Milky Way

A blip of light in the outer reaches of the Milky Way might be a bizarre black hole born at the beginning of time itself—and the long-sought solution to the mystery of dark matter. Astronomers are calling it “Phoebe”

Deep surveys of the sky have turned up galaxies vastly larger than our own. Are there even bigger ones yet to be seen?

Our galaxy and its nearest large companion, Andromeda, may be headed for a collision on a cosmic scale. What happens then?

The sun rode a massive galactic migration wave to the Milky Way’s suburbs

The “Seven Sisters” of the Pleiades are part of a much larger complex that can help reveal our galaxy’s deep history

Comets don’t just orbit our sun. “Exocomets” are common around other stars in the galaxy, too

Centuries before other galaxies were known to exist, astronomers called them “spiral nebulas.” Today the defunct term still sparks confusion

Observations show the disk of our galaxy is not flat but warped and waving. Astronomers are still working out the reasons why

Huge eruptions from the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole in the distant past may have sterilized much of the inner galaxy

Gauging the mass of a black hole is tricky, but astronomers have devised multiple methods to measure the heft of these galactic gluttons

Astronomers think small space rocks from beyond our solar system routinely strike Earth—but proving it isn’t easy

Gaia, Europe’s Milky Way–mapping spacecraft, shut down earlier this year. It was arguably the most important—and most overlooked—astronomy project of the 21st century