“The Galaxy Report” provides summaries and links to headline news by leading science journalists about the amazing discoveries, technology, people, and events changing our knowledge of Planet Earth and the Cosmos beyond. Our caffine-inspired curation team scours the world, doing your work for you –all in one place.
“These pristine stars are among the oldest surviving stars in the Universe, and certainly the oldest stars we have ever seen,” said astronomer Louise Howes at The Australian National University (ANU), currently at Lund University, who was a member of a 2015 team along with the University of Cambridge, about the discovery of of stars that date from before the Milky Way Galaxy formed, when the Universe was just 300 million years old. The stars, found near the center of the Milky Way, are surprisingly pristine, but contain material from an even earlier star, which died in an enormous hypernova explosion. “Our Milky Way galaxy formed around them,” she added.
Astronomers have used the light-warping effects of gravity to spot a massive object OGLE-2016-BLG-1190Lb using NASA’s infrared Spitzer Space Telescope, 13 times the mass of Jupiter and orbits a star about 22,000 light years away. This new discovery of an absolutely massive planet residing in our galaxy’s “bulge” (image above) has scientists struggling to explain if it’s a huge unknown planet or a failed star.
