A new instrument mounted atop a telescope in Arizona aimed its robotic array of 5,000 fiber-optic “eyes” at the night sky to capture the first images showing its unique view of galaxy light. It was the first test of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument, known as DESI, with its nearly complete complement of components. The […]

Three years ago, a University of Utah-led team discovered that an ultra-compact dwarf galaxy contained a supermassive black hole, then the smallest known galaxy to harbor such a giant black hole. The findings suggested that the dwarfs were likely tiny leftovers of massive galaxies that were stripped of their outer layers after colliding into other, larger […]