Milky Way

Pulsating stars enable a new precise determination of the rotation of our Galaxy

harminka — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 06:53:35 -0500

New, very precise measurements have shown that the rotation of the Milky Way is simpler than previously thought. A remarkable result from the most successful ESO instrument HARPS, shows that a much debated, apparent 'fall' of neighbourhood Cepheid stars towards our Sun stems from an intrinsic property of the Cepheids themselves.

New virtual telescope zooms in on Milky Way's super-massive black hole

harminka — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 11:34:58 -0500

An international team, led by astronomers at the MIT Haystack Observatory, has obtained the closest views ever of what is believed to be a super-massive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy.

Clumps and streams of dark matter in inner regions of Milky Way

harminka — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 14:03:09 -0500

Using one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world to simulate the halo of dark matter that envelopes our galaxy, researchers found dense clumps and streams of the mysterious stuff lurking in the inner regions of the halo, in the same neighborhood as our solar system.

Milky Way team works scene of dead star

harminka — Thu, 29 May 2008 08:15:46 -0500

Like a team of forensic detectives in a television show that could be called "CSI: Milky Way," a University of Chicago astrophysicist and his associates are piecing together how a mysterious infrared ring got left around a dead star that displays a magnetic field trillions of times more intense than Earth's.

Gas 'finger' points to galaxies' future

harminka — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 10:14:50 -0600

Like a fork piercing a fried egg, a giant finger of hydrogen gas is poking through our Milky Way Galaxy from outside, astronomers using CSIRO radio telescopes at Parkes and Narrabri have found.

Hyperfast star proven to be alien

harminka — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 10:30:55 -0600

Washington, D.C. A young star is speeding away from the Milky Way so fast that astronomers have been puzzled by where it came from; based on its young age it has traveled too far to have come from our galaxy.

Vast cloud of antimatter traced to binary stars

harminka — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 14:49:46 -0600

Four years of observations from the European Space Agency’s Integral (INTErnational Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory) satellite may have cleared up one of the most vexing mysteries in our Milky Way: the origin of a giant cloud of antimatter surrounding the galactic center.

Astronomy teams discover ancestors of Milky Way-type galaxies

harminka — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 13:32:48 -0600

Astronomers at Rutgers and Penn State universities have discovered galaxies in the distant universe that are ancestors of spiral galaxies like our Milky Way.

New population of faint protogalaxies discovered

harminka — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 09:27:41 -0600

Astronomers have found a new population of faint protogalaxies by taking the most sensitive spectroscopic survey ever of a time when the universe was only 15% of its present age. These objects are the probable building blocks of galaxies today, including our own Milky Way.

From molecules to Milky Way

harminka — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 09:00:10 -0600

Most people have a few gigabytes of files on their PC. In the next decade, astronomers expect to be processing 10 million gigabytes of data every hour from the Square Kilometre Array telescope.

Extreme star cluster bursts into life in new Hubble image

harminka — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 12:37:09 -0500

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured a spectacular image of NGC 3603, a giant nebula hosting one of the most prominent massive young clusters in the Milky Way, thus supplying a prime template for star formation studies.

Why is Hercules Dwarf Galaxy so flat?

harminka — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 12:19:28 -0500

Through some of very first scientific observations with the brand-new Large Binocular Telescope in Arizona, an international team of astronomers has found that recently discovered tiny companion galaxy to our Milky Way, named Hercules Dwarf Galaxy, has truly exceptional properties: while basically all of its known peers in realm of these tiny dwarf galaxies are rather round, this galaxy at distance of 430,000 Light Years appears highly flattened, either shape of disk or of cigar.