RR Lyrae stars tagged posts

Pale white veils and the narrow bridge between the clouds represent the distribution of the RR Lyrae stars. Credit: V Belokurov, D Erkal, A Mellinger

The Magellanic Clouds, the 2 largest satellite galaxies of the Milky Way, appear to be connected by a bridge stretching across 43,000 light years, according to an international team of astronomers led by researchers from the University of Cambridge. The discovery is based on the Galactic stellar census being conducted by the European Space Observatory, Gaia which scientists have been eagerly anticipating for 15 years. The first portion of information from the satellite was released 3 months ago and is freely accessible to everyone...

The plane of our Galaxy as seen in infrared light from the WISE satellite. The bulge is a distinct component and most of its mass resides in a boxy/peanut bulge, which is in cylindrical rotation. An ancient population, estimated to be 1% of the mass of the bulge, has been detected kinematically detected in the inner Milky Way and does not cylindrically. Instead, this population is likely to have been one of the first parts of the Milky Way to form. Credit: NOAO/AURA/NSF/AIP/A. Kunder

An international team has discovered that the central 2000 light years within the Milky Way Galaxy hosts an ancient population of stars >10 billion years old and their orbits in space preserve the early history of the formation of the Milky Way...