Milky

If you want to stay grounded—which is to say, you want a haunting reminder of your own diminutive size and mortality—do I have the tool for you. Meet Galactic Compass: an app which will point the user towards the whopping black hole at the center of our galaxy, Sagittarius A*.How Dave Bautista Raised His Game For Dune: Part TwoAs you read this article, you are hurtling through space on a spinning, wobbling sphere, which is itself spinning around a hot ball of gas at the center of our solar system. But if you zoom much,…

This artist’s illustration shows a cross-section of Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole near the center of our Milky Way galaxy. Researchers, led by Ruth Daly at Penn State, determined that the black hole is spinning at about 60% of its potential speed. Credit: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss Researchers revealed that the black hole’s spinning speed could provide an ‘incredibly powerful kick’ to surrounding matter.The supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way is spinning so quickly it is warping the spacetime…

The Radcliffe Wave next to our sun (yellow dot), inside a cartoon model of the Milky Way. Blue dots are clusters of baby stars. The white line is a theoretical model by Ralf Konietzka and collaborators that explains the current shape and motion of the wave. The magenta and green lines show how the wave will move in the future. Credit: Ralf Konietzka, Alyssa Goodman, and WorldWide TelescopeAstronomers report oscillation of our giant, gaseous neighbor.A few years ago, astronomers uncovered one of the Milky Way’s greatest…

The supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way may look more like a football than a circle, new research suggests. The new study, which appears in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, suggests that the Milky Way’s black hole is spinning so fast that it’s actually warping space-time.“Our work may help settle the question of how fast our galaxy’s supermassive black hole is spinning,” said Ruth Daly, lead author of the new study. “Our results indicate that Sgr A* is spinning very rapidly,…

This artist’s illustration shows a cross-section of the supermassive black hole and surrounding material in the center of our galaxy. The black sphere in the center represents the event horizon of the black hole, the point of no return from which nothing, not even light, can escape. Looking at the spinning black hole from the side, as depicted in this illustration, the surrounding spacetime is shaped like an American football. The yellow-orange material to either side represents gas swirling around the black hole. This…

Name: The Saltburn bath bomb.Age: Brand new.Appearance: Milky. Salty.I don’t know what Saltburn is. OK, we’ll start at the beginning. Saltburn is a film written and directed by the Oscar-winning film-maker Emerald Fennell, about a young man who causes chaos when he’s invited to stay at a stately home.What does this have to do with bath bombs? Ah, this is going to be difficult to explain if you haven’t seen the film. Tell you what, it’s streaming on Amazon at the moment. Go and watch it, then come back in about 50…

The James Webb Space Telescope continues to astound astronomers with new images of the universe not possible with other instruments. A recently released gallery shows stunning details of 19 nearby spiral galaxies that are similar to our own Milky Way.In an ongoing project called PHANGS (Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby Galaxies), recent galaxy images taken by Webb will be combined with images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope's MUSE (Multi-Unit…

Researchers have mapped the magnetic fields in a Milky Way spiral arm, discovering significant variations from previous galactic models. This groundbreaking study, leveraging advanced telescopes and the Gaia satellite, shows that galactic magnetic fields, particularly in the Sagittarius arm, are more complex and influential in star formation than previously thought, offering new insights into the evolution of galaxies.A team of astronomers including those from the University of Tokyo created the first-ever map of magnetic…

 New research by MIT reveals that stars at the edge of the Milky Way move slower than anticipated, implying the galaxy’s core may contain less dark matter, challenging current astronomical theories. Credit: SciTechDaily.comMIT’s study shows outer Milky Way stars rotate slower, indicating a lighter core with less dark matter, contradicting previous assumptions.By clocking the speed of stars throughout the Milky Way galaxy, MIT physicists have found that stars further out in the galactic disk are traveling more slowly than…

Astronomers, through a decade-long infrared survey, have discovered a new type of elderly giant star and numerous protostars in the Milky Way. This groundbreaking study, revealing stars that periodically emit smoke and undergo outbursts, provides new understanding of stellar evolution and elemental distribution. (Artist’s concept.) Credit: SciTechDaily.comNew types of stars, including ‘old smokers’ and erupting protostars, have been discovered in the Milky Way. This research, using advanced telescopes, challenges existing…