Milky Way tagged posts

Using a supercomputer simulation, a research team at Lund University in Sweden has succeeded in following the development of a galaxy over a span of 13.8 billion years. The study shows how, due to interstellar frontal collisions, young and chaotic galaxies over time mature into spiral galaxies such as the Milky Way.

Soon after the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago, the Universe was an unruly place. Galaxies constantly collided. Stars formed at an enormous rate inside gigantic gas clouds. However, after a few billion years of intergalactic chaos, the unruly, embryonic galaxies became more stable and over time matured into well-ordered spiral galaxies...

An international team of scientists led from the Centre for Astrobiology (CAB, CSIC-INTA), with participation from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), has used the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) to study a representative sample of galaxies, both disc and spheroidal, in a deep sky zone in the constellation of the Great Bear to characterize the properties of the stellar populations of galactic bulges. The researchers have been able to determine the mode of formation and development of these galactic structures. The results of this study were recently published in The Astrophysical Journal.

The researchers focused their study ...

A team of researchers at the International Center for Relativistic Astrophysics has found evidence that suggests Sagittarius A* is not a massive black hole but is instead a mass of dark matter. In their paper published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters, the group describes the evidence they found and how it has stood up to testing.

For several years the scientific community has agreed that there is a mass at the center of the Milky Way galaxy and that the mass is a supermassive black hole—it has been named Sagittarius A*. Its presence has never been verified directly, however, instead it has been inferred by noting the behavior of bodies around it...

Detailed cross-section of another galaxy reveals surprising similarities to our home. The first detailed cross-section of a galaxy broadly similar to the Milky Way, published today, reveals that our galaxy evolved gradually, instead of being the result of a violent mash-up. The finding throws the origin story of our home into doubt.

The galaxy, dubbed UGC 10738, turns out to have distinct ‘thick’ and ‘thin’ discs similar to those of the Milky Way. This suggests, contrary to previous theories, that such structures are not the result of a rare long-ago collision with a smaller galaxy. They appear to be the product of more peaceful change.

And that is a game-changer. It means that our spiral galaxy home isn’t the product of a freak accident. Instead, it is typical.

The finding w...