A new and unknown object in the Milky Way that is heavier than the heaviest neutron stars known to scientists, and yet lighter than the lightest known black holes, has been discovered by astronomers. Researchers from a number of institutions including The University of Manchester and the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Germany […]
Although our telescopes have captured some truly stunning images of the Milky Way, astronomers have only a vague understanding of our home galaxy. It took a lot of work even to get that sketch, and it’s amazing what we’ve been able to learn from our limited vantage point. Here on Earth’s surface, the Milky Way […]
The Small Magellanic Cloud is a nearby galaxy that is very familiar to astronomers — or so they thought. New research suggests that the satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, located around 199,000 light-years from Earth, seems to have been hiding a secret: It’s actually two galaxies, one behind the other. To make the discovery, a […]
Observations have revealed the first-ever seismic waves seen in an ancient galaxy, possibly offering new insight into the origins of our very own Milky Way. The galaxy, known as BRI 1335-0417, is more than 12 billion years old, making it the oldest and farthest known spiral galaxy in our universe. Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter […]
Even if dreams of a white Christmas fail to come true this year, the Hubble Space Telescope has ensured at least one snowball gets thrown during the festive season. Hubble collected data that was used to build a stunning image of a tightly bound cluster of stars that looks like a cosmic snowball. It’s situated […]
A newfound population of stars in nearby dwarf galaxies represents the long-sought progenitors of a specific type of stellar death, or supernova, according to new research. Theories have shown that, for every three massive stars, one is stripped of its outer hydrogen layers across hundreds, or even thousands, of years such that its scorching hot […]