Our galaxy hosts supernovae explosions a few times every century, and yet it’s been hundreds of years since the last observable one. New research explains why: It’s a combination of dust, distance and dumb luck. Source: https://phys.org/news/2021-01-milky-supernovae-millennium.html…
Tag: Milky Way
Digital Sky Survey maps the entire sky, providing new data to astronomers
The fifth generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey is collecting data about our universe for Vanderbilt University astronomers and other project members to use to explore the formation of distant galaxies and supermassive black holes, and to map the Milky Way. Source: https://phys.org/news/2021-01-digital-sky-survey-entire-astronomers.html…
Why are the stars so bright tonight?
In late December – and in January and February – our evening sky faces away from the Milky Way’s star-rich center. We look toward the depths of space beyond our galaxy’s boundaries and toward some close, bright stars in our local spiral arm. Source: https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/star-seasonal-appearance-brightness…
The Milky Way is probably full of dead civilizations
If there are other intelligent civilizations in the Milky Way, they are probably much closer than we are to the galactic center, and fairly young. Source: https://www.livescience.com/milky-way-alien-life-map.html
The Large Magellanic Cloud, our galactic neighbor
The Large Magellanic Cloud is a petite galaxy visible with the unaided eye – all year round – for those in the Southern Hemisphere. This small neighboring galaxy to the Milky Way is somewhere between spiral and irregular in shape. Source: https://earthsky.org/clusters-nebulae-galaxies/the-large-magellanic-cloud…
C1-23152: An ancient galaxy that built itself
A popular theory of galaxy formation suggests that small galaxies merged to form larger ones. But galaxy C1-23152 – 12 billion light-years from Earth – apparently formed itself from gas in the early universe, via exceedingly rapid star formation. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/c1-23152-galaxy-built-itself-not-via-galaxy-merger…
Galactic archaeology: Astronomers are using stars as fossils to study the Milky Way
Our Milky Way is thought to be home to as many as 400 billion stars, one of which is, of course, our own sun. But how and when did these stars form, and where did they come from? Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-12-galactic-archaeology-astronomers-stars-fossils.html…
New Milky Way family tree reveals a chaotic history
Scientists in Germany have created a new family tree of our Milky Way galaxy, showing how it has grown over billions of years from chaotic mergers with smaller galaxies. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/milky-way-family-tree-progenitor-galaxy-collisions-kraken…
eROSITA finds large-scale bubbles in the halo of the Milky Way
Gigantic hot gas structures above and below the galactic disc are probably due to shock waves generated by past energetic activity in the center of our galaxy. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-12-erosita-large-scale-halo-milky.html…
The Milky Way’s black hole burped out two colossal X-ray bubbles
Astronomers have found a pair of enormous bubbles of X-rays, above and below the Milky Way, which were probably created by our galaxy’s supermassive black hole Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2262113-the-milky-ways-black-hole-burped-out-two-colossal-x-ray-bubbles/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…