Topic
The study of how galaxies form, grow, and change structure and composition over cosmic history, from early populations to present-day systems.
Oxford-led astronomers using DESI found 546 bulgeless galaxies with feeding black holes sit on the same black hole-to-stellar mass relation as bulged ones. A bulge usually signals past mergers, so the result favours growth fed by bars and spiral arms, if that proxy holds.
Reality
Hubble observations suggest the core of NGC 4693, a Virgo Cluster spiral about 55 million light-years away, turns out of step with its arms and bulge. Both explanations on offer point to outside influence, though nothing reported yet settles which applies.
Reality
ASU and RRI astronomers found hydrogen glow concentrated along black hole jets after stacking the spectra of hundreds of galaxies. It places jet energy in the halo gas that feeds new stars, though any drop in star formation is still inferred.
Reality
Star formation has fallen to under half its rate of 4.5 billion years ago, but a FAST and DESI measurement finds the atomic hydrogen reservoir down only about a third, which moves the bottleneck downstream.
Reality
The new Hubble picture of NGC 4698 shows arms that stop short of the glowing center and a bulge tilted out of the disk, while the case that a small merger built that geometry rests on one short tail of hydrogen.
Perspective Coverage
3 publishersReality
Push the Saguaro galaxy's arms below Webb's detection limit and what is left looks like a little red dot, according to a study published on July 29 in The Astrophysical Journal.
Reality