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A group of astronomers comprising the Pristine Inner Galaxy Survey (PIGS) just found a large group of ancient stars circling the galaxy’s center in surprisingly orderly fashion.What Is Planet Nine and Why Can’t We Find It?The astronomical team’s work is the largest set of detailed observations yet taken of these very old metal-poor stars orbiting near the core of the Milky Way. The research was presented this week at the National Astronomy Meeting 2023 at the University of Cardiff. “It is exciting to think that we are…

A little under 13 billion years ago, a large blue star lit up the early cosmos.Across countless light years of expanding space that light has shone, reduced to shadow wherever it met dust and rock.  What little remained of those ancient photons was pulled out of shape by the growth of space itself, warping and bending as it skirted the gravity wells of interceding stars and galaxies.Finally, earlier this year, some of this light fell upon the lens of a telescope orbiting a small, water-logged planet, giving us a look at…