In 1932, the Dutch astronomer Jan Oort tallied the stars in the Milky Way and found that they came up short. Judging by the way the stars bob up and down like horses on a carousel as they go around ...

Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. There’s more to the Milky Way than meets the eye. The silvery ...

While analysing the complex structure of the Milky Way, an international team of astronomers from Italy and the United Kingdom has recently derived the shape of the Galactic outer stellar disc, and ...

For decades, astronomers have attempted to piece together the mystery of how galaxies, stars and planets formed from an empty universe. They recently stumbled upon a gargantuan system that formed just ...

Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Beyond the spiral arms of our galaxy lies a giant halo of hot gas ...

When looking it galaxies, it takes little to realize that they come in different shapes- whether they're swirling blue disks like the Milky Way, red spheres, or misshapen, clumpy messes. But why is ...

Astronomers have made a surprising discovery that challenges current theories of galaxy formation. A colossal disk-shaped galaxy, nicknamed the "Big Wheel," has been found just two billion years after ...

Before something like the Solar System can be born, things in the general neighborhood start out as something known as a protostellar disk. These objects are essentially flat accretions of dust and ...

The oldest disk-shaped galaxy ever spotted formed just 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang, a new study finds. That’s much earlier than astronomers thought that this type of galaxy could form.