What influence can black holes have on a galaxy’s formation and evolution? This is what a recent study published in Nature Astronomy hopes to address

What influence can black holes have on a galaxy’s formation and evolution? This is what a recent study published in Nature Astronomy hopes to address

What influence can black holes have on a galaxy’s formation and evolution? This is what a recent study published in Nature Astronomy hopes to address

Astronomers are piecing together the reasons for these huge energy outputs, while sorting out why our own galaxy is so modest. The two primary suspects are bursts of star formation that produce many hot young stars, and processes associated with accretion of material onto a supermassive black hole at a galaxy's nucleus.

The post Luminosity of extreme galaxy most likely driven by star formation appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

The international University of California, Riverside-led SpARCS collaboration has discovered four of the most distant clusters of galaxies ever found, as they appeared when the universe was only 4 billion years old. Clusters are rare regions of the universe consisting of hundreds of galaxies containing trillions of stars, as well as hot gas and mysterious dark matter. Spectroscopic observations from the ground using the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii and the Very Large Telescope in Chile confirmed the four candidates to be massive clusters. This sample is now providing the best measurement yet of when and how fast galaxy clusters stop forming stars in the early Universe.

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Krumholz, Mark R., author

In a fast-changing environment, evolution can be slow—sometimes so slow that an organism dies out before the right mutation comes along. Host Sarah Crespi speaks with Staff Writer Elizabeth Pennisi about how plastic traits—traits that can alter in response to environmental conditions—could help life catch up. Also on this week’s show, host Meagan Cantwell talks with Marco Ajello a professor of physics and astronomy at Clemson University in South Carolina about his team’s method to determine the universe’s star formation history. By looking at 739 blazars, supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies, Ajello and his team were able to model the history of stars since the big bang. Finally, in this month’s book segment, Jen Golbeck interviews Christine Du Bois about her book Story of Soy. You can listen to more book segments and read more reviews on our books blog, Books et al. This week’s episode was edited by Podigy. Read a transcript (PDF) Listen to previous podcasts. About the Science Podcast [Image: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab; Music: Jeffrey Cook]