All posts tagged: galaxys

The Galaxy’s Fastest Star Could Reveal the Secrets of a Supermassive Black Hole

The Galaxy’s Fastest Star Could Reveal the Secrets of a Supermassive Black Hole

Published by skeptic

A team of astronomers has just detected the fastest star in the galaxy. Its anomalous speed has a more unsettling explanation: It orbits Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, the mass of which is equivalent to four million times that of the Sun. S301, as astronomers have named the star, reaches 25,000 kilometers per second (km/s) at its maximum speed and takes 8.7 years to complete one orbit around Sagittarius A*. (By comparison, the Sun orbits the center of the galaxy at about 230 km/s.) At its peak speed, S301 moves more than 100 times faster than our star, and reaches 8 percent of the speed of light. The key to S301’s speed lies in how close it passes to the supermassive black hole. According to the European Southern Observatory (ESO), at its closest approach, the distance between the two is comparable to that between Saturn and the Sun. The enormous gravitational pull of Sagittarius A* accelerates the star as it approaches the black hole. S301, however, does …

Our galaxy’s supermassive black hole actually doesn’t devour everything

Our galaxy’s supermassive black hole actually doesn’t devour everything

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time. Inside almost every known galaxy lurks a supermassive black hole, and our home Milky Way galaxy is no exception. Located about 26,000 light-years from Earth, Sagittarius A* anchors millions of stars and their planets with its incomprehensibly gargantuan gravitational pull. But after reviewing recent observations made by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers discovered that some material can exist closer to a galactic black hole than previously believed. Despite existing just 0.55 light-years from Sagittarius A*, the ancient star known as IRS 3 is shooting out immense stellar winds while surrounded by oxygen-rich dust and even water. “Galactic centers are among the most extreme environments, so understanding whether stars can continue enriching their surroundings there is an important question,” said Florian Peißker, …

Wandering black hole found 30,000 light-years from its galaxy’s center

Wandering black hole found 30,000 light-years from its galaxy’s center

Published by Jenni Sidey

Astronomers spotted a black hole feeding on a star far from the center of its galaxy, something scientists had rarely seen before. They found it using an AI tool that scans the whole sky for the telltale flash of a black hole tearing a star apart, instead of only checking galaxy centers. The black hole weighs about a million times as much as our sun and may have been flung out of its galaxy’s center or left behind after a smaller galaxy was swallowed by a bigger one. A flash of light near the edge of a massive galaxy, far from its glowing center, turned out to be a black hole tearing a star apart. Astronomers had assumed the biggest black holes always sit at a galaxy’s heart. This one didn’t. The discovery marks the first time scientists have caught a dormant black hole so far out on a galaxy’s outskirts. The black hole itself gives off no light. It only became visible for a moment, when it shredded a passing star in an event …

I found Galaxy’s secret Gallery Labs menu and suddenly my phone does way more

I found Galaxy’s secret Gallery Labs menu and suddenly my phone does way more

Published by skeptic

If you have a Samsung Galaxy, there’s a hidden menu in your Gallery app called Gallery Labs — and you unlock it with a secret gesture most people would never stumble onto. Once it’s on, you get a privacy vault that hides photos behind a fingerprint, tools to customize the photo viewer, and even a one-tap way to turn any photo into a PDF. I was surprised how much it adds. Here’s how to turn it on, and which features are actually worth it. Related 6 Samsung tricks that completely changed how I use my phone Tiny tweaks; massive difference in daily use. How to turn on Gallery Labs It unlocks many new features Credit: Brandon Miniman / MakeUseOf First things first: you need to enable Gallery Labs by doing the following (make sure your phone’s software is updated first). Open Gallery on your Samsung phone Go to Menu > Settings Scroll all the way down, tap About Gallery Towards the top, tap on the version number five times quickly until you see the message at …

Galaxy’s Edge was revolutionary. If only Disney would’ve let it soar

Galaxy’s Edge was revolutionary. If only Disney would’ve let it soar

Published by Sam Flores

Not too long after Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge opened at Disneyland in 2019, the land brought me to tears. It was a summer weekend evening, and I was strolling the 14-acre area, mainly to people watch. I caught a commotion in the crowd out of the corner of my eye, and decided to follow the activity. There, crouched along one of the walls of the fictional town of Black Spire Outpost, was an actor playing the role of Rey, the hero of the most recent trilogy of “Star Wars” films. Behind her was a crowd of more than a dozen, many of them young children. Rey turned to tell them to be quiet. They followed her as she shuffled along the walls, decoratively designed to look decades old and scarred with blaster fire and cracks. They turned a bend and came upon two Stormtroopers, who jumped in surprise, and signaled that Rey was the person they were after. That’s when Rey held out her hand, palm up, to the troopers. She instructed those with her …

Disney Parks in 2026: Leia, Luke and Han Hit Galaxy’s Edge

Disney Parks in 2026: Leia, Luke and Han Hit Galaxy’s Edge

Published by skeptic

Disneyland had a huge 2025 when it kicked off its 70th anniversary, a celebration that continues at the original Disney theme park this year. Three new rides are also being built at California Adventure, as well as a whole new Avatar area. And at Walt Disney World in Florida, four new lands are being constructed right now, themed around villains, Pixar characters and more. Here’s everything you need to know about Disneyland, Disney World and Disney Cruise Line in 2026 and beyond. Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge: New old characters New characters have begun roaming around the Star Wars-themed lands in Disneyland, as the area “expands its timeline” to include Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa and Han Solo. The original trio of Star Wars main characters arrived in Batuu on April 29 and are now interacting with guests and other characters. To help tie them in with the more modern Star Wars land, there will also be new props, graphics and music (featuring the legendary John Williams score) in Galaxy’s Edge. “Black Spire Outpost will roll back in time several …

‘Space archaeologists’ use oxygen map to reconstruct a galaxy’s 12-billion-year past

‘Space archaeologists’ use oxygen map to reconstruct a galaxy’s 12-billion-year past

Published by Jenni Sidey

The oxygen in a galaxy does not sit still. It spreads, thins out, piles up, and leaves behind a record of where stars formed, where gas moved, and when smaller galaxies crashed in. In the nearby spiral galaxy NGC 1365, astronomers have now read that record in unusual detail, using oxygen as a kind of fossil trail. That work, published in Nature Astronomy, marks what the researchers describe as the first use of galactic archaeology beyond the Milky Way at this level of precision. The team, led by the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard and Smithsonian, calls the approach “extragalactic archaeology,” a way to reconstruct how a distant galaxy grew by studying the chemical fingerprints in its gas. “This is the first time that a chemical archaeology method has been used with such fine detail outside our own galaxy,” said Lisa Kewley, lead author, Harvard professor, and director of the Center for Astrophysics. “We want to understand how we got here. How did our own Milky Way form, and how did we end up breathing …

Is our galaxy’s black hole actually made of dark matter?

Is our galaxy’s black hole actually made of dark matter?

Published by skeptic

An image of the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* in polarised light, captured by the Event Horizon Telescope EHT Collaboration At the centre of our galaxy lies a supermassive black hole called Sagittarius A* – but one group of researchers is suggesting it may not be a black hole at all. The team says that it, and other black holes around its size, may actually be clumps of dark matter. Dark matter, so named because it doesn’t seem to interact with light or regular matter in any way except gravitationally, makes up about 85 per cent of the total matter in the universe, but we know very little about it. What we do know, because of the way galaxies rotate, is that most galaxies are embedded in a halo of the stuff. “We know it has to be at the outskirts of galaxies, but we don’t know what happens at the very centre,” says Valentina Crespi at the National University of La Plata (UNLP) in Argentina. Crespi and her colleagues built a model of a …