A red giant star sitting in the Milky Way’s halo has been identified as the most chemically pristine star yet observed, and its orbital path suggests it did not form in our galaxy at all. The star, cataloged as SDSS J0715-7334,

Milky Way stars that are high and low in metallicity have been mapped by the ESA Gaia mission. Credit: ESA/Gaia/DPAC

Artemis II astronauts captured a stunning Milky Way photo from the Orion spacecraft during their lunar flyby on April 7, 2026. The clear, vibrant image, free from Earth’s atmosphere and light pollution.

A star drifting at the outermost reaches of the Milky Way has turned out to be the most chemically pristine stellar object yet identified, carrying almost no metals and preserving a chemical fingerprint from the earliest era of cosmic history.

The astronauts took turns looking out Orion's windows, capturing photos of the Moon's far side and Earth's crescent shape.

From your place inside the Milky Way, you are living within a galaxy that keeps a detailed chemical diary. Every star holds clues about when it formed and what the galaxy was like at the time. Over the past decade, data from the Gaia space telescope and ...

Astronomers discovered dozens of stellar streams in the Milky Way using Gaia data, offering new clues about galaxy formation and dark matter.

A group of undergraduate students stumbled into a cosmic time capsule—one of the oldest stars ever discovered—while combing through massive astronomy datasets. What began as a class project quickly turned into a breakthrough when they spotted an extraordinarily “pristine” star made almost entirely of hydrogen and helium,

Astronomers have identified dozens of stellar streams in the Milky Way, offering clues about the galaxy’s structure and hidden dark matter.

The center of the Milky Way, which is referred to as "the core," is best visible beginning in June across the Northern Hemisphere, when it's "visible as a faint band of hazy light arching across the sky all night, according to NASA scientist Preston Dyches.