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 ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. An award-winning reporter writing about stargazing and the night sky. When will the Milky Way collide with the Andromeda Galaxy?

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 ...

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 ...

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.

"Milky Way season," when our galaxy's bright center is most visible, is now beginning in the Northern Hemisphere. The best time to see the Milky Way in the U.S. is generally from March to September.