Small, rocky planets can coalesce around a wide variety of stars, suggesting that Earth-like alien worlds may have formed early and often throughout our Milky Way galaxy's history, a new study reveals ...

The Milky Way as a laboratory for civilizations Any attempt to chart alien societies has to start with the structure of The Milky Way itself, a disk roughly 100,000 light years across with hundreds of ...

A NASA astrophysicist has recently proposed a theory that could potentially resolve the long-standing Fermi Paradox. The theory suggests that alien civilizations may be scattered sparsely throughout ...

New supercomputer simulations suggest the Milky Way could be surrounded by dozens more faint, undetected satellite galaxies—up to 100 more than we currently know. These elusive "orphan" galaxies have ...

Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. A collision between ...

An unusual collection of stars may represent the remnants of a dwarf galaxy that the Milky Way devoured about 10 billion years ago. Astronomers have dubbed the ancient galaxy Loki, after the Norse god ...

Get ready, stargazers: The Milky Way could be coming to a sky near you. Our galaxy is positively teeming with billions of stars that become bright and vibrant in the cosmos at certain times of the ...

Scientists have uncovered the true boundary of the Milky Way’s star-forming region using stellar “age mapping.” They found a telltale U-shaped pattern showing that star formation drops sharply around ...

The Milky Way galaxy's bright center is most visible in the United States from March to September. No special equipment is needed to see the galaxy, but dark skies away from city lights are essential.