News tagged with milky way galaxy

Hubble shows Milky Way is destined for head-on collision with Andromeda galaxy

(Phys.org) -- NASA astronomers announced Thursday they can now predict with certainty the next major cosmic event to affect our galaxy, sun, and solar system: the titanic collision of our Milky Way galaxy ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created May 31, 2012 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (20) | comments 35 | with audio podcast

11.5 billion years old: Stellar archaeology traces Milky Way's history

(Phys.org) -- Unfortunately, stars don't have birth certificates. So, astronomers have a tough time figuring out their ages. Knowing a star's age is critical for understanding how our Milky Way galaxy built ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created May 30, 2012 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (17) | comments 4 | with audio podcast

A pinwheel in many colors

(Phys.org) -- This image of the Pinwheel Galaxy, or also known as M101, combines data in the infrared, visible, ultraviolet and X-rays from four of NASA's space-based telescopes. This multi-spectral view shows ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created May 25, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 1

Nomads of the galaxy

A recent study proposes the galaxy is crowded with nomad planets adrift in space. If this is the case, nomad planets may play a dynamic role in the universe.

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created May 23, 2012 | popularity 4 / 5 (5) | comments 7

Hubble spies edge-on beauty

(Phys.org) -- Visible in the constellation of Andromeda, NGC 891 is located approximately 30 million light-years away from Earth. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope turned its powerful wide field Advanced ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created May 21, 2012 | popularity 3.4 / 5 (5) | comments 16 | with audio podcast

VISTA views a vast ball of stars

(Phys.org) -- A new image of Messier 55 from ESO's VISTA infrared survey telescope shows tens of thousands of stars crowded together like a swarm of bees. Besides being packed into a relatively small space, ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created May 09, 2012 | popularity 3.7 / 5 (6) | comments 15 | with audio podcast

Diagnosing a black hole flare

(Phys.org) -- Black holes can come in a wide range of masses. Some, with only about one solar mass, result from the supernova death of a massive star, while those at the center of galaxies (called supermassive ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created May 07, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

TheSkyNet set to conquer more of our universe

In its ever-expanding quest to process astronomy data and discover much more of our Universe, theSkyNet has joined forces with the Pan-STARRS1 Science Consortium (PS1SC) to probe other galaxies beyond our own Milky Way.

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created May 03, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 0

Rogue stars ejected from the galaxy are found in intergalactic space

It's very difficult to kick a star out of the galaxy.

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Apr 30, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (13) | comments 15 | with audio podcast

Old star, new trick

The Big Bang produced lots of hydrogen and helium and a smidgen of lithium. All heavier elements found on the periodic table have been produced by stars over the last 13.7 billion years. Astronomers analyze starlight to determine ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Apr 30, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (10) | comments 30 | with audio podcast

'Ridiculously' dim bevy of stars found beyond Milky Way

(Phys.org) -- A team of American, Canadian and Chilean astronomers have stumbled onto a remarkably faint cluster of stars orbiting the Milky Way that puts out as much light as only 120 modest Sun-like stars. ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Apr 27, 2012 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (16) | comments 72 | with audio podcast

Image: The Milky Way's 100 billion planets

(Phys.org) -- This artist's illustration gives an impression of how common planets are around the stars in the Milky Way. The planets, their orbits and their host stars are all vastly magnified compared to ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Apr 26, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 1

Spitzer finds galaxy with split personality

(Phys.org) -- While some galaxies are rotund and others are slender disks like our spiral Milky Way, new observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope show that the Sombrero galaxy is both. The galaxy, ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Apr 25, 2012 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (3) | comments 11 | with audio podcast

A new paradigm for active galactic nuclei

(Phys.org) -- Seyfert galaxies are similar to normal galaxies like our own Milky Way except in one critical respect: their nuclei are fantastically bright, in extreme instances as luminous as 100 billion suns. ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Apr 24, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 4 | with audio podcast

Image: Hubble peeks inside a stellar cloud

(Phys.org) -- These bright stars shining through what looks like a haze in the night sky are part of a young stellar grouping in one of the largest known star formation regions of the Large Magellanic Cloud ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Apr 23, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 8 | with audio podcast

Milky Way

The Milky Way, or simply the Galaxy, is the galaxy in which the Solar System is located. It is a barred spiral galaxy that is part of the Local Group of galaxies. It is one of billions of galaxies in the observable universe.

Its name is a translation of the Latin Via Lactea, in turn translated from the Greek Γαλαξίας (Galaxias), referring to the pale band of light formed by the galactic plane as seen from Earth (see etymology of galaxy). Some sources hold that, strictly speaking, the term Milky Way should refer exclusively to the band of light that the galaxy forms in the night sky, while the galaxy should receive the full name Milky Way Galaxy, or alternatively the Galaxy. However, it is unclear how widespread this convention is, and the term Milky Way is routinely used in either context.

For more information about Milky Way, read the full article at Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.