geekosystem

We can't think of a single better way to start your day than with the Herschel Space Observatory's two latest incredible photographs of our nearest galactic neighbor, the Andromeda Galaxy. The new images use Herschel's ultra-sensitive instruments to get a better look at the gas and dust that make up so much of Andromeda, resulting in photos that suffuse the galaxy with an otherworldly glow. Which is actually pretty appropriate, when you think about it. Keep reading for more images and details on how Herschel captured them.

Back holes are pretty massive as a rule, but this one in galaxy NGC 1277 might be the most massive one ever measured. Astronomers at the McDonald Observatory at the University of Texas have measured a super-sized black hole with a mass equal to 17 billion Suns. The black hole takes up a never-before-seen percentage of the galaxy's total mass, and gives us all a new gold standard against which to compare a friend's mother when telling "yo momma" jokes.

The Universe is crazy big, everybody. How big? So big that the Hubble Telescope just found a new candidate for the title of Most Distant Object in the Universe. That object is MACS0647-JD, a galaxy far, far away. It's so far away from us, in fact,  that we can't even measure the distance in lightyears. Instead, we have to measure it in redshift, and this galaxy's redshift goes all the way up to 11.