In 1920, astronomers Harlow Shapley and Heber Curtis held a Great Debate. Shapley argued that the spiral nebulae were small ...

In 1920, astronomers Harlow Shapley and Heber Curtis held a Great Debate. Shapley argued that the spiral nebulae were small and in the Milky Way, while Curtis took a more radical position that they ...

Visual observers and astrophotographers alike can find something amazing to observe along the plane of our galaxy.

For the next 300 years, astronomers assumed that the Milky Way was the entire universe. Charles Messier also produced a catalog of over 100 prominent nebulae in 1781. Messier was interested in ...

A new image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows a cosmic cloudscape, with clouds of dust and gas swirling in beautiful colors.

The Tarantula Nebula, also known as 30 Doradus, is revealed in an unusual light in this exceptionally deep Chandra X-ray ...

The footage, captured by the Hubble telescope, highlights the Tarantula Nebula. This fascinating region lies in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. A Star-Forming ...

Toward the end of the 18th century, astronomer William Herschel used star counts to map out the Milky Way. He cataloged a thousand new nebulae and clusters of stars. He believed that the nebulae ...

Nature of the nebulae In 1610, astronomer Galileo Galilei used the newly invented telescope to show that the Milky Way was composed of a huge number of faint stars. For the next 300 years ...