It seems like everything orbits something in space. Moons orbit planets. Planets orbit stars. Stars orbit the centers of galaxies. But beyond that, things get a little harder to visualize. Do galaxies — and, specifically, the Milky Way — orbit anything? To answer that, we first need to know how orbits work. Consider two objects […]
Three alien stars circling the Milky Way could be some of the oldest ever found in the universe, a new study reveals. The ancient celestial objects may have been among the first to form after the Big Bang and were likely stolen by our galaxy during gravitational tugs-of-war billions of years ago. In the study, […]
Astronomers have discovered three ancient stars “on the run” in the outskirts of the Milky Way galaxy, racing the wrong way at hundreds of thousands of miles per hour. Despite being spritely for their age, the three stars are so old that they date back to the formation of the first galaxies. That’s between one […]
The outer halo of the Milky Way is filled with magnetic fields that take the shape of vast donuts with diameters ranging from 12,000 to 100,000 light-years, with the heart of our galaxy at their center. These donut or “toroid” shaped magnetic fields of the Milky Way are responsible for constraining the physical processes surrounding […]
Using NASA’s Chandra X-ray space telescope, scientists have discovered a new cosmic “exhaust vent” funneling hot gas away from Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), the supermassive black hole that sits at the very heart of our Milky Way galaxy. The newly discovered vent is linked to a chimney-like formation orientated at a right angle in the […]
Scientists have used artificial intelligence to construct a three-dimensional model of an energetic outburst, or flare, that occurred around the Milky Way’s central black hole, Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*). This 3D model could help scientists develop a clearer picture of the tumultuous environment that forms around supermassive black holes in general. The material swirling around […]
By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Astronomers have discovered a black hole with a mass about 33 times greater than that of our sun, the biggest one known in the Milky Way aside from the supermassive black hole lurking at the center of our galaxy. The newly identified black hole is located about 2,000 light-years […]
The Milky Way has a big newfound black hole, and it lurks close to Earth! This sleeping giant was discovered with the European space telescope Gaia, which tracks the motion of billions of stars in our galaxy. Stellar-mass black holes are created when a large star runs out of fuel and collapses. The new discovery […]
Astronomers have identified the most massive black hole that formed from an exploding star to be discovered in the Milky Way galaxy. The European Space Agency’s Gaia mission, involving UCL researchers, found the black hole, known as Gaia-BH3, which is 33 times the mass of our Sun and located relatively close to Earth at 2,000 […]
Scientists have discovered the gruesome secret behind the apparent youth of some of stars at the heart of the Milky Way — stars participating in a sort of cosmic demolition derby around our galaxy’s supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*, or Sgr A*. Like a cosmic version of 17th-century serial killer Elizabeth Bathory, who supposedly sought […]
A bizarre system of stars that is either an ancient cluster or the most dark-matter-dominated dwarf galaxy ever found is enticing astronomers who hope it could help explain how our Milky Way galaxy formed. Discovered to lie 30,000 light-years away by astronomers at the University of Victoria in Canada and Yale University in the United […]
Astronomers have captured the first view of polarized light and the magnetic fields that surround Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milly Way. The historic observation made with the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) has revealed the neatly ordered magnetic fields have similarities with those that surround the supermassive […]