Other Galaxies
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Globular Clusters: The Untold Story
Meet Messier 13: my sentimental favorite globular cluster. For more than a decade now, one of my favorite things has been to set up my telescopes at astronomy outreach events and show people the night sky. I have two telescopes…
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Galaxies Demystified
From the smallest of irregular and dwarf galaxies, to the most spectacular of spirals, to the most massive of ellipticals, there’s no denying that galaxies are incredible objects. On this blog, we’ve covered a great deal of information about galaxies.…
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How Galaxies Evolve
Ever since astronomers realized that the mysterious, fuzzy objects known as “spiral nebulae” were, in fact, separate galaxies beyond our own, we’ve sought to understand the stories of galaxies. We’ve since discovered that most galaxies are found in galaxy clusters.…
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When Galaxies Collide
Meet the Whirlpool Galaxy, a spiral galaxy in the constellation Canes Venatici. This was actually the first galaxy to be classified as a spiral. Specifically, the Whirlpool Galaxy is what we call a grand-design spiral: a galaxy with a very…
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Exploring Galaxy Clusters
What if we were to travel beyond our own Milky Way Galaxy, and foray out into the galactic wilderness of deep space? What do you think we’d expect to find? Would we find galaxies spread out apart from one another,…
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Is Dark Matter Real?
Here we are, people — it’s finally time to talk about dark matter! I’ve teased this subject in my last few posts. We’ve discussed how the idea originated — with observations of the rotation of galaxies. We’ve touched on the…
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A Peek at Supermassive Black Holes
There are few things in the universe quite as exciting as black holes. They’re in all the movies — I even wrote a post a few years ago on what the movies get wrong about them! Though some movies, like…
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How Massive are Galaxies?
If you needed to measure the mass of, say, a brick — or some other Earthly object — you could just set it on a scale. (Yes, scales measure mass, not weight.) With galaxies, it’s not so easy! I don’t…
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How Big and Bright are Galaxies?
The brightest galaxy in our night sky is the Andromeda Galaxy, our nearest intergalactic neighbor. Hey…notice we’re talking about intergalactic neighbors now? 😀 In most of the posts on this blog, we’ve talked about interstellar neighbors, interstellar space, etc. But…
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What is the Hubble Law?
Last week, I teased you with the idea that it’s actually easy to estimate distances to galaxies. I do mean estimate — and distance indicators are still important. The Hubble Law is named for Edwin Hubble, the astronomer who was…
