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Cosmic Microwave Background
The discovery of ultra-bright, ultra-distant galaxies was JWST's first big surprise. They didn't "break the Universe," and now we know why.
We see objects whose light only arrives just now. But we see them as they were in the past: when that now-arriving light was first emitted.
Our Universe isn't just expanding, the expansion is accelerating. Instead of dark energy, could a "lumpy" Universe be at fault?
Earth is actively broadcasting and actively searching for intelligent civilizations. But could our technology even detect ourselves?
Gravitational waves are the last signatures that are emitted by merging black holes. What happens when these two phenomena meet in space?
For nearly 60 years, the hot Big Bang has been accepted as the best story of our cosmic origin. Could the Steady-State theory be possible?
Two parts of our Universe that seem to be unavoidable are dark matter and dark energy. Could they really be two aspects of the same thing?
Since the mid-1960s, the CMB has been identified with the Big Bang's leftover glow. Could any alternative explanations still work?
NASA's space telescopes and observatories bring humanity unrivaled science images and scientific discoveries. Here's what should be next.
Today, the deepest depths of intergalactic space aren't at absolute zero, but at a chill 2.73 K. How does that temperature change over time?
The Universe has been creating stars for nearly all 13.8 billion years of its history. But those photons can't match the Big Bang's light.
If you think of the Big Bang as an explosion, we can trace it back to a single point-of-origin. But what if it happened everywhere at once?
The Universe is 13.8 billion years old, going back to the hot Big Bang. But was that truly the beginning, and is that truly its age?
Many contrarians dispute that cosmic inflation occurred. The evidence says otherwise.
The last infant stars are finishing their formation inside these pillars of gas. The evaporation of those columns is almost complete.
The Universe's history, from cosmic inflation to the Big Bang to the present, is known. But whether it's infinite or not is still a mystery.
Although the Big Bang occurred at an instant in time long ago, we still see the light from it. Will the evidence ever disappear completely?
There are two different ways to measure the expansion rate of the Universe, and they don't agree. And no, new measurements don't help.
For nearly 25 years, we thought we knew how the Universe would end. Now, new measurements point to a profoundly different conclusion.
This first-of-its-kind image offers a detailed look at the magnetic fields within the Central Molecular Zone.
In the 20th century, many options abounded as to our cosmic origins. Today, only the Big Bang survives, thanks to this critical evidence.
The Universe is 13.8 billion years old, going back to the hot Big Bang. But was that truly the beginning, and is that truly its age?
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!
You can only create or destroy matter by creating or destroying equal amounts of antimatter. So how did we become a matter-rich Universe?
To Fred Hoyle, the Big Bang was nothing more than a creationist myth. 75 years later, it's cemented as the beginning of our Universe.
Almost every large structure in the Universe displays a 5:1 dark matter-to-normal matter ratio. Here's how some galaxies defy that rule.
The Universe didn't begin with a bang, but with an inflationary "whoosh" that came before. Here are the biggest questions that still remain.
Early on, only matter and radiation were important for the expanding Universe. After a few billion years, dark energy changed everything.
On the largest cosmic scales, galaxies line up along filaments, with great clusters forming at their intersection. Here's how it took shape.
For every proton, there were over a billion others that annihilated away with an antimatter counterpart. So where did all that energy go?