Add your Article
- Dinosaurs and Fossils
- Fingerprinting Fossils
- The man who rocked biology to its core
- The bug that may have killed a dinosaur
- E Learning Jamaica
- E Learning in Jamaica WIN PRIZES and try our Fun Animated Games
- Results of GSAT are in schools this week
- 2014 GSAT Results for Jamaican Kids
- Earth
- In Antarctica watch the heat (and your step)
- A Dire Shortage of Water
- Pollution at the ends of the Earth
- GSAT Exam Preparation Jamaica
- GSAT Scholarship
- March 21-22, 2013: Over 43,000 students will take the GSAT Exam
- 2014 GSAT Results for Jamaican Kids
- GSAT Exams Jamaica Scholarships
- GSAT stars reap scholarship glory
- 2014 GSAT Results for Jamaican Kids
- Access denied - Disabled boy aces GSAT
- Parents
- Children and Media
- The Surprising Meaning and Benefits of Nursery Rhymes
- Raise a Lifelong Reader by Reading Aloud
- Physics
- Project Music
- Strange Universe: The Stuff of Darkness
- Hold on to your stars, ladies and gentlemen
- Space and Astronomy
- Big Galaxy Swallows Little Galaxy
- Witnessing a Rare Venus Eclipse
- Gravity Tractor as Asteroid Mover
- Technology and Engineering
- Morphing a Wing to Save Fuel
- Young Scientists Take Flight
- Bionic Bacteria
Galaxies Divide Sharply Along Color Lines
Published: 07/06/2010
When most people look at the night sky, they see lots of twinkling white spots. In fact, stars come in a variety of colors, from red to blue. And like soccer teams at a tournament, galaxies seem to organize themselves by hue. Astronomers now report that old, red galaxies clump together much more tightly than do young, blue ones. And there doesn't seem to be any middle ground. The astronomers, from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, used data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. It's the largest survey of galaxies ever done, with about 50 million galaxies already viewed. The Sloan survey, which uses a telescope in New Mexico, is also unique because it sorts galaxies by color. Old galaxies look red because old, cooler stars give off mostly red light. Young galaxies are full of hot stars that formed more recently and still give off bluish light. After analyzing 2 million galaxies, the researchers noticed two distinct types of galaxy clumping: very tight or very loose, based on age and color. The new finding about galaxy distribution and color might help explain some things about what happens to galaxies as they get older. It might also provide hints about dark matter—mysterious stuff that may fill the Universe, according to some astronomers, even though no one has ever seen it.—E. Sohn
Galaxies Divide Sharply Along Color Lines
