It took more than 9 billion years for Earth to form: the only known planet housing life. But it could have happened much, much sooner. The cosmic story that unfolded following […]
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When two different techniques give two different results, either someone is wrong, or something incredible is happening. Imagine you were a scientist attempting to measure some property of the Universe. […]
Scientists just discovered 12 new moons orbiting the planet Jupiter, and they’re… interesting.
A case for looking beyond the planetary scientist’s (or even the astronomer’s) definition. Ever since 2006, when the International Astronomical Union (IAU) officially defined the term planet — introducing the term ‘dwarf […]
Signals from rare black hole-neutron star pairs could pinpoint rate at which universe is growing, researchers say.
NASA’s Chandra X-ray observatory has shown us the Universe like nothing else ever before. When it comes to the Universe, it mainly generates X-rays through high-temperature heating. X-rays from Chandra reveal […]
Dark matter’s naysayers latched onto one tiny puzzle. This new find may have solved it completely. Imagine the largest cosmic smashup you can. Take the largest gravitationally bound structures we […]
With thousands of discovered planets around stars beyond our own Sun, why haven’t we found the next Earth? Over the past 30 years, astronomers have gone from zero known extra-solar planets […]
The quest to find another Earth may be in vain.
Some galaxies might not have any dark matter. Here’s why you should care. There are two assumptions that everyone makes about the Universe for extremely good reasons, but they might not […]
With over 100 active science missions, from the Hubble Space Telescope to studying ice shifts on Earth, working at NASA can be a dream come true for any astronomer or astrophysicist.
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The other great spiral galaxy in the local group demonstrates why we’re #2, even in our own backyard. The Milky Way is our cosmic home, containing hundreds of billions of […]
The first planets were only gas. The second included rocky ones, but life wasn’t possible. Here’s how we finally got there. Here in the Universe today, potentially habitable planets are practically […]
If we want to reach for the stars, we have to start in our own backyard. By looking at the sky alone, we can see the apparent, angular sizes of […]
The cosmic story of us, from before the Big Bang until today, is a story that all of us share. Enjoy it, in just 200 words. In the beginning, there was […]
In the search for the youngest planet in the Universe, astronomers may have accidentally stumbled upon something entirely new. Growing up is hard to do in the Universe. In the great […]
What do we see from watching birds move across the country?
The brightest galaxies of all neither have the most stars nor the biggest black holes. Here’s how to solve the mystery. With some 400 billion stars burning steadily, the Milky Way […]
It’s either a cosmic mystery or a terribly mundane mistake. The Universe is expanding, and every scientist in the field agrees with that. The observations overwhelmingly support that straightforward conclusion, and […]
Proxima Centauri, our closest star, is more than 4 light years away. Reaching it under 10,000 years will be challenging; reaching it with living humans will be even harder.
The most surefire, easily-seen signature of life on Earth might be a cosmic red herring around other worlds. In our quest for life beyond the Solar System, it makes sense to […]
Hubble telescope celebrates 28 years of being a space sleuth with these dazzling images of the Lagoon Nebula, 4,000 light-years away.
Even before we have the James Webb Space Telescope, a controversy over when the first stars formed is growing. As far back as our most powerful telescopes have ever looked, we’ve […]
A new study may change the face of astrophysics.
NASA’s 28-year-old workhorse is still lighting up our knowledge and imagination of the Universe. A generation ago, Hubble opened its eyes on the great cosmic abyss: viewing the depths of […]
In 2015, the ultra-distant galaxy CR7 was measured to have hydrogen and helium, but no carbon or oxygen. With new ALMA observations, there’s carbon after all. As brilliant as our Universe’s […]
It’s rare but spectacular when the Moon passes in front of another planet. Here’s how to see it. From our perspective on Earth, the night sky appears virtually unchanged with the […]
‘Luck’ is the wrong word. The Universe cooperated, but we gave ourselves the opportunity by being prepared. It was already 28 years ago that the Hubble Space Telescope was launched […]