Galactic Map Shows the Chemical Composition of the Milky Way
	The most detailed map of the chemical composition of the galaxy we live in has been recently released by the research team of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, after completing the study of a population of stars extending on a radius of more than 30,000 light years around the Sun. "This compilation of the compositions of more than 2.5 million stars in the Milky Way will greatly enhance our understanding of our galactic home, and likel ... [read more >>]
	13 June 2008, 09:47GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Forgotten Galaxy Found to Be Supernova Remnant in Milky Way
	When it was first discovered in the 1980s the deceptive shape of the object known as G350.1-0.3 indicated that it was most likely a background galaxy. Since nobody ever bothered to study it more closely, the object remained forgotten until recently when observations with ESA XMM-Newton X-ray Space Observatory revealed a shocking discovery. Not only that G350.1-0.3 is not a galaxy, but it is also one of the brightest and youngest supernova ... [read more >>]
	11 June 2008, 05:55GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Milky Way Could Lose Two Arms
	Since the days of radio observations, astronomers believed that the Milky Way galaxy, in which our solar system is located, has four spiral arms wrapped around the central galactic nucleus. But radio observations are only able to detect concentrations of gas in the galaxy and what previously appeared to be two spiral arms can’t seem to show up at all in a recent investigation carried out in the infrared spectrum with NASA's Spitzer Sp ... [read more >>]
	04 June 2008, 02:41GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Milky Way Was Weighed Again
	Our galaxy contains about 1 trillion solar masses, says a recent estimation regarding the weight of the Milky Way. All previous estimates showed that the galaxy has a mass ranging between 750 billion to over 2 trillion times that of our Sun, the latter being slightly favored and probably closest to the true weight. However, a team of astronomers using a new method to calculate the mass of the Milky Way showed that in fact the galaxy is jus ... [read more >>]
	28 May 2008, 03:51GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Mass Extinctions Blamed on the Sun's Path Through the Galaxy
	As it travels through the Milky Way, the Sun experiences a periodical oscillation in relation to the galactic plane, meaning that the solar system intersects with some of the densest areas of the galaxy. This in turn can send comets and asteroids our way and determine catastrophic impacts with the Earth, such as that which killed the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago. The same impacts could help spread life to other regions of the galaxy ... [read more >>]
	13 May 2008, 09:31GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

ESA Spying on WMAP in Preparation for Gaia
	How does the ESA prepare for the launch of a new probe? Well, apparently, by taking several pictures of its partner's spacecraft. ESO's La Silla 2.2 meter telescope was recently used by three researchers to photograph NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, orbiting Earth from a distance of 1.5 million kilometers. The two missions have separate scientific objectives, with NASA WMAP probe having the role of making observ ... [read more >>]
	09 May 2008, 09:15GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Oldest Objects in the Universe, Not So Old After All
	Globular star clusters are believed to be amongst the oldest objects in the universe, some with ages exceeding 13 billion years. They can be usually found in the company of other galaxies as satellites, containing several million stars packed into a very small volume of space. Because they contain some of the first stars in the universe, globular clusters are extremely important for cosmologists. The problem is that according to a recen ... [read more >>]
	29 April 2008, 03:33GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Space Ghosts
	The discovery of what appears to be yet another case of cosmic cannibalism between a massive galaxy and a dwarf one, similar to that between the Milky Way and the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy satellite, confirms the prediction of the cold dark matter model of cosmology, stating that large spiral galaxies formed through merges between less massive stellar systems. The evidence was found between two galaxies in the Local Group, present ... [read more >>]
	16 April 2008, 09:25GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Drifting Star Linked to Birthplace
	Iota Horologii is a yellow-orange star, located about 56 light-years away from Earth, in the Horologium constellation, and one of a large population of stars drifting through the Milky Way in the same general direction. New observations conducted with the help of one of ESO's 3.6 meter telescopes proved that in fact Iota Horologii is moving away from the Hyades star cluster. Previous studies of the star revealed that it is o ... [read more >>]
	16 April 2008, 03:45GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Milky Way's Black Hole Awoke Three Centuries Ago
	With the help of observations made with NASA, JAXA and ESA's X-ray satellites, astronomers revealed that the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy, dubbed Sagittarius A*, suffered a massive outburst some three centuries ago. Sagittarius A* is about 4 million times more massive than the Sun, however the energy emitted while 'feeding' is several billion times weaker than the energy emitted by similar su ... [read more >>]
	16 April 2008, 02:52GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Milky Way Eats Its Neighbors for Breakfast
	It's not the first time – and probably not the last either – when your galaxy commits acts of cannibalism against its smaller companions orbiting around it. Researchers from the Research School of Astronomy at the Australian National University reveal that they have discovered debris of a possible encounter between Milky Way and a dwarf galaxy, when the satellite galaxy was swallowed by our own. "The stars we have f ... [read more >>]
	08 April 2008, 02:42GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Dark Matter Lost Once Again
	Dark matter is believed to be responsible for more than 70 percent of the total mass of the universe, however somehow we can't find any, even while regular matter represents only 4 percent of the total mass. This means only two things: either dark matter presents weak interactions towards ordinary matter or dark matter doesn't exist at all. Right now researchers from the St Andrews University are more inclined to take into consid ... [read more >>]
	07 April 2008, 10:24GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Medium Black Hole May Be Hiding in Omega Centauri
	Omega Centauri is one of Milky Way's most massive globular star cluster, located about 17,000 light years away from Earth and containing several millions of stars. Evidence suggests that there may be a massive object in its core, with tremendous gravitational pull, possibly a medium-sized black hole with a mass estimated at about 40,000 solar masses. Usually, globular star clusters are held together only by the collective [ADMARK= ... [read more >>]
	02 April 2008, 10:32GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Sagittarius B Contains a Billion Billion Billion Liters of Alcohol
	Now here is an ideal place where one could open a pub! Too bad it's 26,000 light years away from Earth, not to talk about the fact that the substance in question is not even drinkable. According to a research conducted back in 2001 by a group of researchers from the National Science Foundation, the Sagittarius B molecular gas cloud contains absolutely massive amounts of vinyl alcohol, which could point towards the origin of ... [read more >>]
	13 March 2008, 05:05GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Astronomers Find Scaled Solar System
	The newly discovered solar system lies 5,000 light years away from Earth and seems to contain two gas giants slightly smaller that the two biggest planets in our solar system, Jupiter and Saturn, evidence that solar systems similar to our own might be more abundant in the Milky Way than previously thought. One of the planets has about 70 percent of the mass of Jupiter, while the other has a mass of about 90 percent of that of Sat ... [read more >>]
	28 February 2008, 04:07GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Map of Nearby Galaxy Reveals Incredible Star Formation Process
	The Milky Way and even its sister galaxy Andromeda have long passed their phase of peak star formation activity, nonetheless it doesn't necessarily mean that the other galaxies in the Local Group did it as well. Take for example the Triangulum Galaxy, better known to astronomers as M33, a spiral galaxy two times smaller in diameter than the Milky Way and ten times less massive. A new ultraviolet image taken with the help of ... [read more >>]
	27 February 2008, 05:18GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Milky Way Already Colliding with Magellanic Clouds!
	Astronomers from CSIRO have recently discovered, with the help of radio telescopes at Parkes and Narrabri, that gas coming from the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds is penetrating through the material disk of the Milky Way right over to the other side. Such gas flow observations may eventually provide data that would reveal the ultimate fate of the little galaxies, in the near vicinity of our Milky Way. The leak of matter was dubbed H ... [read more >>]
	04 February 2008, 10:56GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Rogue Speeding Star Comes from LMC, Scientists Say
	In 2005, astronomers discovered a star traveling away from the Milky Way at hypervelocities, thus they argued that it must have somehow been ejected from the central regions of the galaxy during interactions with the supermassive black hole. However, HE 0437-5439 posed a great mystery. How could a 35-million-year-old star travel a distance that would usually take at least 100 million years to complete at the current speed of the star? ... [read more >>]
	28 January 2008, 11:08GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

A Closer Look Into Milky Way's Black Hole
	All known spiral galaxies have supermassive black holes at their center and our Milky Way is no different. However, observing a black hole is rather a difficult task, especially when it is situated in regions of space populated by large amounts of matter such as those in the galactic nuclei of active galaxies. The best observation ever of the Milky Way's black hole was conducted by observing the effects produced on the mater ... [read more >>]
	17 January 2008, 02:47GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

How to Put Together a Milky Way
	For the ground-based telescopes they look just like any other stars, while the Hubble Space Telescope reveals that these distant objects are actually massive clouds of dust and gas, factories for some of the first stars ever to shine light in the universe. These primitive galaxies, dating more than 12 billion years into the past, are relatively small compared to most of the fully developed galaxies and present an active process o ... [read more >>]
	09 January 2008, 06:15GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Strange Spiral Galaxy Unwinds Arms in Both Directions!
	Spiral galaxies such as our Milky Way are believed to unwind their arms inwards in the spinning directions; however, it seems that not only this is not always the case, but some can also present arms unwinding towards inner and outer regions regardless of the spinning direction of the galactic disk. The original paper containing the controversial new findings was published in 2002, but at the time the international astronomic com ... [read more >>]
	09 January 2008, 04:21GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Gigantic Black Hole Blasts Neighboring Galaxy with Deadly Particle Jet
	The destructive jet particle emission is originated in the supermassive black hole situated in the center of the largest galaxy in the system, 3C321, and extends all the way to the closest galaxy about 20,000 light years away. This is the first jet particle emission observed originating in a galaxy and traveling all the way to the next. Such emissions of matter are quite common in the universe, mostly observed in young forming stars and ... [read more >>]
	18 December 2007, 02:55GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Unbelievable: Galaxy Spins Both Ways!
	As we all know by now, our solar system is located in one of the arms of a spiral galaxy, which we call the Milky Way, that is part of a collection of galaxies known as the local group. Original studies on the Milky Way and the galaxies in its vicinity showed that spiral galaxies consist of a massive core composed of thousands of stars packed around a supermassive black hole, surrounded by a thin disk of matter stretching hundreds of thous ... [read more >>]
	13 December 2007, 02:50GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Milky Way's Red Colors
	The Milky Way, our home galaxy, a collection of more than 200 billion stars emitting light in all directions, is now being probed, in the hope that we will find more stars in their early stages of life, which would reveal how our own sun formed, and stars in the dawn of their lives that might share their secrets related to black holes, quasars or neutron stars. The survey initiated by IPHAS studies the stars located in close proximity ... [read more >>]
	11 December 2007, 06:43GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Messier 31: This Week's 'Star'
	The full moon lunar phase has passed, thus it's time to go back to watching the night sky, to observe some of the most amazing objects in the universe. The Andromeda galaxy, or M31 as it is also known, the closest galaxy to our Milky Way, will pass directly over our heads this week, every day between 7:30 and 8 pm. It was first described by the Persian astronomer Abd-al-Rahman Al-Sufi in 964 in his Book of Fixed Stars, but it might ... [read more >>]
	03 December 2007, 02:52GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Young Galaxies Reveal How the Milky Way Evolved
	An astronomer once estimated that, if someone counted every grain of sand existing on all the beaches on Earth, it would not be enough to equal the enormous number of galaxies observed in the visible universe. But even with such a high number of galaxies visible on the sky, young galaxies that can reveal how the spiral galaxies form are extremely hard to find. For the first time, a team of astronomers observed galaxies that might have acte ... [read more >>]
	28 November 2007, 02:14GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

M31 Puts a new Spin on Dwarf Galaxies
	The discovery of a new fast moving dwarf galaxy, named Andromeda XIV, which seems to orbit our closest spiral galaxy, Andromeda, also known as M31 amongst astronomers, questions again the scientists’ calculations regarding the mass of M31, and may provide new information about the nature of such rogue galaxies and their role in galaxy formation. The dwarf is only the latest of recent discoveries of small galaxies present in the so-calle ... [read more >>]
	22 November 2007, 02:21GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Provox Games Rolls Out Patch Online for SpaceForce - Rogue Universe
	Using the player feedback received so far, as far as SpaceForce: Rogue Universe is concerned, the game's developer, ... [read more >>]
	26 July 2007, 08:52GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia