On Jan. 15, 2025, the Gaia spacecraft took its last image. Then the craft ran a final round of engineering tests, fired its ...

Hypervelocity stars have, since the 1920s, been an important tool that allows astronomers to study the properties of the ...

Gaia data reveals signs of planets forming around young stars by measuring stellar motion, identifying planetary, brown dwarf, and stellar companions in early star systems ...

The best time to view the Milky Way in the Northern Hemisphere is from March to September. The Milky Way, our home galaxy ...

The Milky Way galaxy, comprised of billions of stars, will be visible in the night sky until the end of May, particularly between the last quarter moon (May 20) and the new moon (May 30). Light ...

The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), one of the Milky Way’s closest companions, continues to astonish astronomers with its ...

In September, the sky gets dark significantly earlier, allowing us to observe the stars without having to stay up so late. The Milky Way is in prime viewing position this time of the year. Around 9 ...

New supercomputer simulations suggest the Milky Way could be surrounded by dozens more faint, undetected satellite galaxies—up to 100 more than we currently know. These elusive "orphan" galaxies have ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. An award-winning reporter writing about stargazing and the night sky. A panoramic image of the Milky Way over the fromations of ...

New simulations of Milky Way-like galaxies reveal that the strange split between two chemically distinct groups of stars may arise from several very different evolutionary events. Bursts of star ...

Fig. 2: The Radcliffe wave. The clouds that comprise this structure are highlighted in red and superimposed on an artist's illustration of the Milky Way. The location of the Sun is highlighted by the ...

The Milky Way is most prominent in the summer months in the Northern Hemisphere, with the Cygnus star clouds and Summer Triangle being notable features. Mid-northern latitude observers face challenges ...