An international team led by Yale University has, for the first time, measured the mass of a Type Ia supernovae and confirmed that it surpasses what was believed to be a possible upper mass limit. Their findings could affect the… More: Mystery: How Could a White Dwarf Supernova Exceed Possible Mass Limits?

Astronomers have long wondered why it was that the super-massive black hole in the center of our galaxy was relatively quiet. Known as Sagittarius A*, a massive hole, containing about 4 million times the mass of our Sun. View original post here: The Milky Way’s Monster Black Hole Awakes! Fired Out a Massive Flare 300 Years Ago (Weekend Feature)

“Such stunning cosmic coincidences reveal so much about nature.” ~ Leonidas Moustakas, Jet Propulsion Laboratory The Hubble Space Telescope has revealed a never-before-seen optical alignment in space: a pair of glowing rings, one nestled inside the other like a bull's-eye pattern. The double-ring pattern is caused by the complex bending of light from two distant galaxies strung directly behind a foreground massive galaxy, like three beads on a string. Read more: "Einstein’s [...]

A monster black hole 100 million times the mass of the Sun is  feeding off gas, dust and  a ring of stars at the centre of Galaxy NGC-1097 50 million light-years away. The star-ringed black hole forms the eye of the galaxy which was photographed by the US space agency’s Spitzer Space Telescope in California. The odd spiral galaxy extends long arms of red stars into space. But Nasa said the black hole at the centre of the galaxy in which Earth is situated is tame by comparison to NGC-1097, [...]

“Such stunning cosmic coincidences reveal so much about nature.” ~ Leonidas Moustakas, Jet Propulsion Laboratory The Hubble Space Telescope has revealed a never-before-seen optical alignment in space: a pair of glowing rings, one nestled inside the other like a bull's-eye pattern. The double-ring pattern is caused by the complex bending of light from two distant galaxies strung directly behind a foreground massive galaxy, like three beads on a string See the rest here:  Einstein’s [...]

“It could happen almost any time now. We now have the technological capability to identify Earth-like planets around the smallest stars.” David Latham – Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics To date, Planet hunters have spotted more than 300 planets beyond our solar system, but the vast majority are hot, Jupiter-sized planets that would dwarf the Earth and are almost certainly lifeless More here:  Rocky Planet Discovery: NASA/Harvard Teams Say "Finding a Second Earth [...]

A Daily Galaxy post last year,  The Importance of Being Forgetful , featured the built-in neural process of forgetting, which discussed why the average human brain is equipped with the ability to filter through seemingly irrelevant details. While the average person may not have vast memory resources, it appears to be an evolutionary trade-off that allows the majority of us to focus on the most relevant facts. However, some of the most incredible minds on Earth lack this ability to filter irrelevant [...]

We think it’s another one of those field events that signals our destiny as a species. Finding a rocky planet with an Earth-like density brings us one step closer to discovering another planet similar to our own. See more here:  Found: One Rocky Exoplanet! So, What Does It Mean?

The popular theory that Mexico’s Chicxulub Crater, discovered in 1978, holds the clue to the demise of the dinosaurs, along with some 65 percent of all species 65 million years ago, has been confronted by a serious challenge from Gerta Keller of Princeton University in New Jersey, and Thierry Adatte of the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. More: The Chicxulub Crater: Clues to the Demise of 65% of Planet’s Species

The Antennae Galaxies are among the closest known merging galaxies. The two galaxies, also known as NGC 4038 and NGC 4039, began interacting a few hundred million years ago, creating one of the most impressive sights in the night sky. They are considered by scientists as the archetypal merging galaxy system and are used as the standard to validate theories about galaxy evolution. Here is the original: Antennae Galaxies -Preview of Milky Way’s Future