Variable Stars and The Great Debate : Short Wave : NPR

This infrared image from NASA Spitzer Space Telescope shows hundreds of thousands of stars crowded into the swirling core of our spiral Milky Way galaxy.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

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NASA/JPL-Caltech

This infrared image from NASA Spitzer Space Telescope shows hundreds of thousands of stars crowded into the swirling core of our spiral Milky Way galaxy.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

It may seem obvious now that other galaxies lie beyond the Milky Way, but less than 100 years ago, some astronomers held a view of our universe that was a little more … self-centered. In the 1920s, astronomers were locked in the “Great Debate” — whether Earth was center of the universe and if the universe was just the Milky Way. Today, Scientist in Residence Regina G. Barber talks to Dr. Vicky Scowcroft about the stars that ended astronomy’s Great Debate.

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