A cosmic anomaly detected in a distant galaxy could portend a terrifying future for life in the Milky Way. The discovery suggests that our models of galactic evolution could be inaccurate.

The Milky Way’s distinctiveness lies in its satellite ... Dark matter haloes are thought to play a crucial role in shaping galaxies by drawing in normal, baryonic matter to form stars and ...

In the background, the gassy, oblong Milky Way is visible. The Milky Way is seen edge-on, meaning that the photo looks across the galaxy’s diameter. The photo was taken with a camera using low ...

For comparison, the supermassive black hole in the Milky Way has about 4 million solar masses. Elsewhere in the universe, there are supermassive black holes with billions of times more mass than ...