Milky Way | Astronomy.com

Binary star system finally discovered near Milky Way center

Randall Hyman — Tue, 17 Dec 2024 16:05:57 +0000

Veiled in gas and clouds, the Milky Way’s center does not easily give up secrets. The initial detection of its supermassive black hole (SMBH) decades ago posed as many riddles as it solved, including the puzzling absence of binary stars around it. The hot, massive stars that populate the region are almost always found asContinue reading "Binary star system finally discovered near Milky Way center"

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A baby Milky Way may have swallowed a dwarf galaxy named Loki

Mark Zastrow — Thu, 17 Oct 2024 17:51:27 +0000

The Milky Way galaxy has had a violent history. It did not grow though simple and calm accretion, but rather through the aggressive mergers of multiple smaller galaxies. Recently, a team of astronomers found the remnants of perhaps the oldest merger, right in our stellar neighborhood. The Milky Way’s stars have a wide variety ofContinue reading "A baby Milky Way may have swallowed a dwarf galaxy named Loki"

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The Milky Way and Andromeda may not merge, after all

Daniela Mata — Mon, 30 Sep 2024 15:20:00 +0000

If you’ve ever attended a star party, it’s more than likely that the astronomer on site pointed out the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) — currently around 2.5 million light-years away — and mentioned that it’s expected to collide with the Milky Way Galaxy in about 4.5 billion years. But recently, an international team of astronomers postedContinue reading "The Milky Way and Andromeda may not merge, after all"

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New Horizons measures how dark the universe can get

Randall Hyman — Thu, 05 Sep 2024 16:51:20 +0000

As black as space may seem, even the darkest corner of the universe gets light. Measuring that tiny glimmer — called the cosmic optical background (COB) — sheds light on the energy balance of the entire universe, one of cosmology’s holy grails. With recent data gathered by the New Horizons spacecraft, now 57 times fartherContinue reading "New Horizons measures how dark the universe can get"

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Survivors from the Milky Way’s birth

Rod Pommier — Fri, 09 Aug 2024 13:00:00 +0000

Over the past eight years, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Gaia space observatory has transformed our understanding of the history of our Milky Way Galaxy. From Gaia’s perch at Earth’s L2 Lagrange point, roughly 1 million miles (1.5 million kilometers) distant, it has produced the most comprehensive three-dimensional survey of the Milky Way ever made:Continue reading "Survivors from the Milky Way’s birth"

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Ancient star streams, named Shiva and Shakti, may be Milky Way’s earliest building blocks

mnewman — Mon, 20 May 2024 17:54:39 +0000

Galactic archaeologists who decode our galaxy’s complex family tree have discovered two more branches: primordial streams of thousands of stars near the heart of the Milky Way that may be two of its very first pieces from at least 12 billion years ago. The ancient clusters likely formed even before the Milky Way’s disk andContinue reading "Ancient star streams, named Shiva and Shakti, may be Milky Way’s earliest building blocks"

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Astronomers uncover ‘sleeping giant’ black hole Gaia BH3, the largest ever found in the Milky Way

mnewman — Thu, 09 May 2024 12:34:20 +0000

Pasquale Panuzzo of the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) was among a team of astronomers routinely processing data from Gaia, the European star-mapping observatory, when a peculiar but recurrent wobble of an old, otherwise unremarkable giant star caught his eye. It appeared a consistent gravitational tug from a hitherto unknown companion was disruptingContinue reading "Astronomers uncover ‘sleeping giant’ black hole Gaia BH3, the largest ever found in the Milky Way"

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How do you find a black hole? An astronomer explains the thrilling hunt

Yvette Cendes — Wed, 01 May 2024 13:00:00 +0000

In a universe full of fascinating and exotic phenomena, few objects challenge the imagination quite like black holes. Discovering new black holes, however, is no easy feat — where do you even begin to look for them? Recent research has found a new category that includes the closest black holes we know of. As anContinue reading "How do you find a black hole? An astronomer explains the thrilling hunt"

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The Milky Way, to ancient Egyptians, was probably mixed Nuts

Tom Metcalfe — Fri, 26 Apr 2024 19:24:54 +0000

Astronomy was the basis of many key beliefs for the ancient Egyptians. They used skywatching to fix the dates of religious festivals, to predict the annual flooding of the Nile, and to count the hours of the night — when the god Ra would pilot his Sun boat on a dangerous journey through the underworld,Continue reading "The Milky Way, to ancient Egyptians, was probably mixed Nuts"

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How many stars die in the Milky Way each year?

Astronomy Staff — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 12:44:36 +0000

How many stars die in the Milky Way each year? Martin J. HeuerSt. Petersburg, Florida Before diving into the astronomy here, we first need to acknowledge that we are borrowing the word die, which really belongs to biology. While we can try to apply the concepts of life and death to astronomy, so that starsContinue reading "How many stars die in the Milky Way each year?"

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