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Credit: Andromeda Galaxy; Gettyimages

An amateur astronomer examining archival data processed by the Community Science & Data Center tipped off astronomers about a smudge of interest in an image he examined as part of an effort by the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory to search for dwarf galaxies. Astronomers following up on the tip conducted observations using the Gemini North Telescope at the International Gemini Observatory, part of the U.S. National Science Foundation NOIRLab program. The astronomers confirmed that the dwarf galaxy at the far edges of the Andromeda galaxy, known as Pegasus V, is likely a fossil of the earliest galaxies.

Credit: Giannandrea Inchingolo

Scientists use simulations and high-power lasers to explain how turbulent plasma can stay hot 

A team of U.S. National Science Foundation grantee astronomers and astrophysicists based at the University of Rochester and other institutions examined the inner workings of heat conduction in galaxy clusters -- thousands of galaxies held together by gravity.

The matter in galaxy clusters is mostly tenuous ionized gas (plasma) with magnetic fields in a turbulent state. Turbulent plasma is incredibly hot; the new study provides an explanation. The team published the work in Science Advances.