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Milky Way

Scientists stumble across the largest spiral galaxy known

Sun, 13/01/2013 - 11:13 by Yasser Ali
Spiral galaxies are among the most beautiful to observe

Astronomers have come across what they believe is the largest spiral galaxy ever seen.

Milky Way’s Black Hole Consuming Large Asteroids

Wed, 15/02/2012 - 17:42 by Sam Ross

A giant Black Hole situated at the center of our galaxy is eating asteroids and emitting huge flares daily according to the astronomers.

Astronomers snap Milky Way look-alike 30mn light years away

Thu, 02/06/2011 - 13:02 by Jaspreet Virk

Wondered what our galaxy would look like if we could travel outside and capture a picture? Well, the astronomers at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) claim to have released the best-yet picture of a spiral galaxy called NGC 6744 which is almost picture postcard of Milky Way.

Astronomers unveil 3D universe map spanning 380mn light yrs

Thu, 26/05/2011 - 15:39 by Jaspreet Virk

Ever imagined what the universe looks like? Well, to help us understand better how far the universe stretches and who our cosmic neighbors are, British scientists have unveiled 3D map of the local universe.

Astronomers discover new planet from another galaxy

Fri, 19/11/2010 - 11:11 by Anter Prakash Singh

European astronomers say that they have discovered a new planet orbiting a red star. Also, scientists claim that the planet is from another galaxy.

Planet 'alien' to Milky Way discovered

Fri, 19/11/2010 - 09:43 by Prince damin

Heidelberg, Germany -- European astronomers say they've discovered the first "alien" exo-planet in our Milky Way, one that originated outside our galaxy and was later captured by it.

Researchers writing in the journal Science say the Jupiter-size planet is part of a solar system that once belonged to a dwarf galaxy that was devoured by our own galaxy, the BBC reported Thursday.

The planet, HIP 13044 B, is orbiting a star nearing the end of its life 2,000 light years from Earth.

Almost 500 exoplanets outside our Solar System have been discovered, but all of those so far discovered are indigenous to our own galaxy, the astronomers say.

Gamma ray mystery at heart of Milky Way

Wed, 10/11/2010 - 09:54 by Prince damin

Greenbelt, Md. -- A NASA telescope has found a structure in the Milky Way that may be a remnant of an eruption in a black hole at the center of our galaxy, U.S. researchers say.

The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope detected the structure that spans 50,000 light years, covers half the visible sky and may be millions of years old, a NASA release said Tuesday.

"What we see are two gamma-ray-emitting bubbles that extend 25,000 light-years north and south of the galactic center," says Doug Finkbeiner, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass.

"We don't fully understand their nature or origin," he says.

Black hole 'evicted' star from Milky Way

Sat, 24/07/2010 - 10:23 by Pankaj Damin

Cambridge, Mass. -- A "hypervelocity" star speeding out of our galaxy was sent on its way by a violent encounter with a black hole at the heart of the Milky Way, scientists say.

The hypervelocity star is one of the fastest ever detected, heading out of our galaxy at a speed of 1.6 million mph, a Space Telescope Science Institute release said Thursday.

The star was the lone survivor of a trio of stars that wandered too close to the black hole, which captured one and threw the other two out of the Milky Way with such violence they coalesced into a single super-hot blue star, scientists say.

Milky Way stars born of violent collisions

Fri, 02/07/2010 - 00:52 by Pankaj Damin

Durham, England -- Many ancient stars in the Milky Way are remnants of small galaxies torn apart in violent galactic collisions 5 billion years ago, U.K. researchers say.

Scientists at the Durham University in the United Kingdom made the discovery by running huge computer simulations to recreate the beginnings of Earth's galaxy, a university release said Wednesday.

Researches at the school's Institute for Computational Cosmology say simulations revealed the ancient stars, located in an area of debris surrounding the Milky Way, had been ripped from smaller galaxies by the gravity generated by galactic collisions.

Hubble captures universe's earliest galaxies

Wed, 06/01/2010 - 11:52 by Ishita Sood

New York, January 6 -- NASA’s Hubble telescope gave astronomers the first look of the youngest galaxies formed 600 million years after the Big Bang, which is thought to have taken place some 13.7 billion years ago.

New telescopic device looks at black holes

Wed, 16/09/2009 - 22:20 by surajdogra

Gainesville, Fla. -- U.S. astronomers say they've used one of the world's most advanced new telescopic instruments to gather images of the Milky Way's "supermassive" black hole.

A team led by University of Florida astronomy Professor Stephen Eikenberry says it used a university-designed and built camera-spectrometer affixed to the Gemini
South telescope in Chile to take its "first light" images of the supermassive black hole located at the center of our galaxy. That black hole is thought to be
as massive as 4 million suns put together, the scientists said.

"We plan to use this instrument to provide the first accurate tracking of the growth and evolution of this black hole over the last 4 billion years," Eikenberry said.