First, they questioned Pluto. He's no longer a planet; he's just plain Mickey's pet now. Not really...and the space party's just getting started.

Not content with just reviewing planets, scientists have now gone on to bigger planes - literally. Their target: the Milky Way. No, don't worry. I don't think they're aiming to demote it as well to some nutty chocolate bar. What they're reviewing is the existing concept on how it all began.

The Milky Way is home to our Solar System along with at least 200-400 billion stars. The galaxy was tagged as milky given the hazy band of white light appearing across the celestial sphere visible from Earth, comprising of stars and other material lying within the galactic plane.

New study suggests that the Milky Way might not have formed through the merger of smaller galaxies, as previously believed. Rather, it was formed by some other yet unknown process. According to Manuela Zoccali of the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, "The Milky Way is the only galaxy in the universe that we can study in detail. Still, we haven't yet understood how it did form."

Based on current theoretical models, the formation was caused by dwarf galaxies getting larger and larger galaxies, as multiple star packs clumped together or a heftier galaxy started gobbling up its neighbors. However, "We have proved that this is not the case," said Zoccali. Because if it were, then the stars in the galactic bulge should have once been part of the disk.

Zoccali discovered, along with an international team of astronomers, that the stars at the center of the Milky Way showed distinct element amounts compared to the disk stars. This shows that the two galaxy components formed separately. They found this out using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) array in Paranal, Chile. "In other words, bulge stars did not originate in the disk and then migrate inward to build up the bulge but rather formed independently of the disk," she notes further.

The bulge that is stirring all these is the starry center protruding from the flattened disk.

Well, this certainly gives scientists a lot to think about in the coming years. I just kinda wish they also gave more thought to the name of that telescope.

The European Southern Observatory's Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) 12-meter sub-millimeter telescope is now online and providing scientists with clear views to the "Cold Universe."

New findings include the discovery of a new interstellar molecule, and the detection of light emitted from carbon monoxide molecules as well as two forms of a charged hydrogen molecules containing fluorine. The phenomenon  was discovered near the Orion nebula, one of the most active stellar nurseries in the Milky Way - and closest to our own solar system. This adds greatly to scientists' understanding of interstellar chemistry, and indicates that hydrogen fluoride is common in interstellar gas clouds.

APEX has also detected light from charged molecules of hydrogen and deuterium in several cold clouds in the southern hemisphere, as well as the first observations of atomic carbon in the "Pillars of Creation" region of the Eagle Nebula.

APEX went on to perform a sub-millimeter study of a massive hot core, of a high-mass star forming region, and a high velocity outflow coming from a young stellar object.

Studies of molecular regions in the galaxies NGC 6822 and NGC 253 were completed successfully, proving that APEX can also contribute to the exploration of objects outside the Milky Way Galaxy.

Millimeter and sub-millimeter astronomy is a field which deals with the study of the formation processes of stars and planets. The APEX telescope will allow astronomers to study the chemistry and physical conditions of molecular clouds - dense regions of gas and dust in which new stars are born.