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Galactic activity doesn’t just arrive when supermassive black holes feast on matter. Before, during, and after all create fascinating signs.

Astronomer Adam Frank reflects on some responses to his recent appearance on the Lex Fridman Podcast.

Despite many ultra-distant galaxy candidates found with JWST, we still haven’t seen anything from the Universe’s first 250 million years.

Finding life beyond our Solar System requires understanding its host planet.

There are only a precious few minutes of totality during even the best solar eclipses. Don’t waste yours making these avoidable mistakes.

Is gravity weaker over distances of billions of light-years?

The center of the galaxy doesn’t just host stars and a black hole, but an enormous set of rich gassy and dusty features. Find out more!

Individual space telescopes, like Hubble and JWST, revolutionized our knowledge of the Universe. What if we had an array of them, instead?

Dispatches host Kmele Foster is on a journey to understand humanity’s role in the cosmos. His first stop? The Atacama Plateau in Northern Chile, home to the darkest deserts and largest telescopes on earth.

Sometimes, going “deeper” doesn’t reveal the answers you seek. By viewing more Universe with better precision, ESA’s Euclid mission shines.

Asteroid 2024 YR4, which could devastate a city’s worth of humans, has gone from 1.2% to 2.3% to 2.6% to 3.1% chances of impact. Here’s why.

This first-of-its-kind image offers a detailed look at the magnetic fields within the Central Molecular Zone.

Seeking life beyond the Solar System, we first look to the closest star systems with Earth-like planets. Here’s why that’s not good enough.

Long before the search for biosignatures, scientists imagined a cosmos teeming with intelligent life.

Here in our Solar System, we only have one star: a singlet. For many systems, including the highest-mass ones, that’s anything but the norm.

Forget billions and billions. When it comes to the number of galaxies in the Universe, both theorists’ and observers’ estimates are too low.

For hundreds of millions of years, a cosmic fog blocked all signs of starlight. At last, JWST found the galaxies that cleared that fog away.

Size matters, but it’s not the only thing.

Dubbed “Valeriana” by researchers, the city of 50,000 peaked around 800 AD before being swallowed by the jungle.

With no other galaxies in its vicinity for ~100 million light-years in all directions, it’s as isolated and lonely as a galaxy can be.

Air currents in our atmosphere limit the resolving power of giant telescopes, but computers and artificial stars can sharpen the blur.

In July of 2022, the first science images from JWST were unveiled. Two years later, it’s changed our view of the Universe.

It is a story with nebulous beginnings and no discernible end.

Scientists may have detected the somewhat smelly chemical dimethyl sulfide on a planet 120 light-years from Earth.

Einstein’s theory of general relativity introduced the concept of space having a shape. So, what is the shape of space?

It’s a radical but plausible idea.

Nearly half of all stars are born in binary systems, with the most massive ones dying the fastest. It’s not pretty for the “second” star.

Stars are born, live, and die within the spiral arms of galaxies like the Milky Way. These 19 JWST spirals deliver unprecedented riches.

The 5th brightest star in our night sky is young, blue, and apparently devoid of massive planets. New JWST observations deepen the mystery.

The highest-energy particles could be a sign of new, unexpected physics. But the simplest, most mundane explanation is particularly iron-ic.