News tagged with milky way galaxy

Transforming galaxies

(PhysOrg.com) -- Many of the Universe's galaxies are like our own, displaying beautiful spiral arms wrapping around a bright nucleus. Examples in this stunning image, taken with the Wide Field Camera 3 on ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created 8 hours ago | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Scientists chart high-precision map of Milky Way's magnetic fields

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) are part of an international team that has pooled their radio observations into a database, producing the highest precision map to date of ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Feb 03, 2012 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (11) | comments 9 | with audio podcast

Classic portrait of a barred spiral galaxy

(PhysOrg.com) -- The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has taken a picture of the barred spiral galaxy NGC 1073, which is found in the constellation of Cetus (The Sea Monster). Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Feb 03, 2012 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (7) | comments 3 | with audio podcast

Planets, planets everywhere: But researcher says finding life on these new discoveries is challenging

Recent discoveries have transformed scientific understanding of the galaxy, showing a Milky Way teeming with planets, some of them circling stars in bizarre configurations compared to the staid solar system, ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Jan 20, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (6) | comments 0

The Milky Way contains at least 100 billion planets according to survey

(PhysOrg.com) -- Our Milky Way galaxy contains a minimum of 100 billion planets according to a detailed statistical study based on the detection of three extrasolar planets by an observational technique called ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jan 12, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (5) | comments 1

Hubble zooms in on double nucleus in Andromeda galaxy

(PhysOrg.com) -- A new Hubble Space Telescope image centers on the 100-million-solar-mass black hole at the hub of the neighboring spiral galaxy M31, or the Andromeda galaxy, the only galaxy outside the Milky ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jan 11, 2012 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (6) | comments 14 | with audio podcast

Astronomers determine color of the Milky Way Galaxy

A team of astronomers in Pitt's Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences announced today the most accurate determination yet of the color of the (aptly named) Milky Way Galaxy: "a very pure white, almost ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jan 11, 2012 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (14) | comments 5 | with audio podcast

Iconic telescope renamed to honor founder of radio astronomy

(PhysOrg.com) -- The world's most famous radio telescope will become the "Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array" to honor the founder of radio astronomy, the study of the Universe via radio waves naturally emitted ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Jan 11, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

Stars pop onto the scene in new WISE image

(PhysOrg.com) -- This enormous section of the Milky Way galaxy is a mosaic of images from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE. The constellations Cassiopeia and Cepheus are featured in this ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jan 10, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 2

Herschel and Spitzer see nearby galaxies' stardust

(PhysOrg.com) -- The cold dust that builds blazing stars is revealed in new images that combine observations from the Herschel Space Observatory, a European Space Agency-led mission with important NASA contributions; ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jan 10, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 0

Not all who wander are lost

(PhysOrg.com) -- Some stars have orbits that take them to interesting places, and they have interesting stories to tell about how they were formed. For more than a decade, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Jan 09, 2012 | popularity 4 / 5 (2) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

Space Image: Fastest rotating star found in neighboring galaxy

This artist's concept pictures the fastest rotating star found to date.

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Dec 30, 2011 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (4) | comments 0

Spitzer and Hubble telescopes find rare galaxy at dawn of time

(PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers using NASA's Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes have discovered that one of the most distant galaxies known is churning out stars at a shockingly high rate. The blob-shaped galaxy, ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Dec 21, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (8) | comments 36 | with audio podcast

New insight into the bar in the center of the Milky Way

(PhysOrg.com) -- It sounds like the start of a bad joke: do you know about the bar in the center of the Milky Way Galaxy? Astronomers first recognized almost 80 years ago that the Milky Way Galaxy, around ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Dec 19, 2011 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (9) | comments 6 | with audio podcast

Disaster looms for gas cloud falling into Milky Way's central black hole

The normally quiet neighborhood around the massive black hole at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy is being invaded by a gas cloud that is destined in just a few years to be ripped, shredded and largely eaten.

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Dec 14, 2011 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (11) | comments 55 | with audio podcast

Milky Way

The Milky Way, or simply the Galaxy, is the galaxy in which the Solar System is located. It is a barred spiral galaxy that is part of the Local Group of galaxies. It is one of billions of galaxies in the observable universe.

Its name is a translation of the Latin Via Lactea, in turn translated from the Greek Γαλαξίας (Galaxias), referring to the pale band of light formed by the galactic plane as seen from Earth (see etymology of galaxy). Some sources hold that, strictly speaking, the term Milky Way should refer exclusively to the band of light that the galaxy forms in the night sky, while the galaxy should receive the full name Milky Way Galaxy, or alternatively the Galaxy. However, it is unclear how widespread this convention is, and the term Milky Way is routinely used in either context.

For more information about Milky Way, read the full article at Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.

Related topics: stars , planets