Satellite News

Filamentary structure in 3D. Image credit: SubaruClick to enlarge
Astronomers have used the Subaru and Keck telescopes to discover gigantic filaments of galaxies stretching across 200 million light-years in space. These filaments, formed just 2 billion years after the Big Bang, are the largest structures ever discovered in the Universe. The filaments contain at least 30 huge concentrations of gas, each of which contains 10x the mass of the Milky Way.

Titan. Image credit: NASA/JPL/SSIClick to enlarge
New research from NASA, published in the journal Nature suggests that it’s always raining on Titan. Not thunderstorms, but a low level liquid methane drizzle that never stops. When Huygens landed onto the surface of Titan, it came down with a splat, presumably into mud. Scientists estimate that the amount of rain amounts to about 5 cm (2 inches) a year of accumulation – the same amount that falls in Death Valley on Earth. But this rain falls steadily, keeping the ground relatively damp.

Galaxy NGC 908. Image credit: ESOClick to enlarge
This photograph of galaxy NGC 908 was taken with the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope. This spiral galaxy was first discovered in 1786 by William Herschel, and is considered a starburst galaxy. Clusters of young, massive stars pepper its spiral arms indicating regions of furious star formation. NGC 908 must have had a recent encounter with another galaxy; the gravitational interaction between the galaxies caused gas clouds to collapse, igniting star formation.