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There is something strange happening in the core of the Milky Way. A space observatory measuring the energy and distribution of gamma-rays in the cosmos has made an unexpected (and perplexing) discovery. It would seem there is a very high proportion of gamma-ray photons emanating from our galactic core with a very distinctive signature; they have a precise energy of 511 keV (8×10-14 Joules), and there’s a lot of them. So what could possibly be producing these 511 keV gamma-rays? It turns out, 511 keV is a magic number; it is the exact rest mass energy of a positron (the...

Enlarge ImageFresh look.Recent surveys of the Milky Way show it contains a prominent central bar feature (bottom), distinguishing it from other galaxies of the classic spiral variety (top).Credit: (top) NASA/Spitzer Space telescope (bottom) NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (SSC/Caltech) The Milky Way Gets a Facelift By Phil BerardelliScienceNOW Daily News03 June 2008Forget what you thought the Milky Way looked like. The galaxy is far from the simple and elegant spiral-armed structure so often portrayed. New observations, presented today at the 212th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in St. Louis, Missouri, reveal, among other things, that the Milky Way is missing two...

Enlarge ImageYounger than it looks. Astronomers compared radio (left, blue) and x-ray images (red) of this supernova remnant to determine that the explosion had occurred only 100 years before.Credit: NRAO (radio)/Chandra (x-ray) U.S. and British astronomers have located the youngest known remnant of an exploding star in the Milky Way. The discovery might help researchers understand why our galaxy seems to have so few supernovas and where the raw materials of planets and life came from. The Milky Way is a perfectly ordinary spiral galaxy, except for a shortage of supernova activity. These titanic explosions, which mark the deaths...

Sun's Movement Through Milky Way Regularly Sends Comets Hurtling, Coinciding With Mass Life ExtinctionsA large body of scientific evidence now exists that support the hypothesis that a major asteroid or comet impact occurred in the Caribbean region at the boundary of the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods in Earth's geologic history. Such an impact is suspected to be responsible for the mass extinction of many floral and faunal species, including the large dinosaurs, that marked the end of the Cretaceous period. (Credit: Art by Don Davis / Courtesy of NASA) ScienceDaily (May 2, 2008) — The sun's movement through the Milky...

PARIS (AFP) - A black hole slumbering at the centre of our galaxy went into a "feeding frenzy" three centuries ago, the European Space Agency (ESA) said on Tuesday. Located around 26,000 light years from Earth, the black hole, known as Sagittarius A-star (Sgr A*), is a monster with a mass four million times that of the Sun. Japanese astronomers, using ESA's XMM-Newton orbital telescope and US and Japanese X-ray satellites, discovered that clouds of gas brightened and faded in X-ray light when they passed near Sgr A*'s maw, ESA said in a press release. The phenomenon is due to...

A mushroom-shaped hydrogen cloud rearing 1000 light years above the plane of our galaxy is the aftermath of a massive gas cloud that dive-bombed the Milky Way, new computer simulations suggest. The work explains why the cloud is unlike any other found so far. The cloud, called GW 123.4-1.5, was discovered in 1999 by Jayanne English of the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada, and colleagues, who found it in a radio survey of the galactic plane. Two explanations for its familiar shape were offered at the time – that the mushroom is a bubble of gas blown out by...

The cosmic cloud is heading for us at more than 240km/sA giant cloud of hydrogen gas is racing towards a collision with the Milky Way, astronomers have announced.Smith's Cloud, as it is known, may set off spectacular fireworks when it smacks into our galaxy in 20-40 million years. It contains enough hydrogen to make a million stars like the Sun, say experts, and its leading edge is already hitting gas from our galaxy. When it does hit, the cloud could indeed set off a new burst of star formation in the Milky Way. Details of the work, by a...

CHICAGO (AFP) - Hundreds of rogue black holes may be roaming around the Milky Way waiting to engulf stars and planets that cross their path, US astronomers said Wednesday. The astronomers believe these "intermediate mass" black holes are invisible except in rare circumstances and have been spawned by mergers of black holes within globular clusters -- swarms of stars held together by their mutual gravity. These black holes are unlikely to pose a threat to Earth, but may engulf nebulae, stars and planets that stray into their paths, the researchers said. "These rogue black holes are extremely unlikely to do...

Astronomers have spotted small galaxies near the beginning of time that resemble ancestors of our own galactic home. The tiny galaxies are about one-tenth to one-twentieth the size of the Milky Way and have 40 times fewer stars. Light from the ancient clusters was emitted about 2 billion years after the Big Bang, the theoretical beginning to the universe that occurred about 13.7 billion years ago. So the galaxies are seen as they existed in a very young universe. The galaxies are not the most distant seen by the Hubble Space Telescope, but astronomers consider them to be the best...

June 7, 2007 — The two heaviest stars ever have been discovered in the southern Milky Way galaxy. The double super heavyweights are actually in orbit around each other, and both break the record — 83 times the sun’s mass — for the most massive stars found to date. The heavier of the two weighs in at a whopping 114 "solar masses," while its little brother is 84 solar masses. The discovery was presented June 7 at the meeting of the Canadian Astronomical Society at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario. The two big bruiser stars, which...

In a cosmic game of pinball, black holes fling high-energy protons into space, where they zigzag around at near light-speeds before smashing into low-energy protons, finds a new study. Then the collisions send bursts of gamma rays flying out from the center of our galaxy, which explains for the first time the mechanism for the high-energy jets first spotted in 2004. This proton-slinging could explain more than this cataclysmic light show deep in our galaxy. The scientists suggest other black holes in the universe could rely on the pinball mechanism to produce enormous jets of light. “Our galaxy's central supermassive...

This false-color composite of the triple quasar system was made using a combination of Keck Observatory's and the European Very Large Telescope's visible and infrared data. S. G. Djorgovski and colleagues, Caltech, and EPFLOf all the known objects known in the universe, quasars probably deserves the most superlatives. These blazing cosmic beacons pack the energy of an entire galaxy’s worth of stars into a volume of space the size of our solar system. Until now, astronomers have found about 100,000 of these extraordinary objects, which are fueled by supermassive black holes devouring large clumps of matter. Most quasars are solitary...

CALGARY, ALBERTA--A newly detected stream of stars festoons the northern sky in a sweeping arc that cuts across the entire constellation of Ursa Major (through the Big Dipper), from just above the head of Leo the lion to the constellation Cancer the crab. Although it spans fully 63 degrees (one-third of the northern celestial hemisphere), the star stream escaped notice until now because its individual stars are far too faint to see with the naked eye. Also, they don't jump out as a readily discernible shape or pattern, like a cluster or constellation, amid the surrounding star fields. To snare...

Astronomers have found that a diffuse X-ray glow in our galaxy is not generated by hot gas but rather it's radiating from old stars that have yet to be counted. There could be roughly a billion stars we didn't know about in the Milky Way, they said Wednesday. The discovery, if confirmed, "would have a profound impact on our understanding of the history of our galaxy, from star-formation and supernova rates to stellar evolution," according to a statement released by NASA.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Milky Way is warped -- like a bowl, a saddle or the brim of a fedora hat, depending on when you look -- and a pair of interloping galaxies may be to blame, astronomers said on Monday. Earth is in a fairly non-warped neighborhood, because it lies relatively close to the center of the Milky Way's disk, said Leo Blitz of the University of California, Berkeley. But the far-flung reaches of the galaxy could be caught up in a warp of as much as 20,000 light-years. A light-year is about 6 trillion miles, the distance light...

Astronomers are reporting today that they have moved a notch closer to seeing the unseeable. Using a worldwide array of radio telescopes to obtain the most detailed look yet at the center of the Milky Way, they said they had determined that the diameter of a mysterious fountain of energy there was less than half that of Earth's orbit about the Sun. The result strengthens the case that the energy is generated by a black hole that is gobbling stars and gas, they said. It also leaves astronomers on the verge of seeing the black hole itself as a small...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Dozens of massive stars, destined for a short but brilliant life, were born less than a light-year away from the Milky Way's central black hole, one of the most hostile environments in our galaxy, astronomers reported on Thursday. On Earth, this might be a bit like setting up a maternity ward on the side of an active volcano. But researchers using the Chandra X-ray Observatory and other instruments believe there is a safe zone around black holes, a big dust ring where stars can form. Black holes, including the one at the center of our galaxy, are...

After creating the most detailed analysis yet of what the Milky Way looks like, astronomers say a long bar of stars cuts on an angle through the center of the galaxy that includes the sun and planet Earth. Some scientists have suspected the presence of the stellar bar, but the survey led by two Wisconsin astronomers shows the bar is far longer than previously believed, and at a specific angle. The skinny bar is made up of old and red stars and is about 27,000 light years in length, about 7,000 light years longer than previously believed. The bar is...

The Milky Way is not a perfect spiral galaxy but instead sports a long bar through its centre, according to new infrared observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Galaxies come in a wide variety of shapes usually thought to be produced by gravitational interactions with nearby objects. Some spiral galaxies look like pinwheels, with their arms curving out from a central bulge, while others have a straight bar at their centres. Radio telescopes detected gas that hinted at a bar at the heart of the Milky Way in the late 1980s. A decade later, observations with the near infrared survey...

An outcast star is zooming out of the Milky Way, the first ever seen escaping the galaxy, astronomers reported on Tuesday. The star is heading for the emptiness of intergalactic space after being ejected from the heart of the Milky Way following a close encounter with a black hole, said Warren Brown, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. The outcast is going so fast -- over 1.5 million mph -- that astronomers believe it was lobbed out of the galaxy by the tremendous force of a black hole thought to sit at the Milky Way's center. That speed...

SAN DIEGO -- A new study reveals that the center of our Milky Way Galaxy is loaded with black holes, as astronomers have expected in recent years. The galactic center is dominated by one supermassive black hole. It packs a mass equal to about 3 million Suns. Around it, scientists have expected to find a high concentration of stellar black holes, the sort that result from the collapse of massive stars. Each can be a few to many times the mass of the Sun. Observations have hinted at the existence of many stellar black holes near the galactic center. But...

Seven stars orbiting the region identify the invisible object. A second black hole lurks at the centre of our Galaxy, according to astronomers who have watched a cluster of stars spinning around it. Just three years ago, astronomers confirmed that the Milky Way revolves around a supermassive black hole, called Sagittarius A*, which is about 2.6 million times more massive than the Sun. But now a much smaller black hole, just 1,300 times our Sun's mass, has been found orbiting about three light years away from its supermassive cousin. Jean-Pierre Maillard, an astronomer from the Institute of Astrophysics in Paris,...

John McCain called Michael Moore a "disingenuous filmmaker" at the Republican National Covention. He did not know that Lard*ss was in the house. So, Lard*ss smiled, stood up, and gave the "L" for Loser sign. Today, the disingenuous filmmaker is in hiding. Have fun mocking him. He is one of the most disgusting human beings to ever be involved in the political process. Thanks to flashbunny for adding the appropriate word to the photo.

A 50-year-old map of the Milky Way will have to be redrawn after Australian astronomers made the astonishing discovery that our spiral galaxy has a huge, outflung arm, New Scientist reports. The vast gassy limb comprises an arc of hydrogen 77,000 light years long and several thousand light years thick, running along the Milky Way's outermost edge and sweeping around the four main arms that swirl out from the galaxy's core. As it is not in the visible part of the light spectrum, it cannot be seen by telescope. Astronomers at the Australia National Telescope Facility in the Sydney suburb...

French and Swiss astronomers say they have detected the farthest galaxy ever observed, a glimmer that dates back to when the universe was still in its infancy. The galaxy, dubbed Abell 1835 IR1916, is 13.23 billion light-years from Earth — beating by a chunk another galaxy that until now was believed to be the farthest known object, said France's state-funded National Center for Scientific Research, a major European research organizations. Because light from the new find took 13.23 billion years to reach us across the vastness of space, astronomers are seeing the galaxy as it was back then. The universe,...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2004 February 23 Heaven on Earth Credit & Copyright: Richard Payne (Arizona Astrophotography) Explanation: If sometimes it appears that the entire Milky Way Galaxy is raining down on your head, do not despair. It happens twice a day. As the Sun rises in the East, wonders of the night sky become less bright than the sunlight scattered by our own Earth's atmosphere, and so fade from view. They...

A tenth of the stars in the Milky Way may have planets that support advanced life, Australian scientists are planning to report in the journal Science. Astronomers have plotted a ring-shaped region of the galaxy where there might be Earth-like worlds old enough for life to have reached a high level of evolution. The Sun exists in this "Galactic Habitable Zone", which contains about 10 per cent of all the Milky Way's stars. Stars within the band have enough heavy elements to form Earth-like planets, are a safe distance from catastrophic supernova explosions, and have existed for at least four...

The nearest galaxy to our own Milky Way has been revealed. It is so close that the Milky Way is gradually consuming it by pulling in its stars. But it will be few billion years before it is entirely swallowed up. The previously unknown galaxy lies about 25,000 light years from Earth and 42,000 light years from the centre of the Milky Way, beyond the stars in the constellation Canis Major. It is twice as close to the centre of our galaxy than the previous record holder, the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy, which was discovered in 1994. Geraint Lewis, at the...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 September 28 Our Galaxy in Stars, Gas, and Dust Credit & Copyright: John P. Gleason, Celestial Images Explanation: The disk of our Milky Way Galaxy is home to hot nebulae, cold dust, and billions of stars. The red nebulae visible in the above contrast-enhanced picture are primarily emission nebulae, glowing clouds of hydrogen gas heated by nearby, bright, young stars. The blue nebulae are primarily reflection nebulae,...

Our Milky Way galaxy is gobbling up its galactic neighbor, Sagittarius, and on Wednesday, scientists offered documentary proof of this continuing cosmic cannibalism. Astronomers have mapped the Sagittarius galaxy to show in detail how its debris wrap around and pass through the Milky Way, which contains Earth. On its way to oblivion, the dwarf Sagittarius -- which is about 10,000 times the mass of the Milky Way -- is getting stretched, torn apart and ultimately eaten, scientists at the University of Virginia and the University of Massachusetts reported. "It's clear who's the bully in the interaction," Steven Majewski of the...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 August 25 The Northern Milky Way Credit & Copyright: Jerry Lodriguss (Astropix.com) Explanation: Many of the stars in our home Milky Way Galaxy appear together as a dim band on the sky that passes nearly over the Earth's north and south poles. Pictured above is the part of our Galaxy that passes closest over the north pole. Placing your cursor over the image will bring up the...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 July 12 X-Ray Milky Way Credit: D. Wang (UMass) et al., CXC, NASA Explanation: If you had x-ray vision, the center regions of our Galaxy would not be hidden from view by the immense cosmic dust clouds opaque to visible light. Instead, the Milky Way toward Sagittarius might look something like this stunning mosaic of images from the orbiting Chandra Observatory. Pleasing to look at, the gorgeous...

Rosie O' Donnell is turning her 'talents' to the canvas.The former talk show host is selling some paintings-some inspired by September 11, 2001-online and giving the proceeds to charity.The Scoop is not an art critic and thus will not comment..

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured , along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 March 7 The Star Trails of Kilimanjaro Credit & Copyright: Dan Heller Explanation: The night had no moon, but the stars were out. And camped at 16,000 feet on Mt. Kilimanjaro, photographer Dan Heller recorded this marvelous 3 1/2 hour long exposure. Here the landscape is lit mostly by the stars. Flashlights give the tents an erie internal radiance while the greenish glow of distant city...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 March 4 In the Center of the Lagoon Nebula Credit: A. Caulet (ST-ECF, ESA), NASA Explanation: The center of the Lagoon Nebula is busy with the awesome spectacle of star formation. Visible in the lower left, at least two long funnel-shaped clouds, each roughly half a light-year long, have been formed by extreme stellar winds and intense energetic starlight. The tremendously bright nearby star, Hershel 36, lights...

Case For Massive Black Hole Strengthened UCLA astronomer Andrea Ghez announced more than four years ago that a monstrous black hole resides at the center of our Milky Way galaxy, 24,000 light years away, with a mass more than 2 million times that of our sun. Some astronomers greeted the announcement with skepticism, and proposed exotic forms of matter as alternatives. At the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting Feb. 16 in Denver, Ghez reported that the case for the black hole has been strengthened substantially, and that all of the proposed alternatives can be excluded. "The case...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 February 17 Universe Age from Microwave Background Credit: WMAP Science Team, NASA Explanation: The above sky map tells us the universe is 13.7 billion years old -- but how? At first look, one only sees the microwave glow of gas from our Milky Way Galaxy, coded red, and a spotty pattern of microwaves emitted from the early universe, coded in gray. The gray cosmic microwave background is...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 January 25 Palomar 13's Last Stand Credit: M. Siegel & S. Majewski (UVA), C. Gallart (Yale), K. Cudworth (Yerkes), M. Takamiya (Gemini), Las Campanas Observatory Explanation: Globular star cluster Palomar 13 has roamed the halo of our Milky Way Galaxy for the last 12 billion years. The apparently sparse cluster of stars just left of center in this composite color digital image, it is one of the...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 January 8 X-Rays from the Galactic Core Credit: Fred Baganoff (MIT), Mark Morris (UCLA), et al., CXC, NASA Explanation: Using the orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers have taken this long look at the core of our Milky Way galaxy, some 26,000 light-years away. The spectacular false-color view spans about 130 light-years. It reveals an energetic region rich in x-ray sources and high-lighted by the central source, Sagittarius...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 January 7 Open Star Cluster M38 Credit & Copyright: NOAO, AURA, NSF Explanation: Open cluster M38 can be seen with binoculars toward the constellation of Auriga. M38 is considered an intermediately rich open cluster of stars, each of which is about 200 million years old. Located in the disk of our Milky Way galaxy, M38 is still young enough to house many bright blue stars, although it's...

Monday, 6 January, 2003, 17:58 GMTMilky Way's star 'doughnut' A ring of stars surrounds the Milky Way A vast, but previously unknown structure has been discovered around the edges of our galaxy, the Milky Way. The first large area surveys of the sky have revealed several hundred million stars surrounding the galaxy's main disc. The ring, which has the appearance of a giant doughnut, could be the remains of a satellite galaxy. Astronomers believe it could hold clues as to how the Milky Way and other galaxies evolved. Giant doughnutAn international team of astronomers looked at images of the Milky...

Dec. 26 — The funny thing about discoveries is that they often produce new mysteries, too. This year was no exception, as many remarkable space science findings generated puzzling problems for astronomers to look into. IN SOME CASES the puzzles are brand new. Other times a discovery merely confirms how little we knew. Either way, there’s plenty for astronomers to do. Here then are the Top 10 Space Mysteries that astronomers will be pondering in the New Year and beyond: 1. Dark energy: Nobody knows what the heck it is, but it is officially repulsive. And man, is it powerful!...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 December 23 Stars and Dust Through Baade's Window Credit & Copyright: David Malin (AAO), ROE, UKS Telescope Explanation: Billions of stars light up the direction toward the center of our Galaxy. The vast majority of these stars are themselves billions of years old, rivaling their home Milky Way Galaxy in raw age. These stars are much more faint and red than the occasional young blue stars that...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 November 9 A Cerro Tololo Sky Credit & Copyright: Roger Smith, AURA, NOAO, NSF Explanation: High atop a Chilean mountain lies one of the premier observatories of the southern sky: the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO). Pictured above is the dome surrounding one of the site's best known instruments, the 4-meter Blanco Telescope. Far behind the dome are thousands of individual stars and diffuse light from three...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 October 25 Journey to the Center of the Galaxy Credit: MSX, IPAC, NASA Explanation: In Jules Verne's science fiction classic A Journey to the Center of the Earth, Professor Hardwigg and his fellow explorers encounter many strange and exciting wonders. What wonders lie at the center of our Galaxy? Astronomers know of some of the bizarre objects which exist there, like vast cosmic dust clouds, bright star...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 October 18 At the Center of the Milky Way Credit: Rainer Schödel (MPE) et al., NACO, ESO Explanation: At the center of our Milky Way Galaxy lies a black hole with over 2 million times the mass of the Sun. Once a controversial claim, this astounding conclusion is now virtually inescapable and based on observations of stars orbiting very near the galactic center. Using one of the...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 September 23 The Milky Way Over Mount Blanc Credit & Copyright: Marc Sylvestre (Universia) Explanation: Have you ever seen the band of our Milky Way Galaxy? Chances are you have never seen it like this -- nor could you. In a clear sky from a dark location at the right time, a faint band of light is visible across the sky. This band is the disk of...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 September 18 A Sagittarius Starscape Credit & Copyright: David Malin (AAO), ROE, UKS Telescope Explanation: Many vast star fields in the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy are rich in clouds of stars, dust, and gas. First and foremost, visible in the above picture are millions of stars, many of which are similar to our Sun. Next huge filaments of dark interstellar dust run across the image...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 August 13 Contemplating the Sky Credit & Copyright: Sebastien Gauthier (Astrolab du Parc du Mont-Megantic) Explanation: Have you contemplated your sky recently? Last night was a good one for midnight meditators at many northerly locations as meteors from the Perseid meteor shower frequently streaked through. The Perseid meteor shower has slowly been building to a crescendo but should continue to be rewarding tonight and into the week....

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 July 19 Counting Stars in the Infrared Sky Credit: J. Carpenter, M. Skrutskie, R. Hurt, 2MASS Project, NSF, NASA Explanation: The bulging center of our Milky Way Galaxy, dark cosmic clouds, the thin galactic plane, and even nearby galaxies are easy to spot in this sky view. But each pixel in the digital image is actually based on star counts alone -- as derived from the Two...