Milky Way

A new map of the Milky Way has discovered that 30 percent of the galaxy's stars are wanderers, making major shifts in their orbits during their lifetimes. Vanderbilt post-doc Jonathan Bird played a major role in the study. Read More

The influential Sloan Digital Sky Survey is launching a major new program called SDSS-IV this month, and Vanderbilt astronomers are directly involved. Read More

Two astronomers from Vanderbilt and Georgia Tech, sharing a car after a snowstorm canceled their flights home from a conference, put together everything they had learned at the conference during that snowy drive and worked out that a collision between two black holes could explain most of what is known of a violent episode in the Milky Way's past. Read More