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The Milky Way

This image shows the sky goddess Nut, covered in stars, held aloft by her father, Shu, and towering over her brother with her back to the earth. On the left the rising sun (the falcon-headed god Re) sails up Nut's leg. On the right the setting sun sails down its arms to the outstretched arms of Osiris, who will recreate the sun in the underworld during the night. Credit: EA Wallis Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians, Vol. 2 (Methuen & Co., 1904).

Secrets of the stars: Scientists reveal the hidden role of the Milky Way in ancient Egyptian mythology

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New research reveals how the Milky Way emphasized the role of Nut, the Egyptian sky goddess
Solidifying white dwarfs. Credit: The Science website via DALEE

Challenging the Cosmos: White Dwarfs That Aren't Completely Dead

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According to the new paper, in some white dwarfs, the dense plasma in the interior doesn't simply freeze from the inside out. Instead, the solid crystals that form upon freezing are less dense than the liquid, and therefore want to float, then push the liquid inside
An amusing representation of the TOI-1136 system if each of the bodies in the system were a duck or a duckling. Credit: Rae Holcomb/University of California at Irvine

The evolution of planets is revealed in a distant solar system

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A newly discovered solar system with six confirmed extrasolar planets and a possible seventh increases astronomers' knowledge of star formation and evolution
This image, showing an elliptical galaxy (left) and a spiral galaxy (right) includes nearby AA light from the James Webb Space Telescope and UV light seen from the Hubble Space Telescope. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Rogier Windhorst (ASU), William Keel ( University of Alabama), Stuart Wyithe (University of Melbourne), JWST PEARLS Team, Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

Explanation of a strange cosmic phenomenon: astrophysicists discovered why there are no spiral galaxies in our supergalactic plane

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Astrophysicists have discovered why spiral galaxies like our Milky Way are rare in the supergalactic plane, a dense region of our local universe
Harvard astronomers claim that the Milky Way's warped shape is due to an unbalanced halo of dark matter. This claim supports theories of a previous galactic collision and provides insights into the nature of dark matter. Credit: Stefan Payne-Wardenaar; Magellanic Clouds: Robert Gendler/ESO

Dark matter and galactic collisions: Harvard astronomers explain the mysterious curvature of the Milky Way

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The cause of this is a distorted dark matter halo
An artist's impression of a magnetar in an eruption, showing a complex structure of magnetic fields and beam emission, shown here after a crustal rupture event. Credit: McGill University Graphic Design Team

Astronomers discover a powerful short burst of radio radiation from a place relatively close to the Milky Way

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The close proximity of high-energy pulses suggests that magnetars may be the source of certain fast bursts of radio radiation
Imaging the supernova explosions of the first giant stars to form in the Milky Way. The star J0815 + 4729 formed from the material ejected by these first supernovae. Photo courtesy of Gabriel Perez, SMM (IAC).

Astronomers have detected amounts of oxygen in the atmosphere of an ancient star

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A merger of the Milky Way and Andromeda. Image: NASA; ESA; Z. Levay and R. van der Marel, STScI; T. Hallas; and A. Mellinger

The violent history of the Andromeda galaxy, which is on its way to collide with the Milky Way

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The early days of the solar system. Illustration: Credit: Gabriel Pérez Díaz, SMM (IAC

Scientists recreated the history of the Milky Way

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Bands of stars, from the Carnegie Institution video - credit Jonathan Gagné Jacqueline Faherty

Stars also like to fly in flocks

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Today's galaxy M32 was about 2 billion years ago the core of a larger galaxy M32P, the third largest galaxy in the cosmic neighborhood. Illustration: Illustration: Richard D'Souza.

Andromeda swallowed a large galaxy 2 billion years ago

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The sky of Gaia - in artificial colors. Photo: ESA/Gaia/DPAC

"Thanks to "Gaia" we know 1.7 billion stars in the Milky Way"

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The spaceship Gaia. Figure: European Space Agency

"Gaia's data could enable breakthroughs in astronomy"

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Artist's illustration of runaway stars that have managed to escape the gravitational pull of the Milky Way. Image: NASA

Two new "shooting stars" have been discovered

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(Courtesy of Stefan Gissar and ESO, European Southern Observatory).

The Milky Way as never seen before

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Laniakia supercluster. Source: R. Brent Tully et al, The Laniakea supercluster of galaxies, Nature 513, 2014.

Laniakia: Our exact address in the universe

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An X-shaped structure made of stars in the center of the Milky Way. Photo, WISE Space Telescope, University of Toronto

The WISE telescope discovered an X-shaped star bulge in the center of the Milky Way

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A merger of the Milky Way and Andromeda. Image: NASA; ESA; Z. Levay and R. van der Marel, STScI; T. Hallas; and A. Mellinger

Are our galaxy and neighboring galaxy Andromeda already touching and will collide sooner than we think?

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The Milky Way as photographed in 2008 by Yossi Khouri. At the bottom of the photo - the other participants in the observation using red lanterns to prevent light pollution and interference with the observation.

The Milky Way is currently hidden from about a third of humanity

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"The Great Attractor" - Illustration: Perks Radio Observatory

The "Great Attractor" mystery has (probably) been solved - hundreds of galaxies hidden behind the Milky Way have been discovered

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On the map, which you can see above, the focal point from which the lines come out is at the point where the earth is located. To his right the older stars (red) around the center of the galaxy and to his left the younger stars (blue) in the outer parts of the disk. As the researchers in the group say, the Milky Way galaxy has grown outward over time.

Not just the entire universe: the Milky Way galaxy is expanding outward over time

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An animation showing how the orbits of stars in the Milky Way may change. In the picture you see two pairs of stars (marked in blue and red). Each couple started their life on the same path and suddenly one of the stars in the couple changed its path. The star marked in red has completed its transition to its new orbit while the star marked in blue is still moving. Photo Credit: Illustration by Dana Berry/SkyWorks Digital, Inc.; SDSS collaboration

About a third of the stars in the Milky Way have moved

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A view of a cluster of young stars (million years old), known as the North American Nebula or the Plesian Nebula (top right). This is a clean and processed version of the original Spitzer Space Telescope image. NASA/JPL-Caltech. Illustration: shutterstock

New video: A high-resolution tour of the center of the Milky Way

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The Milky Way. Illustration: shutterstock

Raise the screen over a galaxy composed of dark matter

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Stars are running away. Graphics: Julie Turner, the top view of the galaxy is from NASA and the horizontal image is from the European Southern Observatory. Credit: Graphic design by Julie Turner, Vanderbilt University. The top view of the galaxy comes from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the side view comes from the European Southern Observatory.)

A surprising new type of ultra-fast stars escaping the galaxy

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