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Astronomy 2e

For Further Exploration

Astronomy 2eFor Further Exploration

For Further Exploration

Articles

Bakich, M. “How to Build a Galaxy.” Astronomy (January 2021): 28. How galaxies formed and evolved.

Coe, D. & Larson, R. “JWST Reveals the Early Universe.” Sky & Telescope (October 2023): 12. What the infrared telescope’s first observations show us about galaxies during the first billion years after the Big Bang.

Croswell, K. “Ring Galaxies.” Sky & Telescope (November 2025): 14. On how the collision of galaxies can produce dramatic-looking structures.

Croswell, K. “Spendthrift Spirals.” Sky & Telescope (April 2019): 14. On our modern understanding of the complex evolution of spiral galaxies.

Croswell, K. “The Void Next Door.” Sky & Telescope (October 2018): 12. A look at the large-scale structure of the galaxy clusters and groups around us.

Diego, J. & Willner, S. “Gravitational Lensing: Ancient Lights Magnified by Cosmic Lenses.” Sky & Telescope (October 2024): 36. Using galaxy clusters as lenses to examine even more distant galaxies.

Faber, S., et al. “Staring Back to Cosmic Dawn.” Sky & Telescope (June 2014): 18. Program to see the most distant and earliest galaxies with the Hubble.

Falk, D. “The New 3D Atlas of Cosmic History.” Sky & Telescope, (February 2024): 20. On the work of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instruments survey measuring the distribution of galaxies.

Geach, J. “The First Galaxies.” Sky & Telescope (April 2018): 14. On examining and understanding the most distant galaxies space telescopes can see.

Hooper, D. “Dark Matter in the Discovery Age.” Sky & Telescope (January 2013): 26. On experiments looking for the nature of dark matter.

James, C. R. “The Hubble Deep Field: The Picture Worth a Trillion Stars.” Astronomy (November 2015): 44. Detailed history and results, plus the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field.

Kruesi, L. “All about our Local Supercluster.” Astronomy (March 2019): 32. On the Virgo supercluster of galaxies.

Kruesi, L. “What Do We Really Know about Dark Matter?” Astronomy (November 2009): 28. Focuses on what dark matter could be and experiments to find out.

Lea, R. “Dark Matter: The Unusual Suspects.” Astronomy (September 2021): 16. Ideas on what dark matter might consist of, and experiments to find dark matter locally.

Libeskind, N. & Hoffman, Y. “Cosmic Mariners.” Sky & Telescope (October 2019): 14. Mapping the superclusters and voids among galaxies to find the large-scale structure of the universe.

Mihos, C. “Life in a Galaxy Cluster.” Sky & Telescope (January 2025): 12. Observations and development of galaxy groups and clusters.

Nadis, S. “Exploring the Galaxy-Black Hole Connection.” Astronomy (May 2010): 28. About the role of massive black holes in the evolution of galaxies.

Nadis, S. “Astronomers Reveal the Universe’s Hidden Structure.” Astronomy (September 2013): 44. How dark matter is the scaffolding on which the visible universe rests.

Naeye, R. “How to Grow a Black Hole.” Astronomy (March 2021): 16. How the first supermassive black holes grew in early galaxies.

Parks, J. “At the Edge of the Universe.” Astronomy (March 2019): 49. On mapping the large-scale structure of galaxies.

Schilling, G. “Untangling the Cosmic Web.” Sky & Telescope (January 2022): 34. On the filamentary structure astronomers find at the scale of superclusters of galaxies.

Schilling, G. “Hubble Goes the Distance.” Sky & Telescope (January 2015): 20. Using gravitational lensing with HST to see the most distant galaxies.

Villard, R. “How Gravity’s Grand Illusion Reveals the Universe.” Astronomy (January 2013): 44. On gravitational lensing and what it teaches us.

Wenz, J. “Secrets of Interacting Galaxies.” Astronomy (March 2019): 54. On galaxy mergers and their role in galaxy evolution.

West, M. “Why Do Galaxies Align.” Astronomy (May 2018): 46. Why we have cosmic filaments and webs.

Young, M. “Where do Spirals Come From.” Sky & Telescope (March 2023): 14. Nice review of recent observations and theories on how galaxies form spiral structure.

Websites

Brief History of Gravitational Lensing: http://www.einstein-online.info/spotlights/grav_lensing_history. From Einstein OnLine website, discussing the theory and observations.

Cosmic Structures: http://skyserver.sdss.org/dr1/en/astro/structures/structures.asp. Brief review page on how galaxies are organized, from the Sloan Survey.

The Dark Energy Survey: https://www.darkenergysurvey.org/the-des-project/overview/. This new survey project looks even more deeply into the universe than the Sloan Digital Survey.

Galaxies Over Time: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/webb/galaxies-over-time/. A brief introduction to the evolution of galaxies and the role of the James Webb Space Telescope.

The Final Frontier: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvcRhBlF-50. 2016 HubbleCast episode on the Frontier Fields project on the Hubble, studying large clusters of galaxies and the gravitational lenses they form (6:23).

Galaxies Gone Wild: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNGasc3h4Ss HubbleCast #16: A tour through and explanation of 59 Hubble images of galaxy mergers (9:04).

Gravitational Lensing Discoveries from the Hubble Space Telescope: https://esahubble.org/news/?search=%22gravitational+lensing%22. A chronological list of news releases and images from the Hubble showing lensing.

How are Distant Galaxies Magnified through Gravitational Lensing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2krcAJobiKk. Basic video on how JWST will use gravitational lensing to look for the earliest galaxies in the history of the universe (2:10).

Local Group of Galaxies: http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/localgr.html. Clickable map from the Atlas of the Universe project. See also their Virgo Cluster page: http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/galgrps/vir.html.

Sloan Digital Sky Survey Website: https://classic.sdss.org/home.php and https://www.sdss.org/. This survey of the sky has been carried out in many parts, each of which has its own web pages. These pages include nontechnical and technical parts, but the maps and overviews are worth searching out.

Spyglasses into the Universe: https://esahubble.org/science/gravitational_lensing/. Hubble page on gravitational lensing; includes links to videos.

Virgo Cluster of Galaxies: http://messier.seds.org/more/virgo.html. A page with brief information and links to maps, images, etc.

Videos

Cosmic Simulations: http://www.tapir.caltech.edu/~phopkins/Site/Movies_cosmo.html. Beautiful short computer simulations of how galaxies form, from the FIRE group (various lengths).

Cosmology of the Local Universe: http://irfu.cea.fr/cosmography. Narrated flythrough of maps of galaxies showing the closer regions of the universe (17:35).

Gravitational Lensing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z71RtwoOas. Video from Fermilab, with Dr. Don Lincoln explaining gravitational lenses in theory and in the universe (7:14).

How Galaxies Were Cooked from the Primordial Soup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqNNCm7SNyw. A 2013 public talk by Dr. Sandra Faber about the evolution of galaxies; part of the Silicon Valley Astronomy Lecture Series (1:19:33).

Hubble Ultra-Deep Field: Looking Out into Space, Looking Back into Time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6K1pmTzhaY. 2021 video with music and captions takes viewers into the Ultra-deep Field and explains what it tells us (6:03).

Introduction to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vfOqVHyohw. A concise overview of the project (3:07). A similar video is at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RXpHiCNsKU (4:26).

Looking Deeply into the Universe in 3-D: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsEQ7bcU0n4. ESOCast #72, about using the Very Large Telescopes to explore the properties of galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field South (5:11).

Shedding Light on Dark Matter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZW_B9CC-gI. 2008 TED talk on galaxies and dark matter by physicist Patricia Burchat (17:08).

Sky Merger Yields Sparkling Dividends: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEAcKOYb86g. HubbleCast #31: Images of NGC 2623, the result of two spirals colliding, yielding bursts of star formation. The object was observed by telescopes sensitive to different wavelength bands to see how mergers affect galaxy evolution (5:25).

Virtual Universe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY0bKE10ZDM. A video showing a complex MIT model of a section of universe evolving, with dark matter included (4:11).

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