Tag Archive for 'Milky Way'

Meteoroids bombarded the Earth-Moon system 800 million years ago. Image credit: Murayama, Osaka University.

Could Scoop of Moon Dust Reveal Alien Technology?

Sep 8, 2026 by Sergio Prostak

A cubic meter of lunar soil might be one of our best bets for finding physical proof that another advanced civilization once existed somewhere in the Milky...

This sequence of images, taken with the GRAVITY instrument at ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer, show several stars orbiting Sagittarius A*. One of these stars, known as S301, was recently found to pass much closer to the black hole than any other known star. Image credit: ESO / GRAVITY Collaboration.

Newly-Discovered Star Could Finally Reveal Spin of Our Galaxy’s Central Black Hole

Aug 19, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers have spotted a faint, previously unknown star whipping around Sagittarius A*, the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole, on the tightest and...

About 11.8 billion years ago, a dwarf galaxy known as LKH merged with the early Milky Way. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Joseph Olmsted, STScI.

Milky Way Swallowed Dwarf Galaxy Nearly 11.8 Billion Years Ago

Aug 18, 2026 by News Staff

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have found definitive evidence that the young Milky Way swallowed a dwarf galaxy just two billion...

Mid-infrared image of the IRS 3 environment, observed with VLT/NACO and Webb/MIRI/MRS. Image credit: Peißker et al., doi: 10.1051/0004-6361/202660243.

Water and Dust Found Surviving near Milky Way’s Central Black Hole

Aug 14, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Using data from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers found that IRS 3 — a bloated giant star orbiting just 0.55 light-years to...

This image shows the Copeland Septet, a group of galaxies located in the constellation of Leo. Image credit: DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys / LBNL / DOE / KPNO / CTIO / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA.

5.6-Trillion-Pixel Map of Universe is Biggest Ever Made

Aug 11, 2026 by News Staff

Astronomers have released the largest-ever 2D map of our Universe, charting nearly 4 billion stars, galaxies and other objects across roughly 75% of the...

Using supercomputer simulations of galaxies like the Milky Way, Batrakov et al. found that galaxies with slowly rotating stellar haloes are more likely to have experienced a major ‘disk flip,’ where our Galaxy’s disk changed its orientation by more than 90 degrees. Image credit: Batrakov et al.

Our Milky Way Galaxy Likely Underwent Disk Flip after Ancient Galactic Collision: Study

Jul 22, 2026 by News Staff

A head-on collision with another galaxy billions of years ago may have dramatically reoriented the Milky Way’s disk, according to new supercomputer simulations...

This composite image of the Milky Way’s central region shows the location of the molecular cloud G+0.693-0.027. Image credit: Ashley Barnes / Izaskun Jiménez-Serra / Juan García de la Concepción.

Astronomers Detect Sugar in Interstellar Space for First Time

Jul 13, 2026 by Natali Anderson

Using the Yebes 40-m and IRAM 30-m radio telescopes, astronomers have discovered erythrulose, a four-carbon sugar commonly found in raspberries and sunless...

This image shows part of the spectrum of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, captured in December 2025 with the UVES instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope. Image credit: ESO / C. Opitom / Manfroid et al. / O. Hainaut.

Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Likely Originated in Outskirts of Ancient Planetary System

Jul 6, 2026 by Natali Anderson

Astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) have measured carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios in 3I/ATLAS, the third known interstellar visitor...

This Hubble image shows NGC 6426, a globular cluster some 67,000 light-years away in the constellation of Ophiuchus. Image credit: NASA / ESA / A. Dotter, Dartmouth College / Gladys Kober, NASA & Catholic University of America.

Hubble Peers into 13-Billion-Year-Old Globular Cluster

Jul 6, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have captured this vivid image of NGC 6426, an ancient globular cluster in the Milky Way’s outer...

This photo of the Milky Way Galaxy’s center was taken on March 23, 2025 by ESA’s Euclid space telescope. Image credit: ESA / Euclid / Euclid Consortium / NASA / CFHT / J.-C. Cuillandre & E. Bertin, CEA Paris-Saclay.

Euclid Captures Most Detailed Visible-Light Image Ever Taken of Milky Way’s Core

Jun 26, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

ESA’s Euclid space telescope mapped more than 60 million stars in the Milky Way’s central bulge, producing the largest high-resolution visible-light...

Hubble captured this image of 3I/ATLAS on July 21, 2025, when the comet was 446 million km (277 million miles) from Earth. Image credit: NASA / ESA / David Jewitt, UCLA / Joseph DePasquale, STScI.

Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Formed Up To 12 Billion Years Ago, New Observations Suggest

Jun 22, 2026 by News Staff

The interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS carries a chemical fingerprint unlike anything in our Solar System, and it may have formed 10 to 12 billion years ago,...

This Webb/NIRCam image shows the star cluster Terzan 5. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Webb.

Astronomers Find Four Separate Generations of Stars in ‘Globular Cluster’ Terzan 5

Jun 17, 2026 by News Staff

A globular cluster typically has only one ancient star population. New data from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space...

This composite image contains X-rays from Chandra and XMM-Newton missions (shown in blue) as well as radio data from the MeerKAT telescope (shown in red) in South Africa. These have been combined with an optical image from the Pan-STARRS telescopes in Hawai’i (red, green, and blue). Image credit: NASA / CXC / UCLA / Zhu et al. / ESA / XMM-Newton / PanSTARRS / MeerKAT / CSA / STScI / SAO / L. Frattare & P. Edmonds.

Astronomers May Have Found Supernova Remnant near Milky Way’s Central Black Hole

Jun 12, 2026 by News Staff

Using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA’s XMM-Newton satellite, astronomers identified a possible remnant of ancient stellar explosion just...

This image shows the evidence for the wind blowing away from Sagittarius A*: the white dot in the center of the image shows the supermassive black hole; in orange is data from ALMA, mapping the location of cold gas composed of carbon monoxide in the image; in blue is X-ray data from Chandra; a large cone-shaped cavity, visible as an absence of cold gas in the ALMA data, is filled by hot X-ray-emitting gas in the Chandra data. Image credit: NASA / CXC / UMass / Wang et al. / ALMA / ESO / NAOJ / NRAO / Longmore et al. / Minniti et al.

Astronomers Finally Find Milky Way’s Missing Black Hole Wind

Jun 8, 2026 by News Staff

After a 50-year search, astronomers have uncovered evidence that Sagittarius A* — the 4.3-million-solar-mass black hole that resides at the center...

As planets and stars travel through the streams of charged particles flowing across space, their magnetic fields act like obstacles; incoming particles are slowed and deflected, forming a boundary called the bow shock; just ahead of this boundary lies the foreshock, a variable region where magnetic conditions can accelerate some particles to nearly the speed of light. Image credit: Ben C. Smith, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.

Jupiter Accelerates Electrons to Near-Light Speed, Offering Clues to Cosmic Ray Origins

Jun 5, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

The giant planet’s bow shock isn’t just deflecting the solar wind, it’s acting as a powerful particle accelerator, firing electrons to relativistic...

This image from the Gemini North telescope shows a pair of interacting spiral galaxies: NGC 4568 (bottom) and NGC 4567 (top). Image credit: International Gemini Observatory / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / T.A. Rector, University of Alaska Anchorage & NSF’s NOIRLab / J. Miller, Gemini Observatory & NSF’s NOIRLab / M. Zamani, NSF’s NOIRLab / D. de Martin, NSF’s NOIRLab.

Violent Collision May Have Destroyed Milky Way’s First Stellar Disk

May 20, 2026 by News Staff

New simulations suggest a violent collision 11 billion years ago reshaped our Galaxy and triggered a burst of star formation. This image from the Gemini...

Radio signal from the quasar TXS 2005+403 travels roughly 10 billion light-years to reach Earth, traversing the Cygnus region, one of the most turbulent and scattering environments in the Milky Way Galaxy. On the left, this artist’s conception shows the quasar as it truly appears, with a bright accretion disk and jets blasting into the Galaxy like a beacon through the darkness. On the right, we see how turbulent gas distorts scientists’ view of the quasar in much the same way heat haze from a fire warps our view of the objects behind it. Image credit: Melissa Weiss / CfA.

Astronomers Catch Interstellar Turbulence Warping Light across Milky Way

May 15, 2026 by News Staff

For the first time, astronomers have directly detected how turbulent clouds of ionized gas between the stars bend and blur radio signal from a distant...

The Milky Way Galaxy with the position of SDSS J0715-7334 marked with a star symbol; the solid red line shows the path the star has taken through our Galaxy; the dashed blue line shows the path expected for a star born in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Image credit: Vedant Chandra / SDSS Collaboration / ESA / Gaia / A. Moitinho, A. F. Silva, M. Barros, C. Barata, University of Lisbon / H. Savietto, Fork Research.

Astronomy Students Discover Most Pristine Star Ever Found

Apr 6, 2026 by News Staff

The newly-discovered star, SDSS J0715-7334, formed in the halo of the Large Magellanic Cloud and migrated to our Milky Way Galaxy billions of years ago,...

An artist’s impression of a planetary system around a slightly hotter star than our Sun. Image credit: Gillis Lowry.

Astronomers Create Catalogue of Habitable-Zone Rocky Exoplanets

Mar 19, 2026 by News Staff

Using data from ESA’s Gaia mission and the NASA Exoplanet Archive, astronomers at Cornell University have identified 45 rocky exoplanets in the empirical...

An artist’s impression of a migration of the Sun and its stellar twins from the center of the Milky Way approximately 4 to 6 billion years ago. Image credit: NAOJ.

Sun May Have Escaped Milky Way’s Crowded Core Billions of Years Ago

Mar 13, 2026 by News Staff

Using a vast catalog of Sun-like stars built by ESA’s Gaia mission, astronomers have found strong evidence that our home star traveled outward with thousands...

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