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 ...

When interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS was discovered by the ATLAS survey telescope in Chile on July 1, 2025, it quickly attracted attention for more than just being the third known object from outside the ...

As a galactic archaeologist, my job is to reconstruct the past of our galaxy – and read the signs of its future.

If advanced aliens lived on a planet within a few hundred to a thousand light years away from Earth, then vast numbers of their signals must already have crossed Earth without being noticed, a new ...

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 ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. An award-winning reporter writing about stargazing and the night sky. A panoramic image of the Milky Way over the fromations of ...

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.