News on Astronomy in 2014

The ESO Council has now decided to start building the new large European telescope E-ELT (European Extremely Large Telescope) on 1 January 2015. This begins the first phase of construction of the world’s largest telescope – with Danish

One of the major problems in astronomy is measuring very large distances in the universe. The current most common methods measure relative distances, but now research from the Niels Bohr Institute demonstrates that precise distances

Astronomers have observed a mysterious phenomenon, which could be a massive black hole that has been ejected into space in connection with two galaxies colliding. This may be due to gravitational waves from the collision.

The first telescope in the Danish led telescope network will be officially opened on 25 October, 2014 on Tenerife. This will launch a worldwide stellar research project that will bring us even closer to the stars and closer to finding earth-like

On Sunday evening, 19 October 2014 at 20:30, a comet will come closer to colliding with Mars than we have ever seen. When the comet, Siding Spring, was discovered in January 2013 it initially appeared that it might be on a direct collision

Has there been life on Mars? – and when a manned mission is ever sent to Mars, how will the astronauts get oxygen to breathe when they are out there? That is what the next mission, Mars-2020, will try to find out

New research from the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen and Aarhus University shows that not only can grains of dust form in gigantic supernova explosions, they can also survive the subsequent shockwaves they are

Gamma-ray bursts are powerful bursts of gamma radiation in connection with the explosive death of massive stars. The bursts themselves are short lived – typically less than a few minutes, but is followed by an afterglow that can be

Until now, rings of material in a disc have only been observed around giant planets like Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune and especially Saturn, which is known for its spectacular rings. Now astronomers from NBI, have observed the first

The Andromeda Galaxy is surrounded by a swarm of small satellite galaxies. Researchers from NBI, among others, have detected a stream of stars in one of the Galaxy’s outer satellite galaxies, called Andromeda II.

The Gaia Satellite has already sent its first images down to Earth approximately 40 days after its launch on the 19th of December. They show a dense collection of stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud at a distance of 170,000 light years.

New research from the Niels Bohr Institute shows that massive galaxies were formed by explosive star formation that was set in motion by the collision of galaxies a few billion years after the Big Bang