Every observation out into deep space is also a look back in time. Whenever you observe an object, you aren’t viewing it in its present state. When one of Jupiter’s moons […]
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If you look into a mirror, you’ll notice that left-and-right are reversed, but up-and-down is preserved. The reason isn’t what you think.
Infrared, visible, and ultraviolet combine to show us Jupiter’s features as never before. The largest planet in our Solar System, Jupiter, is our own ‘failed star.’ The best evidence-based classification scheme […]
Scientists find an exoplanet whose strange behavior may lead to the Solar’s System hidden ninth planet.
Sun-like stars live for around 10 billion years, but our Universe is only 13.8 billion years old. So what’s the maximum lifetime for a star?
Researchers hypothesize that these exoplanets could support the development of alien life.
Both views are equally spectacular, but unequally informative. Every so often, a creative amateur project highlights our professional achievements. This mosaic shows the region between the constellations of Cygnus and […]
Hubble’s deepest views of space revealed fewer than 10% of the Universe’s galaxies. James Webb will change that forever.
We confidently state that the Universe is known to be 13.8 billion years old, with an uncertainty of just 1%. Here’s how we know.
What do we mean by a black hole’s size? A photon sphere? The minimal stable orbit? The event horizon? The singularity? Which one is right?
We’ve almost got the entire story. James Webb will put the last piece into place. In all of science, there are really only two ways that something can be “known” to […]
Even if you or I will never actually visit these distant worlds, we now know they exist. They should fill us with wonder.
For many years, cosmologists have claimed the Universe is 13.8 billion years old. A new paper says no, it’s 26.7 billion. How do we decide?
Radar astronomy is nothing new, but a new transmitter may give us unprecedented image resolution.
Before there were planets, stars, and galaxies, before even neutral atoms or stable protons, there was the Big Bang. How did we prove it?
Galaxies can have regions both hotter and colder than the background radiation of the Universe. When we talk about the depths of space, we get this picture in our heads […]
The controversy over the universe’s expansion rate continues with a new, faster estimate.
In the night sky for March of 2022, only stars and the Moon, not planets, will greet you. The real show, however, arrives just before dawn.
Finding out how the Universe grew up was the biggest science goal of JWST. This ultra-early proto-galaxy cluster is one amazing discovery.
A new study shows that the Bernardinelli-Bernstein Comet is much larger than previously thought — potentially the largest ever spotted.
Puerto Rico’s iconic telescope facilitated important scientific discoveries while inspiring young scientists and the public imagination.
The secret ingredient is violence, and it just might indicate that “moonmoons” aren’t as uncommon as most astronomers think.
The last image puts it all in perspective. Compared to what we find in our Solar System, galaxies are truly enormous. The Sun may be 109 times the diameter of […]
Gravitation, all on its own, can reveal what’s present in the cosmos like nothing else.
Galaxies can die if their star-making stuff is lost. But now it can find its way back.
The Crab Nebula goes back to 1054, opening a window into our cosmic past. On July 4, 1054, Chinese astronomers recorded a “guest star” in the Taurus constellation. A ‘guest star’ […]
The closest star system to Earth, just over 4 light-years away, has three stars and at least one Earth-sized planet. Is it time to go there?
‘Fast Optical Bursts’ will confound ground-based astronomy. As of 2021, planet Earth is currently experiencing the least pristine night sky in recorded history. Prior to the development of artificial lighting, […]
50% of stars are in Sun-like ‘singlet’ systems. The planetary nebulae we see just don’t line up. Around 7 billion years from now, our Sun’s life will end. As the Sun […]
Planets can emit radio waves. For the first time, we’ve picked them up from outside the solar system.