SUNSET: 
Lost in the Star Clouds — A Milky Way Odyssey
I share my "discovery" of a new Milky Way star cloud that's been staring at me for ages.
Astronomers Find the Edge of the Milky Way
Astronomers have located the edge of the Milky Way’s star-forming disk for the first time, showing that star formation is focused within 40,000 light-years of our galactic center.
Largest Image of Its Kind Will Solve Milky Way Mystery
Stars have a hard time forming in the extreme environment around our Milky Way’s black hole. New data promise to explain why.
Glowing Arc by Andromeda Might Be Remnants of a Dying Star
Discovered by amateur astronomers, a mysterious arc of gas might be the ghostly remains of a star shedding its outer layers. However, astronomers haven’t reached a consensus yet.
Meet the Seven Sisters’ 3,000 Lost Siblings
The Pleiades star cluster is part of a much larger complex that stretches across the entire sky, a new study shows.
Merged Stellar Pairs May Orbit the Milky Way’s Black Hole
The merged remnants of stellar pairs may orbit the Milky Way’s central, supermassive black hole.
A “Great Wave” Is Crashing through the Milky Way
Precise measurements of stars’ motions show that a wave is propagating outward from our galaxy’s center — perhaps from a long-ago collision with another galaxy.
Mystery Object in the Milky Way
Astronomers have found X-rays coming from a strange object that releases regular bursts of radio waves, shedding new light on what that object might be.
The Milky Way Returns to the Night Sky in a Tide of Starlight
The summertime Milky Way ascends in the east on May nights. Find a dark sky and let it take you away!
Planets Might Abound at the Center of Our Galaxy
The extreme environment at the heart of our galaxy ought to make forming stars and planets difficult, but new estimates show stars (and their planets) have no problems forming there.
A Pulsar Broke a Magnetic Thread in the Milky Way
Mysterious threads dangle in the Milky Way center, and a pulsar has punched through one of them — providing fresh perspective on the threads' origins.
Pulsars Yield Dark Matter Density in Our Galactic Neighborhood
A new technique to measure the motions of pulsars for the first time enables more precise estimates of local dark matter density.
Galaxy-mapping Gaia Satellite Ends Science Operations
After more than a decade in space, the European Gaia spacecraft will end its observations this week. Astronomers are still busy preparing final data blasts.
60-second Astro News: Black Holes and Funding Woes
In this week’s roundup, astronomers wait for a decision about their next-generation megascopes, wonder if big black holes hibernated early on, and find a stellar binary in a challenging environment.
Did the Milky Way Form Faster Than We Thought?
New research suggests that our galaxy’s first stars might have come together within a billion years after the Big Bang.
Astronomers Trace the Family Tree of Stars Clustered in the Solar Neighborhood
Astronomers have pressed rewind on a cosmic video of the solar neighborhood, tracing the origins of young star clusters within 3,000 light-years of the Sun.
Dwarf Star Caught Speeding; Could Escape the Galaxy
Citizen scientists discovered a star speeding through the Milky Way. Now, astronomers are trying to track down its origins.
Are These Baby Pictures of the Milky Way?
Newly detected stellar aggregations in the Milky Way could be the remnants of protogalaxies from its formation — or just resonances with the galaxy's bar.
Rethinking the Milky Way’s “Galactic Fountain”
The Milky Way recycles gas from dying stars to make new ones — but new observations show pristine gas also comes in from outside our galaxy.
Astronomers Find Stars Cast Away from Galactic Neighbors
After decades of searching, scientists have found stars accompanying the gas streaming from two smaller galaxies that orbit our Milky Way.
