Search Results for: gaia

Scientists used the measured velocities of 44 globular star clusters to measure the mass of our home galaxy, the Milky Way.

Gaia satellite data revealed the galaxy, which has avoided detection until now, thanks to its extremely low density and hiding place behind the shroud of the Milky Way’s disk.

Only a small number of hypervelocity stars have ever been discovered. Now ESA’s Gaia mission has revealed 20 more.

Dyson spheres are hypothetical megastructures built by extraterrestrials for the purpose of harvesting all of a star’s energy. Here’s how the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission might help find one.

New research suggests that superflares – massive bursts of energy from a star’s surface – can happen on stars like our sun. What might that mean for us on Earth?

Analysis of data from the Gaia satellite shows a powerful burst of star formation – a stellar baby boom – in our Milky Way galaxy 2 to 3 billion years ago. This single burst might have created half the stars in the galaxy’s flat disk.

University of Michigan astronomers say a hyper-runaway star didn’t originate from the galaxy’s center, as previously believed. Instead, they say, a cluster of young stars booted it from the galaxy’s disk.

“This white dwarf is so old that whatever process is feeding material into its rings must operate on billion-year timescales,” said one of the scientists involved in the discovery.

Researchers used Gaia data to find a stellar stream of at least 4,000 stars that have been moving together in space since they formed, about a billion years ago.

The Andromeda galaxy is the nearest large spiral to our Milky Way. Astronomers have suspected for some time it will eventually collide with our Milky Way. Now – thanks to the Gaia satellite – they know more.

We think of globular clusters as being scattered far from the galaxy’s central regions, in the great spherical halo of our Milky Way. But astronomers are finding them much closer to the galactic center.

Last week, citizen scientists with Zooniverse’s Exoplanet Exoplorers announced K2-288Bb – a type of exoplanet considered rare so far. The finding might shed new light on how planets form.

Astronomers now have the 1st direct evidence that white dwarf stars form crystal cores. Our sun is destined to become a crystal white dwarf in about 10 billion years.

Astronomers are “99 percent confident” that this exoplanet is real and not a false detection. The planet for Barnard’s star – 2nd closest star system to our sun – appears to be a cold super-Earth.

Astronomers found a snail-shaped substructure of stars in our larger Milky Way galaxy. It indicates the Milky Way is still enduring the effects of a near-collision that set millions of stars moving like ripples on a pond.

The 1st object known to be from another solar system passed through our solar system a year ago. Where did it come from? Astronomers have identified 4 plausible candidates.

Earth is a water world, and a new study suggests there may be many more water worlds out there, including some larger and wetter than our planet.

Astronomers have discovered that the basic building blocks of some planetary systems are very similar to Earth’s elements, helpful information in the search for truly Earth-like planets in other solar systems.

Because it sucks in so much gas, this black hole appears ultra-luminous. If it sat at the center of our Milky Way, we’d see it shining 10 times more brightly than a full moon.

Is something unpredicted going on in the depths of space?

The New Horizons flyby of Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69 – a year from today, on January 1, 2019 – will be the most distant in the history of space exploration.

A new study uses data from ESA’s Gaia satellite to give the first systematic estimate of how often passing stars nudge comets from the Oort Cloud and send them plunging toward the inner solar system.