U.S. astronomers have announced that they have made the first definitive measurement of dark matter. They describe the shape indirectly observed as similar to a "squashed … cosmic beach ball."
According to Dr. Alan Boss, our Milky Way galaxy could contain one hundred billion Earth-like planets. However, he says very few of these planets would be able to support intelligent life. But, what about primitive (microscopic) life?
A new international study using the Very Long Baseline Array radio telescope found that our galaxy—the Milky Way—is spinning faster and is more massive than previously thought. Maybe one reason why it contains more matter is the discovery that it has four arms instead of two.
According to two astronomers from Harvard University, hundreds of black holes could be present in the Milky Way galaxy, and could help us answer the question: How were we formed?
Hawaii-California astronomers propose that an advanced civilization could have used Cepheid variable stars as a way to communicate to (what they call “tickling”) other neighbors in the galaxy.
American-German-Dutch astronomers combined radio telescopes in California, Arizona, and Hawaii to make a very long baseline interferometer (VLBI)--a "virtual" telescope. It was able to measure the structure within Sagittarius A*, what is believed to be the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way.