Milky Way

Scientists identify nearby 'super-Earth' as promising candidate in search for alien life - study

NASA plans to launch the Habitable Worlds Observatory in the 2040s, a mission whose goal is “to image Earth-like planets around other sun-like stars,” according to NASA’s website.

TESS, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, is shown in this conceptual illustration obtained by Reuters on March 28, 2018.
 The sun is seen as smoke rises from a wildfire burning during a heatwave, in Gohrischheide near Zeithain, Germany, July 3, 2025.

Study suggests our Sun escaped the crowded galactic center for the Milky Way’s suburbs

The Milky Way galaxy.

Milky Way mystery uncovered? Black matter may be the source of the galaxy’s mysterious glow

 An artist's concept shows the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, known as Sagittarius A*

NASA's Webb telescope observes violence around Milky Way's central black hole


Astronomers document a not-so-super supernova in the Milky Way

Not all supernovas will have the same impact on the solar system.

 This illustration shows a stage in the predicted merger between our Milky Way galaxy and the neighboring Andromeda galaxy, as it will unfold over the next several billion years. In this image, representing Earth's night sky in 3.75 billion years, Andromeda (left) fills the field of view

Scientists discover new feature that makes the Milky Way unique

Only a millionth of simulated galaxies were located in a cosmological wall like the Local Sheet and had a mass like the Milky Way's.

 This illustration shows a stage in the predicted merger between our Milky Way galaxy and the neighboring Andromeda galaxy, as it will unfold over the next several billion years. In this image, representing Earth's night sky in 3.75 billion years, Andromeda (left) fills the field of view

Astronomers discover 'marshmallow' planet 580 light years away

Astronomers announced that they were able to identify a reddish exoplanet that is similar in density to marshmallows.

 This artist's impression shows two Earth-sized worlds passing in front of their parent red dwarf star, which is much smaller and cooler than our Sun. The star and its orbiting planets TRAPPIST-1b and TRAPPIST-1c reside 40 light-years away.

Israeli scientist helps discover the universe's first stars - Cambridge study

Astrophysicists managed for the first time to statistically characterize the first galaxies in the universe.

 The first full-color image from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, a revolutionary apparatus designed to peer through the cosmos to the dawn of the universe, shows the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723, known as Webb’s First Deep Field, in a composite made from images at different wavelengths.

Webb reveals a galaxy sparkling with the universe’s oldest star clusters

The Milky Way, our galaxy, has about 150 globular clusters. Their history is not yet well understood by astronomers, and measuring their age can be extremely difficult. 

 Webb’s First Deep Field. Thousands of galaxies flood this near-infrared, high-resolution image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723.

'Strange stars' recorded in Milky Way by ESA's Gaia mission

Gaia's newest data release contains details for nearly 2 billion stars in the Milky Way, with new information.

 Artistic impression of a material disc with illuminated gas around Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way.

Stars in other galaxies much heavier than our own - study

The discovery that stars in other galaxies having such greater mass on average upends many previous assumptions about the wider universe.

 The Andromeda Galaxy is the nearest large spiral galaxy from the Earth, and contains within itself over a trillion stars.

Astronomers trace movement of some 10,000 galaxies, superclusters

The movement of some 10,000 galaxies and clusters of galaxies was traced throughout a span of 11.5 billion years.

The Milky Way Galaxy

The supermassive black hole in our galaxy is unpredictable - study

Sagittarius A* lies in the galactic center of the Milky Way and is a known source of radio waves, gamma rays and X-rays. But its irregular bursts follow no discernible pattern.

 Artistic impression of a material disc with illuminated gas around Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way.

Astronomers watch for first time as galaxy 'far, far away' dies

The researchers observed the galaxy ejecting almost half of the gas it uses to form stars.

The spiral galaxy NGC 4845, located over 65 million light-years away in the constellation of Virgo in NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image