One of these galaxies is not like the other...

An elliptical galaxy, which typically have no dust, with a prominent dust lane. Who order that? Read more about it here and here.

Colliding Galaxies!

See a very pretty picture of such a collision here and here.

Mapping the Universe

One of the most powerful tools we have in trying to understand the properties of the universe as a whole (e.g how much normal matter is in there, how much dark matter, how much dark energy? - i.e, the entire field of cosmology) are galaxy surveys - figuring out both how many galaxies there are at a particular redshift / time after the Big band and how close they are too each other. Traditionally, this has been done using large optical surveys like the Sloan Digital Sky Survey - which finds galaxies by detecting their star light. Galaxies also contain a lot of hydrogen gas, which when cold emits light at particular wavelength - 21 cm, in the radio band. It is possible to a galaxy survey by detecting this emission, which may be more sensitive to low mass galaxies with few stars than optical surveys. Such radio galaxy surveys are now feasible using telescopes like NRAO's 100m Green Bank Telescope and NAIA's Arecibo Telescope. To read more about these surveys, and how they can help determine the answer to such questions like "the nature of dark energy" read this and this and this article, with the full research articles here and here(Subscription, required).

Peculiar lens

According to Einstein's theory of General Relativity, mass bends space, causing light not to travel in a straight line by curve. Therefore, massive objects can act like lenses, amplifying the line observed from objects behind them. Lots of these have been seen, most commonly a galaxy lensing a quasar behind it. Well, recently, a quasar was discovered lensing a background galaxy. Neat. Read more about it here.

Pin the tail on the galaxy

That is what these astronomers did here. Enjoy!

What gorgeous spirals you have

Go see them here.

Galaxy Tails

Most likely created by the gravitational interaction between two merging galaxies, GALEX has captured this beautiful image of a stream of stars trailing their host galaxy. Go here to see and read more. Enjoy!

Star Formation in Dwarf Galaxies

Perhaps not surprisingly, how and where stars form in a galaxy changes very much from galaxy to galaxy. Go here to read an article on recent Hubble results on where stars form in dwarf galaxies, galaxies with much less material than the Milky Way often found in the outskirts of Milky Way type galaxies.

New Galaxy Zoo images

By far one of the best Astronomy project on the Internet, Galaxy Zoo determines the morphology of galaxies observed by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey using your input. In fact, studies have found that this method is, far and away, the fastest and most accurate to determine galaxy types. They have recently added new, deeper images to their databases which you can now check out and classify yourself. Enjoy!

January 28th Radio Show: Galaxy Formation and Evolution

Sorry for the delay, but here is the January 28th edition of this radio show, where I continue my discussion of galaxy formation and evolution. Thank you for listening, hope you enjoy, and, as always, please email me or leave below any questions, comments, or concerns you might have.

Interview with Prof. Mary Crone Odekon (Skidmore College)

Available here is my interview with Prof. Mary Crone Odekon of Skidmore College, which was originally broadcast on the January 14th episode of this radio show. I apologize for the bad sound quality during parts of this interview - I recorded them using an extension to Skype, which for some reason has been giving me grief lately. For more information on her research, check out her web page and the web page of the ALFALFA project, of which she is a member, which even has a blog! If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please email me or leave them below. Thank you very much for listening!

January 14th Radio Show: Galaxies and Galaxy Formation

Finally available here is the January 14th episode of this radio show, feature an interview with Prof. Mary Crone Odekon of Skidmore College on using galaxies to study galaxy formation. Hope you enjoy, and sorry it took me more than two weeks to post it...

Hubble Pictures of Interacting Galaxies

In honor of its 18th birthday (18 years since launch), Hubble recently released 59 images of interacting galaxies, available here. In addition to being gorgeous (and I don't even work on interacting galaxies at all), these images provide a crucial view on how smaller galaxies merged in the early universe to make the big galaxies we see today. Hope you enjoy!