Universe Expansion

Universe Expansion

An image of a spiral galaxy in space.
In 1924, Edwin Hubble found proof that the Milky Way isn't the only galaxy in the Universe.
A diagram showing the structure of a galaxy.
The Universe didn't begin with a bang, but with an inflationary "whoosh" that came before. Here are the biggest questions that still remain.
A bright light in the sky.
As planets with too many volatiles and too little mass orbit their parent stars, their atmospheres photoevaporate, spelling doom for some.
A tunnel is being constructed in a tunnel.
The DUNE project will beam tiny neutrinos across vast distances. But the first step involved moving a heavier material: 1 million tons of rock.
wormhole nasa illustration
Without wormholes, warp drive, or some type of new matter, energy, or physics, everyone is limited by the speed of light. Or are they?
A computer-generated image of a bright celestial object with an accretion disk, possibly representing what the sun looked like when it was born.
It took 9.2 billion years of cosmic evolution before our Sun and Solar System even began to form. Such a small event has led to so much.
Composition of the dark energy prominence universe showing percentages of dark energy, dark matter, and visible matter.
Early on, only matter and radiation were important for the expanding Universe. After a few billion years, dark energy changed everything.
Nasa's JWST captures spiral galaxies in a series of photos.
Stars are born, live, and die within the spiral arms of galaxies like the Milky Way. These 19 JWST spirals deliver unprecedented riches.
An image of a galaxy cluster.
If our Milky Way were located in the Virgo cluster instead of the Local Group, chances are we'd already be a "red and dead" galaxy.
The Milky Way, a galaxy in space filled with stars, grew up.
Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, is both completely normal and absolutely remarkable in a number of ways. Here's the story of our cosmic home.
An image of a red light shining on a dark background.
Millennia ago, philosophers like Anaximander grasped that nature is the ultimate recycler.
A digitally generated image of a glowing, elongated object framed by a translucent rectangle against a dark background with cosmic web-like structures.
On the largest cosmic scales, galaxies line up along filaments, with great clusters forming at their intersection. Here's how it took shape.
An image of a man standing in a black hole.
Want to avoid getting "spaghettified" by a black hole? Steer clear of the smaller ones.
A giant, colorful ring of glowing lines suspended in space
Astronomers claim to have found structures so large, they shouldn't exist. With such biased, incomplete observations, perhaps they don't.
A map of a cluster of stars illustrating star birth.
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.
A black background with the earth in the foreground.
Two scientists recently wagered a bottle of whiskey. The bet? Whether we'll find evidence of advanced extraterrestrial life in the next 15 years.
primordial black holes
Today, supermassive black holes and their host galaxies tell a specific story in terms of mass. But JWST reveals a different story early on.
An image of a purple galaxy in space.
Observations of an enormous cosmic structure, dubbed the "Big Ring," seem to violate the Copernican principle.
An image of a sphere with stars in it.
For every proton, there were over a billion others that annihilated away with an antimatter counterpart. So where did all that energy go?
supernova remnant star formation spitzer
One newly discovered, ancient star has a composition unlike any other. Explaining its existence is already blowing astronomers' minds.
An artist's rendering of an evaporating exoplanet in the night sky.
Planets can be Earth-like or Neptune-like, but only rarely are in between. This hot, Saturn-like planet hints at a solution to this puzzle.
An image of a colorful object resembling a dark primordial galaxy in the sky.
Finding it at all was a happy accident. Examining it further may help unlock the secrets hiding within the earliest galaxies of all.
An image of a star nebula in space.
A new measurement offers insights on the density of the mysterious force driving the Universe's expansion.
An image of an e - ring in space.
Here's why the answer may forever elude scientists.
A vibrant, high-resolution image of a spiral galaxy with rich clusters of stars and interstellar dust, where most stars formed.
Today, the star-formation rate across the Universe is a mere trickle: just 3% of what it was at its peak. Here's what it was like back then.
Abstract representation of the first possible molecules in a cosmic setting with a celestial body.
Earth wasn't created until more than 9 billion years after the Big Bang. In some lucky places, life could have arisen almost right away.
An artist's illustration of a supermassive black hole with an accretion disk and relativistic jets.
As early as we've been able to identify them, the youngest galaxies seem to have large supermassive black holes. Here's how they were made.
A stylized illustration of the timeline of the universe, depicting major events from the big bang through the cosmic dark ages to the modern era.
For 550 million years, neutral atoms blocked the light made in stars from traveling freely through the Universe. Here's how it then changed.
A digitally rendered image of a black hole with surrounding accretion disk and stars, depicting the era of the first galaxies.
Even after the first stars form, those overdense regions gravitationally attract matter and also merge. Here's how they grow into galaxies.
A vibrant image of a galaxy with clusters of population II stars, showing second-generation stars in various colors against the backdrop of space.
The first stars in the Universe were made of pristine material: hydrogen and helium alone. Once they die, nothing escapes their pollution.