Tag: Milky Way
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Euclid studies Milky Way center, supports future Roman observations
The European Space Agency (ESA) recently released a new picture of the center of the Milky Way galaxy, an area known as the galactic bulge. Containing over 60 million stars, the picture, taken by ESA’s Euclid space telescope, represents the largest and most detailed photo of this region to date. Euclid observed the area outside…
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How the Webb and Gaia missions bring a new perspective on galaxy formation
In a feat of galactic archeology, astronomers are using ever more detailed information to trace the origin of our galaxy—and to learn about how other galaxies formed in the early stages of the Universe. Using powerful space telescopes like Gaia and James Webb, astronomers are able to peer back in time and look at some…
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Spitzer gives scientists insights into black hole eating habits
Using data from NASA’s retired Spitzer Space Telescope, scientists have gained new insights into the eating habits of supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies throughout the universe. These black holes often fluctuate in brightness from the massive clumps of cosmic material falling into them. However, this is not true for the black holes…
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Researchers discover galactic shield of gas surrounding the Magellanic Cloud galaxies
The largest satellite galaxies of the Milky Way — the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds — have been undergoing a treacherous interaction for billions of years. As the galactic pair are pulled toward the Milky Way, they are constantly orbiting each other and unraveling themselves, creating massive trails of gaseous debris. Yet, the galaxies have…