All articles tagged with #milky way
Artemis 2 astronauts captured a stunning view of the Milky Way’s galactic plane from the Orion capsule, with the pink Homunculus Nebula around Eta Carinae visible in the frame, taken just after their lunar flyby that briefly cut communications with Earth; the crew will perform trajectory corrections as they head back to Earth on their 10‑day mission.
A Gaia-based study of ~2 billion stars found 6,594 solar twins clustered in the 4–6 billion-year range near the Sun’s current orbit, suggesting a mass outward migration from the galactic core during the Milky Way’s bar formation. The temporary lowering of a corotation barrier likely allowed Sun-like stars to drift outward, placing our Sun in a calmer region conducive to life.
Astronomers using the ALMA array produced the largest mosaic of the Milky Way’s center to date, mapping the Central Molecular Zone across roughly 650 light-years and revealing a web of cold gas filaments and dense clouds that feed star formation. The ACES collaboration, involving about 160 scientists from over 70 institutions, aims to test how star formation and chemistry operate in this extreme galactic environment. The dataset will sharpen our understanding of the galaxy’s evolution and will be followed by upgrades to ALMA and future telescopes for even deeper studies.
Researchers using Gaia data analyzed nearly two million stars and found 6,594 Sun-like stars around 4–6 billion years old, suggesting the Sun migrated from the Milky Way's inner regions to its current calmer orbit about 26,000–28,000 light-years from the center; the move likely occurred as the galaxy's central bar formed and accelerated stellar birth, moving many stars outward, which would have given Earth a more benign environment for life to emerge and evolve; studying solar twins helps reconstruct the solar system's early history.
Using Gaia data, scientists found that the Sun and thousands of Sun-like stars formed near the Milky Way's center about 4–6 billion years ago and migrated outward in a synchronized wave, likely aided by the galaxy's central bar, reshaping our understanding of the Sun’s origin and the Milky Way's history.
James Webb Space Telescope analysis of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS suggests it formed in a cold region of the Milky Way about 10–12 billion years ago, potentially making it older than Earth and possibly as old as the galaxy or even the universe. Its isotopic composition differs from solar-system comets, implying formation in a different stellar environment. The comet is now exiting the solar system after a close approach to Earth, with further travels past the outer planets as researchers continue to refine its origins.
New Gaia-based research suggests the Sun and many Sun-like stars formed at similar times and distances from the Milky Way’s center and likely migrated outward from the galactic core about 4–6 billion years ago as the Milky Way’s central bar evolved. This outward journey could have placed our solar system in a calmer outer disk for much of its history, potentially aiding Earth’s habitability and the emergence of life. The findings stem from two astronomy studies analyzing ~6,600 solar twins within ~1,000 light-years and will be broadened with upcoming Gaia data.
Using ALMA, astronomers released the largest image yet of the Milky Way’s center—the 650-light-year Central Molecular Zone—revealing a complex network of cold gas filaments that feed star-forming clumps; the ACES survey brings together 160 scientists from 70 institutions to study extreme central-galaxy conditions and test star-formation theories, with upgrades planned to probe even deeper.
A new Nature Astronomy study using constrained, Lambda-CDM–based simulations finds the Local Group’s unseen mass is arranged not in a spherical halo but in a flattened dark matter plane tens of millions of light-years across. This geometry better reproduces the observed motions of nearby galaxies and the local Hubble flow, reducing discrepancies seen in spherical models while remaining consistent with overall cosmology. The result highlights how the dark matter around us likely forms sheets and filaments in the cosmic web, though more data is needed to pin down the plane’s thickness and orientation.
A new, large mosaic image of the Milky Way’s center captured by the ALMA telescope array in the Chilean Atacama Desert reveals cold molecular gas across the Central Molecular Zone in unprecedented detail over a span of about 650 light-years, highlighting gas filaments and clouds around the galaxy’s central supermassive black hole. The image, produced by stitching many observations, is the largest ALMA image to date and offers insight into how stars form in extreme galactic centers, informing theories of galaxy growth and evolution. The study identifies complex chemistry across dozens of gas structures and foreshadows deeper studies with future upgrades like ALMA’s wideband sensitivity and ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope.
Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), astronomers mapped the Milky Way’s 650-light-year-wide Central Molecular Zone in unprecedented detail, revealing a complex network of dense, cold gas and molecules around Sagittarius A* to help explain how stars form in our galaxy’s extreme core.
Scientists using the ALMA telescope have produced the largest, most detailed image of the Milky Way’s chaotic center—the Central Molecular Zone (CMZ)—covering about 650 light-years. The mosaic reveals massive streams of turbulent gas, fast-moving stars, and rare structures like the Millimeter Ultra-Broad Line Object (MUBLO), offering new insights into how extreme galactic centers form stars and resemble early-universe environments. The ACES survey, involving ~160 scientists across 70 institutions, aims to develop a 3D CMZ map to unravel how matter flows and shapes star birth near Sagittarius A*.
A new ESO/ALMA image maps the Milky Way’s Central Molecular Zone, coloring different molecules to reveal the complex gas structures at the galaxy’s center (cyan sulfur monoxide, green silicon monoxide, red isocyanic acid, blue cyanoacetylene, magenta carbon monosulphide) while foreground stars are seen in infrared.
A new study proposes the Milky Way’s central mass could be a dense fermionic dark matter core rather than Sagittarius A*, capable of reproducing the observed fast S-star orbits and the galaxy’s Keplerian rotation decline, and it might even mimic the black hole shadow seen by the Event Horizon Telescope; while provocative, the idea isn’t yet proven and future observations are needed to confirm or refute it.
New research suggests the Milky Way’s central mass, traditionally attributed to the black hole Sagittarius A*, could instead be a dense fermionic dark matter core. The observed orbits of stars like S2 and Gaia rotation curves fit both a black hole and this dark-matter model, meaning current data cannot distinguish them. If the dark matter interpretation holds, it would imply a continuous dark-matter structure linking the galactic center to the halo, reshaping our view of the Milky Way’s mass distribution. Future observations, including higher-resolution EHT data and longer-term stellar monitoring, could resolve the true nature of Sgr A*.