A large fraction of the stars of the present-day Universe is enclosed in giant, round-shaped galaxies, called “ellipticals”. Elliptical galaxies host very old stars, formed more than 10 billion years ago when the universe was still young. Despite the large availability of gas (the fuel... click to read more

What's out there? It's a fundamental but fascinating question in space science. Back in 1969, we managed to first travel to our neighbour, the Moon, and explore it. However, the whole picture is much more complex as most objects in the Universe are too far... click to read more

In 1933, Fritz Zwicky, observing the Coma galaxy cluster, noted that single galaxies were moving too fast for the cluster to remain bound, according to the measure of visible mass. Only a far more significant amount of invisible matter could explain the strong gravitational force... click to read more

Einstein's general theory of relativity predicted that gravity not only acts between two masses but also affects light which has no mass. We cannot see this effect in everyday life, but when light travels over vast intergalactic distances and is affected by the incredibly large... click to read more