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

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

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

Researchers say galaxy may swarm with 'nomad planets'

(PhysOrg.com) -- Our galaxy may be awash in homeless planets, wandering through space instead of orbiting a star.

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Feb 23, 2012 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (23) | comments 31 | 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

Astronomers watch instant replay of powerful stellar eruption

Astronomers are watching the astronomical equivalent of an instant replay of a spectacular outburst from the unstable, behemoth double-star system Eta Carinae, which was initially seen on Earth nearly 170 ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Feb 15, 2012 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (17) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

How black holes grow: New study indicates they eat binary star partners

A study led by a University of Utah astrophysicist found a new explanation for the growth of supermassive black holes in the center of most galaxies: they repeatedly capture and swallow single stars from pairs ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Apr 02, 2012 | popularity 3.9 / 5 (7) | comments 4 | with audio podcast

Scientists chart high-precision map of Milky Way's magnetic fields

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) are part of an international team that has pooled their radio observations into a database, producing the highest precision map to date of ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Feb 03, 2012 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (11) | comments 9 | with audio podcast

Black hole, star collisions may illuminate universe's dark side

Scientists looking to capture evidence of dark matter -- the invisible substance thought to constitute much of the universe -- may find a helpful tool in the recent work of researchers from Princeton University ...

Physics / General Physics

created Sep 19, 2011 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (12) | comments 13 | with audio podcast

Dark matter mystery deepens

(PhysOrg.com) -- Like all galaxies, our Milky Way is home to a strange substance called dark matter. Dark matter is invisible, betraying its presence only through its gravitational pull. Without dark matter ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Oct 17, 2011 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (22) | comments 30 | 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

Business information consumption: 9,570,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes per year

(PhysOrg.com) -- Three scientists at UC San Diego have rigorously estimated the annual amount of business-related information processed by the world's computer servers in terms that Guttenberg and Galileo ...

Technology / Computer Sciences

created Apr 06, 2011 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (8) | comments 16 | with audio podcast

Planets that have no stars: New class of planets discovered

(PhysOrg.com) -- University of Notre Dame astronomer David Bennett is co-author of a new paper describing the discovery of a new class of planets -- dark, isolated Jupiter-mass bodies floating alone in space, ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created May 18, 2011 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (30) | comments 52 | 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.