milky way
Three of the Oldest Stars in the Universe Found Circling the Milky Way
Mention the Milky Way and most people will visualise a great big spiral galaxy billions of years old. It’s thought…
Does the Milky Way Have Too Many Satellite Galaxies?
The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds are well known satellite galaxies of the Milky Way but there are more. It…
Mapping the Milky Way’s Magnetic Field in 3D
We are all very familiar with the concept of the Earth’s magnetic field. It turns out that most objects in…
The Milky Way’s History is Written in Streams of Stars
The Milky Way is ancient and massive, a collection of hundreds of billions of stars, some dating back to the…
Roman Will Learn the Ages of Hundreds of Thousands of Stars
Astronomers routinely provide the ages of the stars they study. But the methods of measuring ages aren't 100% accurate. Measuring…
The Stellar Demolition Derby in the Centre of the Galaxy
The region near the Milky Way's centre is dominated by the supermassive black hole that resides there. Sagittarius A*'s overwhelming…
Gaia Finds Ancient Streams of Stars That Formed the Milky Way
Using ESA’s Gaia spacecraft, astronomers have tracked down two streams of stars that likely formed the foundation of the Milky…
Nancy Grace Roman will Map the Far Side of the Milky Way
The Galaxy is a collection of stars, planets, gas clouds and to the dismay of astronomers, dust clouds. The dust…
Astronomers Build a 3D Map of Dust Within Thousands of Light-Years
If you explore the night sky it won’t be long before you realise there is a lot of dust and…
Astronomers Measure the Mass of the Milky Way by Calculating How Hard it is to Escape
Several techniques have been developed to measure the mass of the Milky Way, providing a range of estimates. In a…