Some 12 million light-years from Earth in the southern constellation of Centaurus, the most prominent source of galactic radio emissions in the sky rests in the galaxy Centaurus A. Here, a truly gigantic black hole 100 million times more massive than our sun is (most likely) ejecting huge amounts of energy as it helps rip another galaxy apart, and the European Southern Observatory has snapped a brand new image of the elliptical galaxy in stunning new resolution.
From its perch in Chile’s Atacama Desert, the ESO’s Las Silla Observatory produced this stunning astro-image using its Wide Field Imager, capturing the elongated, elliptical shape of Centaurus A and the opaque glow of its billions of older stars surrounding the dusty core of the galaxy--or perhaps galaxies. Astronomers believe that the strong radio signals emanating from Centaurus A could partially be caused by a galactic collision as the larger elliptical galaxy rips apart a smaller spiral galaxy that wandered too near.
More on Centaurus A over at SPACE.
[SPACE]
Five amazing, clean technologies that will set us free, in this month's energy-focused issue. Also: how to build a better bomb detector, the robotic toys that are raising your children, a human catapult, the world's smallest arcade, and much more.


Online Content Director: Suzanne LaBarre | Email
Senior Editor: Paul Adams | Email
Associate Editor: Dan Nosowitz | Email
Assistant Editor: Colin Lecher | Email
Assistant Editor: Rose Pastore | Email
Contributing Writers:
Rebecca Boyle | Email
Kelsey D. Atherton | Email
Francie Diep | Email
Shaunacy Ferro | Email
Forget FTL, we need worm hole technology. And even then it would still take forever to explore the known universe.
We have so much to occupy our time, remind me again why humans are fighting over pieces of this tiny insignificant speck of a planet that isn't even worth the trip for advanced aliens to visit?
Don't rule out anything with out more information.
Astronomers write astronomy articles in science journals, in which they report there observations of plasma filaments extending across many lightyears or even millions of lightyears. They tell us that these filaments, which is matter in the same form as more than 99.9% of the nondark matter is, is confined and directed by magnetic fields. Then they conclude their articles by saying that beyond the molecular scale their is no force in the universe with any effect at all except gravity. Earth, Jupiter the solar system and this galaxy are each known to be have global magnetic fields. Mars and the moon also have local or regional magnetic fields all of this is far greater than the molecular scale and is important for directing solar winds and putting the brakes on particles from beyond. Am I missing something if I think there is a disconnect here and the universe is more interesting and understandable in electrical terms?