SUNSET: 
Seeing the Far Side of the Milky Way
The detection of a star-forming region 66,500 light-years from Earth, on the other side of our galaxy’s center, lends weight to the existence of an extended arm of the Milky Way.
Total Solar Eclipse: All-Sky Maps
Wondering what you'll see during the total solar eclipse on August 21st? Use our all-sky maps to figure it out!
Milky Way May Be Made with Swapped Gas
High-powered simulations suggest that half of the material in the Milky Way could come from other galaxies.
Artificial Neural Network Finds Speeding Stars
Astronomers found six runaway stars when they applied a neural network to data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission, which is set to map a billion stars across the Milky Way and beyond.
Exploring the Minispiral at the Milky Way’s Center
The region around Sgr A*, the 4-million-solar-mass black hole at the heart of our galaxy, is a complex and dynamic place. New Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) observations of the Milky Way’s center now reveal more about this harsh, inhospitable environment.
Watch Milky Way’s Stars Move 5 Million Years into the Future
Astronomers have transformed star data from the Gaia and Hipparcos missions into a video that predicts stellar motions millions of years from now.
Origin of Our Galaxy's Most Distant Stars
The most distant stars discovered in the Milky Way might have been ripped away from a companion galaxy.
New Mass Estimate for the Milky Way
Astronomers have observed the motion of distant star clusters to measure our galaxy’s mass. The new estimate places the Milky Way in the lightweight class of galaxies.
Top 12 Astronomy News Stories of 2016
From the discovery of gravitational waves to the building evidence that a massive planet could exist beyond Pluto, it has been a thrilling year for astronomy research. We recap.
Astronomers Map Milky Way in Incredible Detail
Astronomers have mapped neutral atomic hydrogen, which profuses the space between stars, in unprecedented detail to create a beautiful radio-wavelength portrait of the Milky Way.
Cloud Punches Hole in Milky Way
An intergalactic cloud has slammed into the Milky Way Galaxy and left a big hole.
Milky Way's New Neighbor: A Giant Dwarf
Astronomers have discovered a “feeble giant”: one of the largest dwarf galaxies ever seen around the Milky Way.
Speedy Stars Weigh Milky Way’s Dark Matter Halo
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a . . . pair of hypervelocity stars? The surprising stellar duo may place constraints on the mass of our galaxy’s unseen dark matter halo.
Galactic Archaelogy in the Milky Way Halo
The motions of thirteen stars in our galaxy’s halo outline a shell-like structure, perhaps the remains of an ancient galactic collision.
A Cold New View of the Milky Way Galaxy
A stunning submillimeter mosaic of the Milky Way Galaxy captures a portrait of the cold dust and gas swirling along the galactic plane.
A Galaxy Hit-and-Run
Ripples found in the Milky Way’s disk reveal our galaxy survived an ancient hit-and-run. Now, astronomers might have caught the culprit.
Charting 70,000 Stars in the Milky Way
Astronomers have created an age-map of 70,000 stars spanning our galaxy, ushering in a new era of galactic archaeology.
Our “Magnetic” Black Hole
Astronomers have detected magnetic fields writhing around the Milky Way's central black hole.
Star-Counting in the Galactic Bulge
Astronomers have taken a careful census of the smallest stars in our galaxy’s center.
Milky Way: Young Stars in an Old Bulge
The presence of stars just 100 million years old in the Milky Way Galaxy’s central regions confirms our galaxy’s nonviolent past.