star formation
The Oldest Known Spiral Galaxy Has Ripples Like the Surface of a Pond
Astronomers have detected pond-like ripples across the gaseous disk of an ancient galaxy. What caused the ripples, and what do…
Astronomers Find the Birthplaces of Stars in the Whirlpool Galaxy
Understanding how star-forming works at a galactic scale is challenging in our Milky Way. While we have a general understanding…
JWST Reveals Protoplanetary Disks in a Nearby Star Cluster
The Orion Nebula is a favourite among stargazers, certainly one of mine. It’s a giant stellar nebula out of which,…
What Can Slime Mold Teach Us About the Universe?
What can slime molds tell us about the large-scale structure of the Universe and the evolution of galaxies? These things…
Supermassive Black Holes Shut Down Star Formation During Cosmic Noon
Using data from Webb's NIRSpec instrument, an international team has confirmed that quasars shut down star formation in galaxies billions…
Astronomers Want JWST to Study the Milky Way Core for Hundreds of Hours
To understand the Universe, we need to understand the extreme processes that shape it and drive its evolution. Things like…
Feast Your Eyes on this Star-Forming Region, Thanks to the JWST
Nature is stingy with its secrets. That's why humans developed the scientific method. Without it, we'd still be ignorant and…
Compare Images of a Galaxy Seen by Both Hubble and JWST
The James Webb Space Telescope is widely considered to be better than the Hubble Space Telescope. But the JWST doesn't…
Galaxies Breathe Gas, and When They Stop, No More Stars Form
For most of the history of astronomy, all we could see were stars. We could see them individually, in clusters,…
JWST Gazes into the Dark Molecular Clouds at the Heart of the Milky Way
There's an unusual object near the Milky Way's heart that astronomers call "The Brick." It's a massive cloud of gas…