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Astronomy
First discovered in the mid-1960s, no cosmic signal has taught us more about the Universe, or spurred more controversy, than the CMB.
It's the ultimate game of cosmic "cover up," as the dimming occurs when a circumbinary disk from a nearby star passes in front of T Tauri North.
Matter is made up largely of atoms, where atomic nuclei can contain up to 100 protons or more. But how were the heaviest elements made?
Cosmic inflation, proposed back in 1980, is a theory that precedes and sets up the hot Big Bang. After thorough testing, is it still valid?
Scientists just viewed one of the tiniest, most isolated, lowest-mass galaxies ever found with JWST. Despite all odds, it's still growing.
New telescopes, radio dishes, and gravitational wave detectors are needed for next-generation science. Will the USA lead the way?
The Ring Nebula, a bright, circular planetary nebula, is created by a dying Sun-like star. After centuries, we finally know its true shape.
Since mid-2022, JWST has been showing us how the Universe grows up, from planets to galaxies and more. So, what's its biggest find of all?
Seven years ago, an outburst in a distant galaxy brightened and faded away. Afterward, a new supermassive black hole jet emerged, but how?
Here in our Universe, stars shine brightly, providing light and heat to planets, moons, and more. But some objects get even hotter, by far.
Most stars shine with properties, like brightness, that barely change at all with time. The ones that do vary help us unlock the Universe.
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.
Despite the Sun's high core temperatures, atomic nuclei repel each other too strongly to fuse together. Good thing for quantum physics!
It's not only the gravity from galaxies in a cluster that reveals dark matter, but the ejected, intracluster stars actually trace it out.
Did the Milky Way form by slowly accreting matter or by devouring its neighboring galaxies? At last, we're uncovering our own history.
"Carl faced his death with unflagging courage and never sought refuge in illusions."
Known as orphaned planets, rogue planets, or planets without parent stars, these "outliers" might be the most common type of planet overall.
Our galactic home in the cosmos — the Milky Way — is only one of trillions of galaxies within our Universe. Is one of them truly our "twin?"
When three wise men gifted baby Jesus with gold, frankincense, and myrrh, they had no idea one was made from colliding neutron stars.
There was a lot of hype and a lot of nonsense, but also some profoundly major advances. Here are the biggest ones you may have missed.
Sixty years ago, the Soviet Union was way ahead of the USA in the space race. Then one critical event changed everything.
It was barely a century ago that we thought the Milky Way encompassed the entirety of the Universe. Now? We're not even a special galaxy.
Even with just a momentary view of our galaxy right now, the data we collect enables us to reconstruct so much of our past history.
The closest known star that will soon undergo a core-collapse supernova is Betelgeuse, just 640 light-years away. Here's what we'll observe.
The Sombrero is the closest bright, massive, edge-on galaxy to us. JWST's new image, taken with MIRI, finally shows what's under its hat.
DESI has allowed astronomers to create an unprecedented 3D map of the Universe representing 20% of the entire sky.
In November 1974, astronomers used the radio telescope at Puerto Rico’s Arecibo Observatory to send a hello to the universe.
"I was stunned. Here in front of me was the original apparatus through which a new vision of the world was slowly and painfully brought to light."
There are a few small cosmic details that, if things were just a little different, wouldn't have allowed our existence to be possible.
Recent controversies bode ill for the effort to detect life on other planets by analyzing the gases in their atmospheres.