 'We won't know if the collision is definitely off in the future, but this clearly shows that the story that people tell — that there will be a collision that will destroy the Milky Way and Andromeda — is not as clear or certain that people think,' Lewis said. 'But even if there is a pretty close encounter rather than smashing head-on, the gravitational tearing that each will assert on each other is likely to leave the two large galaxies in a sorry state.' While including the LMC's gravitational effects on the Milky Way is important, accounting for uncertainties is the most important aspect of the new study, said Scott Lucchini, a postdoctoral fellow in the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Center for Astrophysics, Harvard & Smithsonian. 'Here, they've sampled from the uncertainties in the positions, velocities, and masses of the galaxies to obtain the relative probabilities of different outcomes,' Lucchini wrote in an email. 'This really gives us the whole picture of what could happen in the future.' Galaxies are full of intricacies. Their shapes can become distorted, interactions can change their orbits and they can lose mass in different ways. Such complexities make predictions difficult, Lucchini said. That essentially leaves the fate of the Milky Way 'completely open,' the study authors wrote in the new paper. However, more data coming from the Gaia space telescope in the summer of 2026 will provide measurements that refine some of the uncertainties about the speed and direction at which Andromeda is moving across the sky, Sawala said. The fate of the sun may have a bigger impact on Earth's future than the motions of galaxies, according to the researchers. Our sun is 4.5 billion years old. When it starts to die in another 5 billion years, it will swell into a red giant that engulfs Mercury, Venus and potentially Earth, according to NASA. 'The short answer is that the end of the sun is far worse for our planet than the collision with Andromeda,' Sawala said. 'While that merger would mean the end of our galaxy, it would not necessarily be the end of the sun or the Earth. Although our work also shows that earlier studies, that purported to predict precisely what the fate of the solar system would be after the merger, were clearly premature, in general, collisions between stars or planets are extremely rare during galaxy mergers. And while the end of the sun is certain, our study shows that the end of the galaxy is anything but.' While the team didn't model a merger between the LMC and the Milky Way in detail, they found a 'virtual certainty' that a merger between the two galaxies will occur within the next 2 billion years, which aligns with previous research, Sawala said. But the effects will likely be more minor than a merger between the Milky Way and Andromeda. 'The merger (between the Milky Way and the LMC) will not destroy our galaxy but it will change it profoundly, particularly impacting our central supermassive black hole and the galactic halo,' Frenck wrote in an email. He also served as a coauthor on a 2019 paper on the potential merger.
Washington Post
a day ago
- General
- Washington Post
Milky Way's chance of colliding with galaxy billions of years from now? New study puts odds at 50-50
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — It turns out that looming collision between our Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies might not happen after all. Astronomers reported Monday that the probability of the two spiral galaxies colliding is less than previously thought, with a 50-50 chance within the next 10 billion years. That's essentially a coin flip, but still better odds than previous estimates and farther out in time.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Science news this week: Strange signals from space and Earth's leaking gold
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. From the world's oldest known human fingerprint to genetic discoveries made using 2.2 million-year-old tooth enamel, this week's science news has taught us a lot about our ancient ancestors. But we've also learned a lot about our own species. While exploring what appeared to be "trash" in a cave in Mexico, two spelunkers came across dozens of artifacts that may have been used in fertility rituals by a little-known culture that inhabited the region 500 years ago. Looking even further back in history, scientists uncovered clues about the rise and fall of the Maya civilization in ancient DNA from people buried up to 1,600 years ago in Honduras. And let's not forget the newly discovered "ghost" lineage from ancient China, whose identity was deciphered from a 7,100-year-old skeleton in the southwestern Yunnan province. Looking beyond our own species, and our planet, researchers have been left stumped by some mysterious signals from outer space. Astronomers have identified a mysterious space object, named ASKAP J1832-0911, that spits out pulses of radio waves and X-rays in two-minute bursts at regular intervals. However, unlike traditional pulsars, which spit out radio signals every few seconds or milliseconds, the newfound object emits its pulses at intervals of 44 minutes — a period that was previously thought to be impossible. These signals have left scientists scratching their heads, and unraveling this cosmic mystery could reveal previously unknown physics. Discover more space news —'Previously unimaginable': James Webb telescope breaks its own record again, discovering farthest known galaxy in the universe —NASA plans to build a giant radio telescope on the 'dark side' of the moon. Here's why. —Not 'Little Red Dots' or roaring quasars: James Webb telescope uncovers new kind of 'hidden' black hole never seen before In the wild, parrots don't speak in human tongues; they communicate through a complex array of squeaks, squawks and whistles to find food and warn each other of potential dangers. Research has shown that these animals also use "signature contact calls" to refer to one another, similar to how we call each other by name. But in captivity, parrots don't have other flockmates to learn to speak "parrot" from. Instead, they use their highly specialized brains to pick up on human speech. But do they really understand what they are saying? Or are they merely masters of mimicry? At the center of our planet lies a vast reservoir of gold and precious metals, hidden beneath thousands of miles of rock. But new research suggests that, while it's unlikely we will ever be able to mine Earth's core, some of these metals might nonetheless make their way up to the surface. While studying volcanic rocks in Hawaii, scientists identified signs of a precious metal called ruthenium that they say could only have come from Earth's core-mantle boundary, located more than 1,800 miles (2,900 kilometers) below the planet's surface. The team believes that their findings indicate that gold and other precious metals may also be "leaking" from Earth's core into the mantle above. Discover more planet Earth news —There's a humongous boulder on a cliff in Tonga. Now we know how it got there. —Africa is being torn apart by a 'superplume' of hot rock from deep within Earth, study suggests —The land under South Africa is rising every year. We finally know why. —2 billion people could face chaotic and 'irreversible' shift in rainfall patterns if warming continues —Combo of cancer therapy drugs increases mice lifespan by 30% — but anti-aging benefits in humans remain unknown —Physicists capture 'second sound' for the first time — after nearly 100 years of searching —Giant 'senior citizen' sunspot on 3rd trip around the sun could break a century-old record "Megaconstellations" of private satellites are quickly becoming a reality, and that's a big problem for astronomers. Satellites release low levels of radiation in the form of radio waves. As the satellites crowd the outer reaches of our atmosphere, the invisible pollution they let off may disrupt signals from ground-based astronomy instruments, thus limiting our ability to read radio signals from the cosmos. "It would basically mean that no radio astronomy from the ground would be possible anymore," Benjamin Winkel, a radio astronomer at the Max Planck Institute of Radio Astronomy in Germany, told Live Science. "It will eventually reach a point where it is not worthwhile to operate a [radio] telescope anymore." At the rate that these megaconstellations are growing, this inflection point could be reached in the next 30 years. But what can be done to stop it? If you're looking for something a little longer to read over the weekend, here are some of the best long reads, book excerpts and interviews published this week. —NASA plans to build a giant radio telescope on the 'dark side' of the moon. Here's why. (Explainer) —'The Martian' predicts human colonies on Mars by 2035. How close are we? (Opinion) —Sleep: Facts about how and why we sleep (Fact file) Hawaii's Kilauea volcano, one of the most active in the world, has been erupting since December 2024. However, this week it did something very unusual. On May 25, the volcano spewed several enormous lava fountains, some shooting more than 1,000 feet (300 meters) into the air. Such "episodic" fountaining has not been seen since the eruption of Pu'u'ō'ō in the 1980s, experts from the U.S. Geological Society (USGS) wrote. As it erupts, the volcano has also released thousands of tons of toxic sulfur dioxide and strands of windblown volcanic glass, posing a significant threat to human health. Want more science news? Follow our Live Science WhatsApp Channel for the latest discoveries as they happen. It's the best way to get our expert reporting on the go, but if you don't use WhatsApp, we're also on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Flipboard, Instagram, TikTok, Bluesky and LinkedIn.
