Milky Way Archives

This plot shows currently known exoplanets, with different categories highlighted. Roman will help fill in the bottom-right of the plot by finding small worlds in large orbits. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Astrochemistry, Astronomy & Telescopes, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gas Giants, Ice Giant, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Press Release

NASA’s Roman Mission Preps to Unveil New Populations of Faraway Worlds

by Keith CowingMay 29, 2026May 29, 2026

NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is poised to make a major leap in the hunt for worlds outside our solar system, known as exoplanets. Scientists expect the mission to […]

A three-color image of the CygX region constructed from SPHEREx mosaics. In this image, blue is 1.13–1.19 μm, green is 2.9–3.20 μm (containing the H2O ice absorption feature), and red is 4.75–5.1 μm. Continuum emission from warm dust extends across the image, as evidenced by the extended orange clouds. Dark lanes are seen where the dust and H2O ice absorption are the strongest. Red sources appear in these dark lanes where there are background sources or embedded young stars shining through the dust. Blue stars are seen in regions with lower extinction or are foreground objects. -- The Astrophysical Journal

Astrochemistry, Astronomy & Telescopes, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biophysics, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Interstellar, Press Release

Astrochemistry Update: SPHEREx Maps Vast Galactic Ice Regions

by Keith CowingApril 15, 2026April 15, 2026

NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization, and Ices Explorer) mission has mapped interstellar ice at an unprecedented scale.

A 15x15 Full Frame Image cutout centered on the target star TIC 92223525 (green star). The red dots represent the neighboring stars in the Gaia DR3 catalog with Tmag

Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

Searching For Extragalactic Exoplanets: A Survey Of The Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy Stream With TESS

by Keith CowingFebruary 20, 2026February 20, 2026

To date no exoplanets have been detected outside the Milky Way, and their extragalactic occurrence rates are poorly constrained. Using available data from TESS we perform the first transit survey […]

Computer simulation of a Milky Way-like galaxy from the Auriga suite, cycling between views of the stars, the gas coloured by iron (Fe) abundance, and the gas coloured by magnesium (Mg) abundance. The galaxy has developed a large, flat gas disc that forms a thin disc of young and blue stars. The gas disc was thicker in earlier stages, producing an older and redder population of stars in a thicker stellar disc. A scale bar in the lower-left corner indicates the size of the galaxy. For comparison, the Sun lies about 8 kiloparsecs (kpc) from the centre of our own Milky Way. This image shows the gas disc in a computer simulation of a Milky Way-like galaxy from the Auriga suite. Colours represent the ratio of magnesium (Mg) to iron (Fe), revealing that the galactic centre (pink) is poor in Mg, while the outskirts (green) are Mg-rich. These chemical patterns provide important clues about how the galaxy formed. Milky Way-like galaxy simulation Credit: Matthew D. A. Orkney (ICCUB-IEEC)/Auriga project. Video https://drive.google.com/file/d/1liC_qyPJuXGSyK0u4tkLwoDkoCJ3zH9G/view Licence type Attribution (CC BY 4.0)

Astrochemistry, Astronomy & Telescopes, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Interstellar, Press Release

New Study Sheds Light On The Milky Way’s Mysterious Chemical History

by Keith CowingDecember 10, 2025December 10, 2025

Clues about how galaxies like our Milky Way form and evolve and why their stars show surprising chemical patterns have been revealed by a new study.

VOYAGERS target stars were selected from 47,864 GES members following several screening steps. Available stellar properties were used to screen to 156 candidates. TRES spectra were then used to identify 41 candidates that would be best for a precision RV survey. Our initial survey includes 11 high priority main sequence (R/R⊙ < 2.5) and 11 more evolved (R/R⊙ < 7.5) targets. We plan to focus more observations on 10 main sequence targets for upcoming observations. -- astro-ph.EP

Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Interstellar, Status Report

Searching For Exoplanets Born Outside The Milky Way: VOYAGERS Survey Design

by Keith CowingNovember 12, 2025

Observations over the past few decades have found that planets are common around nearby stars in our Galaxy, but little is known about planets that formed outside the Milky Way.

Using the James Webb Space Telescope’s (JWST) Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), researchers detected organic molecules with more than six atoms frozen in ice around a young star called ST6 forming in the neighboring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud. The full galaxy is shown in the far-infrared image in the top right inset. The main image is the zoom-in on the star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud hosting the protostar ST6. It is a combination of mid-infrared data from Spitzer and visible (H-alpha) data from the 0.9-m Curtis Schmidt Telescope. The Webb’s MIRI image at a wavelength of 19 microns in the main inset shows the protostar ST6. Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/JPL-Caltech/M. Sewiło et al. (2025)

Astrochemistry, Astronomy & Telescopes, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biophysics, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Interstellar, Origin & Evolution of Life, Press Release

Building Blocks Of Life Located In Ice Around A Forming Star In A Neighboring Galaxy

by Keith CowingOctober 21, 2025October 21, 2025

In a discovery that could reshape our understanding of how the chemical ingredients for life spread throughout the cosmos, astronomers detected organic molecules with more than six atoms frozen in […]

Current and forthcoming constraints on radio line broadcasts in M31 (left) and three example Virgo cluster ellipticals (right), assuming that all broadcasts in each galaxy have the same EIRP ℓ. The G17 observations of M31 exclude the red shaded region, while example future observations with FAST and GBT are in blue and green, respectively. Solid shading applies to individualist constraints when δM = 0, and hatched shading is for the noise confusion limit at high δM (vertical for M49, diagonal for M31 and M87, horizontal for M59). -- astro-ph.GA

Astronomy & Telescopes, Intelligence & Language, Interstellar, SETI & Technosignatures, Status Report

Artificial Broadcasts as Galactic Populations: II. Comparing Individualist and Collective Bounds on Broadcast Populations in Single Galaxies

by Keith CowingOctober 8, 2025October 8, 2025

The search for extraterrestrial intelligence includes efforts to constrain populations of artificial broadcasts in other galaxies.

iss073e0516005 (Aug. 23, 2025) -- NASA larger image

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Press Release, Space Stations

The Milky Way Looms Above The Atmospheric Glow Of a Habitable Planet

by Keith CowingSeptember 6, 2025September 6, 2025

The Milky Way appears above Earth’s bright atmospheric glow in this photograph from the International Space Station.

Time-averaged chemical evolution of the studied species across all second stage models, as defined in Tab. 2. Line styles and shading follow those in Fig. 1. Only gas-phase abundances above the detectable threshold (X > 10−14) are considered. Changes in abundance, including both enhancement and depletion, generally follow the timescales seen in the average temperature profiles (see Fig. 1). In models of protostellar objects, the species that most frequently dominates over the others is HCN, whereas in shocks, CH3OH is the most dominant during the shock phase, while SiO takes over in the post-shock phase. -- astro-ph.GA

Astrochemistry, Astronomy & Telescopes, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biophysics, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Interstellar, Status Report

Chemical Templates Of The Central Molecular Zone. Shock And Protostellar Object Signatures Under Galactic Center Conditions

by Keith CowingAugust 15, 2025August 15, 2025

(Abridged) The Central Molecular Zone (CMZ) of the Milky Way exhibits extreme conditions, including high gas densities, elevated temperatures, enhanced cosmic-ray ionization rates, and large-scale dynamics. Large-scale molecular surveys reveal […]

Distance vs. Stellar Mass for over 15,000 known galaxies out to 50 Mpc (Ohlson et al. 2024). Galaxies are colorcoded by their Hubble “T” Type, with early type galaxies T < 0 and late-type galaxies T > 0. The three stellar luminosity depth limits – RGB, sub-Red Clump, and sub-oMSTO – are shown as lines, corresponding to the distances where they are achievable for massive galaxies, and color-coded according to Fig. 1. The distances for these 3 depths achievable with HST and JWST are shown as dashed lines, while those achievable with HWO are shown as solid lines. The increase in galaxy diversity accessible from JWST→HWO is striking. The color bimodality of galaxies (e.g., Baldry et al. 2004) is visible within HWO’s reach, as is the Virgo Cluster which is notable as a vertical line of enhanced density. -- astro-ph.GA

Astronomy & Telescopes, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report, Stellar Cartography

Resolving Individual Stars in Nearby Large Galaxies with the Habitable Worlds Observatory

by Keith CowingJuly 5, 2025July 5, 2025

The varied and dynamic evolutionary histories of galaxies give rise to the stunning diversity in their properties that we observe in the present-day universe.

Milky Way

NASA’s Roman Mission Preps to Unveil New Populations of Faraway Worlds

Astrochemistry Update: SPHEREx Maps Vast Galactic Ice Regions

Searching For Extragalactic Exoplanets: A Survey Of The Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy Stream With TESS

New Study Sheds Light On The Milky Way’s Mysterious Chemical History

Searching For Exoplanets Born Outside The Milky Way: VOYAGERS Survey Design

Building Blocks Of Life Located In Ice Around A Forming Star In A Neighboring Galaxy

Artificial Broadcasts as Galactic Populations: II. Comparing Individualist and Collective Bounds on Broadcast Populations in Single Galaxies

The Milky Way Looms Above The Atmospheric Glow Of a Habitable Planet

Chemical Templates Of The Central Molecular Zone. Shock And Protostellar Object Signatures Under Galactic Center Conditions

Resolving Individual Stars in Nearby Large Galaxies with the Habitable Worlds Observatory

Juice Astrobiology Mission To Fly Past Earth For Third Gravity Assist

Planetary Health Check 2026 Finds Mounting Pressures Across Earth’s Life Support Systems – Reports And Proceedings

Prebiotic Peptide Formation Triggered By Urea-rich Warm Little Ponds On Early Earth

Thyles Rupes Region Of Mars

Do Himalayan-style Mountains Lie Under The Antarctic ice: Implication For The Gondwana Supermountains, The Rise Of Oxygen And The Cambrian Explosion?