Milky Way – Page 18 – Astronomy Now

New dwarf galaxies discovered in orbit around the Milky Way

11 March 2015 Astronomy Now

Astronomers have discovered a ‘treasure trove’ of rare dwarf satellite galaxies orbiting our own Milky Way. The closest is about 95,000 light-years away, while the most distant is more than a million light-years away.

Wayward star cluster Kim 2 located far from home in the Galactic suburbs

4 March 2015 Astronomy Now

Researchers conducting the Stromlo Milky Way Satellites Survey at the Australian National University discover a small star cluster that is about ten times more distant than the average globular in the halo of the Milky Way.

Milky Way’s dark-matter-dominated companion galaxy found

9 February 2015 Astronomy Now

Analysis of near-infrared data from the European Southern Observatory’s VISTA telescope provides evidence for a dark-matter-dominated dwarf galaxy 300,000 light-years away predicted to exist in 2009.

Planck reveals first stars were born later

6 February 2015 Astronomy Now

New maps from ESA’s Planck satellite uncover the ‘polarised’ light from the early universe across the entire sky, revealing that the first stars formed much later than previously thought.

A new VISTA through the Milky Way

4 February 2015 Astronomy Now

While mapping the central regions of the Milky Way in infrared light searching for new and hidden objects, the 4.1-metre VISTA telescope at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile looked through a familiar object to wonders beyond.

Milky Way wormholes could be a ‘galactic transport system’

21 January 2015 Astronomy Now

The sci-fi film “Interstellar” raised the idea of space-time tunnels between worlds to recent public consciousness, but a new study prompts scientists to consider Milky Way wormholes as science fact and re-think dark matter more accurately.

The Milky Way’s new neighbour

22 December 2014 Astronomy Now

The Local Group of galaxies has just grown in number with the Hubble Space Telescope discovery of KKs 3 — a dwarf spheroidal some 7 million light-years away in the far southern constellation of Hydrus.

Chandra X-ray Observatory image of Sagittarius A*

Milky Way’s supermassive black hole a neutrino factory?

14 November 2014 Astronomy Now

A research team from the University of Wisconsin has correlated data from three NASA satellites and a ground-based neutrino detector to show that Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way, is most likely a powerful neutrino generator.

Astronomers solve puzzle about bizarre object at the centre of our galaxy

4 November 2014 Astronomy Now

The mystery about a thin, bizarre object in the centre of the Milky Way headed toward our galaxy’s enormous black hole has been solved by astronomers using the Keck Observatory.