Our solar system is a passenger on a galactic rollercoaster. Part 2 reveals how the Sun, carrying Earth, orbits the Milky Way's core at 491,000 mph, completing a circuit every 230 million years. We ...

Rocky planets like our Earth may be far more common than previously thought, according to new research published in the ...

This interstellar vagabond is only the third large interstellar visitor that we have ever discovered — an asteroid or comet ...

A new explanation for the solar system's radioactive elements suggests Earth-like planets might be found orbiting up to 50 ...

There are plenty of awesome objects in the universe, made more marvelous by scientists’ ability to image and understand the laws and processes that make them possible. Each year, researchers make new ...

Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is home to multiple wonders. There is our biggest star, VY Canis Majoris, the column-like structures known as the Pillars of Creation, and, in the middle of it all, a ...

Recently, Pune researchers found a spiral galaxy similar to the Milky Way from the early universe. What is the striking ...

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the spiral galaxy Messier 77, also known as the Squid Galaxy. CREDIT: ESA/Hubble & NASA, L. C. Ho, D. Thilker. Get the Popular Science daily ...

And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. Sometimes, if the night is dark and clear enough, you can look up and see the Milky Way in its arc across the sky.

There’s a bit of a paradox about our galaxy: it’s both jam-packed with stars and cavernously empty. The Milky Way is crowded in the sense that it holds hundreds of billions of stars, as well as ...

Ever since humans started gazing at the heavens through telescopes, we have discovered, bit by bit, that in celestial terms we’re apparently not so special. Earth was not the center of the universe, ...

Gareth Dorrian does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond ...