Gaia

A team has made some intriguing discoveries in the outer regions of the Milky Way. Astronomers mapped the fringes of the sparse halo that envelops our home galaxy, and found the wake of a dwarf galaxy on an eventual collision course with the Milky Way.

Astronomers have discovered the aftermath of a cosmic hit-and-run in our own neighborhood. While studying the closest star cluster to the Sun, ESA scientists realized it may have been disrupted by a huge lump of invisible mass, possibly dark matter.

ESA has published a colossal data release from the agency’s Gaia observatory, which is currently engaged in a mission to survey 1 billion stars orbiting in the Milky Way. The data has already shed light on the motion of our galaxy and solar system.

Based on data from the Kepler Space Telescope and the Gaia mission, there may be up to 300 million habitable planets in our galaxy. The research refines a key factor in the Drake equation that estimates how many extraterrestrial civilizations may exist.

To get a sense of how “normal” the Sun may be, astronomers have compared the Sun to hundreds of similar stars. It turns out that it’s actually far less active than its peers – but is this a permanent personality, or is it just going through a phase?

Astronomers have discovered a star known as S5-HVS1, travelling at an incredible 6 million km/h (3.7 million mph). That not only makes it the fastest known star, but it’s fast enough to fling it right out of the galaxy.

It looks like a Jackson Pollock painting, but this colorful mess is a new map of the Milky Way, showing strange star structures.

Just how common are potentially habitable Earth-like planets? Researchers on a new study claim to have come up with the most accurate estimate yet – and they’re more common than you might think.

Last year astronomers discovered a gigantic “ghost” galaxy, named Antlia 2, orbiting the Milky Way. Now, new research led by Rochester University has found that the bizarre galaxy may have been involved in a hit-and-run that left the Milky Way with a wobbly galactic disc.

Scientists have been poring over the Gaia galactic census of Milky Way stars for about a year. Now, a team of researchers has found evidence of a “stellar baby boom,” a short period of time in which more than half the stars in the thin disc were born.

A team of astronomers has managed to find the origin of an enormous star that is currently barreling out of the Milky Way having escaped from one of our galaxy’s spiral arms. The discovery challenges the theory that such stars come from the galactic center.

How heavy is the Milky Way galaxy? A team of astronomers has used data from Hubble and the Gaia satellite to make the most accurate measurement of the mass of the galaxy by studying the motions of star clusters orbiting the Milky Way.