All articles tagged with #milky way center
A Gaia-based study identified about 6,600 Sun-like stars with similar ages and compositions that likely migrated outward from the Milky Way’s crowded center during the formation of the galaxy’s central bar 4–6 billion years ago, suggesting the Sun itself may have moved into a quieter outer disk and offering a possible explanation for Earth’s habitable environment.
Astronomers say a single excited dark matter model could explain three puzzling signals from the Milky Way's center—the 511-keV gamma-ray line, a 2 MeV continuum, and unusually high ionisation in the Central Molecular Zone—potentially guiding future space missions to test dark matter behavior.
Scientists using the ALMA telescope captured the most detailed map yet of the Milky Way’s center, charting the cold molecular gas in the Central Molecular Zone and its motions with spectroscopy. The four-year ACES survey reveals where gas is shredding into stars and planets, offering insights into the solar system’s origins and serving as a window into conditions similar to the early universe, all produced by a large international collaboration and mapping more than 70 molecular lines.
Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array released the largest, most detailed image of the Milky Way's center, revealing long gas filaments feeding star formation and offering a connected view of our galaxy’s core that will be explored further with JWST and the ELT, though telescope time remains highly oversubscribed.
Columbia University and Breakthrough Listen identify an 8.19-millisecond pulsar candidate near the Milky Way’s Sagittarius A*, with follow-up observations underway; confirming it could enable precision tests of General Relativity around the galaxy’s central supermassive black hole.
A new study argues the Milky Way’s centre could be a dense dark-matter core wrapped in a halo, potentially mimicking a black hole’s gravity and explaining the rapid orbits of S-stars as well as the shadow seen by the Event Horizon Telescope.