The Milky Way Galaxy
Our Work
Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian astronomers use many methods to study the Milky Way:
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Measuring precise distances and 3-dimensional motions for massive star-forming regions in the disk of the Milky Way in order to map out its spiral structure and determine its overall size and rotation speed. CfA astronomer Mark Reid is leading an international team of astronomers on the BeSSeL project, which uses Very Long Baseline Interferometry to measure extremely precise trigonometric parallaxes and proper motions for maser sources within massive star forming regions.
Measuring the Distance to the Far Side of the Galaxy -
Looking for the remnants of the galaxies the Milky Way is built from. We know our galaxy grew by merging from smaller galaxies, because traces of that history are visible. That process continues today as the Milky Way strips stars from its satellite galaxies, producing “tidal streams” and other measurable effects.
Farthest Stars in Milky Way Might Be Ripped from Another Galaxy -
Tracing the history of Sgr A* and the way it affects the rest of the galaxy. While our supermassive black hole is quiet today, astronomers have found signs it hasn’t always been that way. Studying the cycles of activity in Sgr A* helps us understand the behavior of supermassive black holes in other galaxies.
Milky Way Had a Blowout Bash 6 Million Years Ago -
Capturing the first image of a black hole’s “shadow”: a dark region surrounded by a ring of light. The Event Horizon Telescope is a globe-spanning virtual observatory monitoring Sgr A*, designed to study the shape of the black hole’s event horizon, the boundary beyond which nothing can escape.
Event Horizon Telescope Reveals Magnetic Fields at Milky Way's Central Black Hole
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Hunting for hidden structures in the Milky Way that reveal its history. Astronomers using NASA’s Fermi Gamma Ray Observatory discovered two huge bubbles of hot material extending from the center of the galaxy. These are likely either relics of a more active period in the life of Sgr A*, or the outbursts from rapid star formation earlier in the Milky Way’s history.
Astronomers Find Giant, Previously Unseen Structure in our Galaxy -
Observing hypervelocity stars flung out by the supermassive black hole. These stars, which are moving at very high speeds, were probably once part of a binary system that drifted too close to Sgr A*. The gravitational interaction pulled the binary apart, kicking one of the pair out of the Milky Way entirely. Studying these runaways reveals important clues about the stars in the galactic center, including how often they are affected by the black hole.
Hyperfast Star Was Booted From Milky Way
Learning From Our Own Galaxy
On a dark clear night, the Milky Way is a strikingly beautiful stream of light stretching across the sky. Every culture has assigned it a name and meaning, but the word that stuck for scientists came from Greek mythology: galaxy is derived from the word for milk. Over the centuries, astronomers recognized that the stream runs all the way across the sky because we’re inside it.
In the early 20th century, Harvard College astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt discovered the relationship between the period of fluctuation and the brightness of a type of star called a Cepheid variable. That discovery let astronomers map the Milky Way well enough to know roughly how big it was, and locate its center. With the discovery that “spiral nebulae” were other far-off galaxies, our place in the universe was established: we live in one galaxy much like many others.
Today, astronomers study the Milky Way to understand its history, structure, contents, and our place in the galaxy.
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Like most other large galaxies, the Milky Way harbors a supermassive black hole at its center. Known as Sagittarius A* — abbreviated as Sgr A* — this galaxy is about four million times the mass of the Sun. While it is fairly quiet today, astronomers have found traces of gas clouds and stars torn apart by Sgr A*. Some stars that wandered too close were flung out of the galaxy at high speed by the black hole’s gravity. Researchers study the feeding habits of Sgr A* to understand how these supermassive black holes behave. The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) captured an image of the black hole in the nearby galaxy M87, and is collecting data to do the same for Sgr A*.
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The part of the Milky Way containing the Sun is the disk, which is a thick platter of stars, gas, and dust about 100,000 light-years across. The galaxy’s spiral arms are part of this disk, where the youngest and brightest stars of the galaxy live. Astronomers study the populations of stars and material between them to understand the evolution of the galaxy.
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The most massive part of the Milky Way and any galaxy is the halo, which is a roughly spherical region surrounding the galactic disk. This halo consists of two parts, which may or may not be related. The “dark” halo contains most of the galaxy’s mass, which takes the form of dark matter; astronomers infer the mass and properties of this part by how it affects the motion of stars in the disk. The stellar halo is much lower in mass, containing the oldest stars and star clusters in the galaxy. This part may be the remnants of other galaxies disrupted by the Milky Way’s gravity. For those reasons, the halo is important for understanding our galaxy’s overall behavior and interactions with other galaxies, as well as the nature of dark matter.
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The Milky Way contains stars that came from other galaxies, which merged with or were eaten by our galaxy. Astronomers have observed galactic thievery taking place right now, where the Milky Way is stripping stars and gas from its satellite galaxies, as well as traces of past interactions. Tracing populations of stars around the galaxy provide a history of these mergers and thefts, helping us understand both our own galaxy’s evolution and how this process works for other galaxies.
The Milky Way's supermassive black hole is quiet today, but observations indicate that wasn't always the case. This artist's impression shows the Milky Way as it may have appeared 6 million years ago during a "quasar" phase of activity.