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The May 2023 full moon, photographed by graduate student and CIERA member Imran Sultan. This image won runner-up in the 2023 Royal Society Publishing Photography Competition’s astronomy category. “The May full moon is known as the Flower Moon, a name originating from the Algonquin peoples that marks the blooming of flowers during spring. This year’s

The colorful Western Veil Nebula, photographed by graduate student and CIERA member Imran Sultan, is a stunning remnant left behind from the explosion of a massive star 10,000 to 20,000 years ago. Located 2,100 light-years away, the nebula resides within the constellation Cygnus (the Swan). Sultan’s photo of the Western Veil Nebula won first place in

Light from 23 distant galaxies, identified with red rectangles in the Hubble Space Telescope image at the top, were combined to capture incredibly faint emission from eight different elements, which are labelled in the JWST spectrum at the bottom. Although scientists regularly find these elements on Earth, astronomers rarely, if ever, observe many of them

Artist conception of early starbursting galaxies. Stars and galaxies are shown in the bright white points of light, while the more diffuse dark matter and gas are shown in purples and reds. When scientists viewed the James Webb Space Telescope’s (JWST) first images of the universe’s earliest galaxies, they were shocked. The young galaxies appeared

Simulated image of an accretion disk, the violent whirlpool of gas that encircles a supermassive black hole, broken apart into inner and outer rings. According to new high-resolution 3D simulations, spinning black holes twist up the surrounding space-time, ultimately ripping apart the violent whirlpool of gas (or accretion disk) that encircles and feeds them. This

Simulated image of an accretion disk, the violent whirlpool of gas that encircles a supermassive black hole, broken apart into inner and outer rings. According to new high-resolution 3D simulations, spinning black holes twist up the surrounding space-time, ultimately ripping apart the violent whirlpool of gas (or accretion disk) that encircles and feeds them. This

Simulated image of an accretion disk, the violent whirlpool of gas that encircles a supermassive black hole, broken apart into inner and outer rings. According to new high-resolution 3D simulations, spinning black holes twist up the surrounding space-time, ultimately ripping apart the violent whirlpool of gas (or accretion disk) that encircles and feeds them. This

Simulated image of an accretion disk, the violent whirlpool of gas that encircles a supermassive black hole, broken apart into inner and outer rings. According to new high-resolution 3D simulations, spinning black holes twist up the surrounding space-time, ultimately ripping apart the violent whirlpool of gas (or accretion disk) that encircles and feeds them. This

A 31.5 solar-mass black hole with an 8.38 solar-mass black hole companion viewed in front of its (computer generated) stellar nursery prior to merging. The distant band of the Milky Way can be seen toward the lower-left of the black hole pair. Light is warped nearby the black holes due to their strong gravity. The

Graduate student Imran Sultan’s photo of the recently visible supernova (SN2023ixf) in the pinwheel galaxy M101.  The image was taken overnight, May 20-21, 2023 about 70 miles outside of Chicago.  Imran used an 80mm refractor and a DSLR on a star tracker.

Graduate student Imran Sultan’s photo of the recently visible supernova (SN2023ixf) in the pinwheel galaxy M101.  The image was taken overnight, May 20-21, 2023 about 70 miles outside of Chicago.  Imran used an 80mm refractor and a DSLR on a star tracker.

Two populations of filaments, perpendicular and parallel to the galactic plane, which runs horizontally. Professor Farhad Yusef-Zadeh discovered the vertical filaments in the 1980s. He discovered the horizontal filaments recently and the news was published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters on June 2, 2023. Continue to the full CIERA news story.