The Milky Way is the galaxy that contains our Solar System. This name derives from its appearance as a dim "milky" glowing band arching across the night sky, in which the naked eye cannot distinguish individual stars. The term "Milky Way" is a translation of the Classical Latin via lactea, from the Hellenistic Greek γαλαξίας κύκλος (pr. galaxías kýklos, "milky circle"). The Milky Way appears like a band because it is a disk-shaped structure being viewed from inside.
All stories in Milky Way
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The center of the Milky Way twinkles in radiation — this could explain how supermassive black holes behave
The center of the Milky Way twinkles in microwave radiation, seen in new data obtained by astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile. This study could help explain the behavior of supermassive black holes found throughout the Cosmos. Supermassive ...
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Satellite galaxies could help physicists test a new dark matter theory
Dark matter is thought to make up roughly 85 percent of all matter in the observable Universe, but little is known about ...
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Hubble telescope discovers Galaxy-ripping quasar tsunamis in space
Quasar tsunamis discovered by astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope erupt in the most energetic outflows of material ...
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New research sheds light on the big bang that was bigger than the Big Bang
The largest explosion ever seen in the history of the Universe ripped through a plasma cloud hundreds of millions of years ...
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Scientists have discovered strange objects orbiting our galaxy’s black hole
Every major galaxy is home to a supermassive black hole, and our own Milky Way is no exception. Astronomers recently ...
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An ancient, dying galaxy could help astronomers learn more about the Milky Way
The most distant dying galaxy known to astronomers contains nearly one trillion stars, making this family of stars ...
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Something is killing galaxies, and scientists don’t understand why
In the most extreme regions of the universe, galaxies are being killed. Their star formation is being shut down and astronomers ...
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This exoplanet challenges our understanding of planet formation
The discovery of yet another exoplanet is no longer news. More than 4,000 planets around other stars have now been found ...
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Spoiler alert: Here's how The Milky Way dies
Our neighboring galaxy, Andromeda, is a cold-blooded killer and a cannibal to boot. In about 4 billion years it's going to ...
