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Space Exploration
2mins
We may be close to finding life beyond Earth. But would we even recognize it if we did? Astrobiologist Betül Kaçar explains what signs NASA is looking for.
Massive galaxy cluster Abell S1063, 4.5 billion light-years away, bends and distorts the space nearby. Here's what a JWST deep field shows.
Launched in March, the PUNCH mission has viewed two incredible coronal mass ejections, tracking them farther from the Sun than ever before.
Viewing Uranus's largest moons with Hubble, astronomers hoped to find darkening on the trailing side. They found the exact opposite instead.
The first galaxies were irregular blobs of gas and stars. But modern features, like spiral arms and bars, appeared earlier than expected.
If the Universe is 13.8 billion years old today, but different ages the farther we look back, what does it mean for a star to be the first?
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile will image the southern sky using the largest digital camera ever built.
For decades, astronomers have claimed the Milky Way will merge with Andromeda in ~4 billion years. Here's why, in 2025, that seems unlikely.
As US science faces record cuts to funding, jobs, and facilities, these 10 quotes help remind us how science brings value to us all.
It rotates on its axis, revolves around the Sun, moves throughout the Milky Way, and gets carried by our galaxy all throughout space.
Many were hoping that JWST would find the first stars of all. Despite many hopeful claims, it hasn't, and probably can't. Here's how we can.
18mins
“We are beginning to take our first steps out into the cosmic ocean… and the water seems inviting.”
Coming from just 280 million years after the Big Bang, or 98% of cosmic history ago, this new, massive galaxy is a puzzle, but not a mirage.
There's an old saying that "what you see is what you get." When it comes to the Universe, however, there's often more to the full story.
1hr 19mins
“We don't have enough knowledge to precisely calculate what is going to happen, and so we assign probabilities to it, which reflects our ignorance of the situation.”
NASA astrophysics, which gave us Hubble, JWST, and so much more, faces its greatest budget cut in history. All future missions are at risk.
Just 10 years ago, humanity had never directly detected a single gravitational wave. We're closing in on 300 now, with so much more to come!
The COSMOS-Web survey is now complete, combining JWST and Hubble infrared data. Its spectacular views show us the Universe as never before.
Long before the search for biosignatures, scientists imagined a cosmos teeming with intelligent life.
What happens when scientists "write what they know"? Some amazing science fiction stories.
8mins
"There is interesting ethical questions about how we should actually conduct ourselves in [a space colonization] exploration phase."
In this preview from "The Saucerian," author Gabriel Mckee explains how the combination of fantastical stories and obscure bureaucracy launched the “space age of the imagination.”
18mins
"There's a long history of people claiming planets which look Earth-like, Earth 2.0, Earth twins."
In all the known Universe, Earth is the only planet known to have native life. What should guide us in expanding humanity beyond our world?
After drastic cuts to the NIH, the FDA, the NSF, and the DOE, NASA science faces down its smallest budget ever. All of society will suffer.
Exoplanets can exist anywhere around their parent stars, even so close that they evaporate or disintegrate. Even the rocky ones.
We understand many things about our Universe, and our home within it, extremely well. The number of stars in the Milky Way isn't among them.
1hr 33mins
"Many astronomers are really driven by the search for Earth twins because I think deep down the natural endpoint of this whole goal of looking for planets is to answer the question, are we alone?"
For centuries, even after we knew the Sun was a star like any other, we still didn't know what it was made of. Cecilia Payne changed that.
Even from a single pixel, multiwavelength data taken over time can reveal clouds, icecaps, oceans, continents, and even signs of life.