That’s because a bar-shaped collection of stars at the center of the Milky Way appears to be much younger than expected. The bar is a prominent feature of our galaxy ( SN: 6/25/21 ).

The galaxy's stars keep a record of its history. By reading those stories, astronomers are learning more about how the Milky Way came to be—and about the galaxy we live in today.

One hundred years ago, in 1923, the first Milky Way bar was made and sold in Minneapolis. Within a year, sales reached $800,000 — the equivalent of more than $14 million in today's dollars.

Milky Ways were originally presented as malted milk in candy bar form. The confection's galactic name, along with its connection to Mars bars, conjures images of the opalescent ribbon of stars ...

By situating stars in time and place, astronomers can retrace history and infer how the Milky Way was built, piece by piece, over billions of years. The first major effort to study the primordial ...

The Milky Way galaxy has a large halo, a central bulge and bar, a thick disk and a thin disk. Most stars are located in the so-called thin disk of our Milky Way and follow an organized rotation ...

On top of this, some spirals have a central bulge or bar from which the spiral arms extend. That makes astronomers’ conclusion that the Milky Way has four arms, something of a surprise. If it turns ...

Not only is Sagittarius easy to find, but it’s also in the direction of the center of our Milky Way galaxy, home of our sun and at least 200 other stars with […] Skip to content All Sections ...

The Milky Way galaxy has a large halo, a central bulge and bar, a thick disk and a thin disk. Most stars are located in the so-called thin disk of our Milky Way and follow an organized rotation ...