Scientists have unlocked the 3D structure of molecular clouds in the Milky Way’s center, using a groundbreaking X-ray technique. These cosmic clouds, vital for star formation, were illuminated by past ...

In the 1920s, astronomers thought that the Milky Way was the entire universe. Hubble's discovery revealed a much bigger ...

In 1920, astronomers Harlow Shapley and Heber Curtis held a Great Debate. Shapley argued that the spiral nebulae were small and in the Milky Way, while Curtis took a more radical position that they ...

"It's easy to romanticize Hubble and his discovery of the universe beyond the Milky Way galaxy, but his work really stood on the shoulders of a number of people," said Jeff Rich, an astronomer at ...

One of the largest galaxies ever found, the behemoth is about 1.44 billion light-years away and reckoned to be 32 times the size of our Milky Way ... in the background. The giant galaxy was ...

A - Clusters bright blue stars embedded within the galaxy, background galaxies seen much farther away, and photobombing by a couple bright foreground stars that are actually inside our Milky Way B ...

The Milky Way keeps its planets close to its chest. Stars in a thin, flat disk bisecting the galaxy have more planets ... They found that this background radiation was 1 million to 10 million ...

The Andromeda galaxy ... but there was no data to support this hypothesis. Island universes referred to the idea that there could be enormous stellar systems outside the Milky Way—but ...