Astronomy

Astronomy

JWST just found its first transiting exoplanet, and it's 99% the size of Earth. But with no atmosphere seen, perhaps air is truly rare.
round
Red dwarf stars were supposed to be inhospitable. But TOI-700, now with at least two potentially habitable worlds, is quite the exception.
jwst deep field
JWST has seen more distant galaxies than any other observatory, ever. But many candidates for "most distant of all" are likely impostors.
Most of us have heard that the Sun is an ordinary, typical, unremarkable star. But science shows we're actually anything but average.
asteroid city
The authors call it "wildly theoretical" — but let's take a look, anyway.
dark matter
Though a single measurement is not enough to definitively decide the debate, this is a major win for dark matter proponents.
dark energy accelerated expansion
Yes, dark energy is real. Yes, distant galaxies recede faster and faster as time goes on. But the expansion rate isn't accelerating at all.
galaxies
We only need two numbers to understand why.
In 1920, astronomers debated the nature of the Universe. The results were meaningless until years later, when the key evidence arrived.
Illustration of Earth with labeled axes, equator, Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn, and magnetic and geographic poles. Orange lines indicate Earth's tilt and rotation.
4mins
Why do so many cultures celebrate holidays at the same time of year?
John Templeton Foundation
2023 space missions
2023 will see the launch of new rockets, the return of OSIRIS-REx, and a mission to Jupiter that could help us find extraterrestrial life.
In 2020, scientists took more than a kilo of moon rock and soil back to Earth for testing.
ophiuchus x-ray largest explosion cavity
Ever since the Big Bang, cataclysmic events have released enormous amounts of energy. Here's the greatest one ever witnessed.
Never stop looking at the skies in wonder.
Geminids
You can lead an overconfident chatbot to expert knowledge, but can it actually learn and assimilate new information?
globular cluster terzan 5
2022 was a year full of scientific discoveries and the dawn of the JWST. But Hubble's still going after 32 years. Here's the amazing proof!
top science stories 2022
2022 was another busy year in the realm of science, with groundbreaking stories spanning space, materials, medicine, and technology.
Dead whales inspire a way to find extraterrestrial life on Mars.
7mins
What astronaut Ron Garan saw in space changed his life forever – here’s what it taught him.
JADES JWST z 13
Leaving Hubble in the dust, JWST has officially seen a galaxy from just 320 million years after the Big Bang: at just 2.3% its current age.
magnetic fields galaxy planck
The very dust that blocks our view of the distant, luminous objects in the Universe is responsible for our entire existence.
wolf rayet wr 31a
The most common element in the Universe, vital for forming new stars, is hydrogen. But there's a finite amount of it; what if we run out?
Compared to Earth, Mars is small, cold, dry, and lifeless. But 3.4 billion years ago, a killer asteroid caused a Martian megatsunami.
We have less time than you might think.
By studying the dwarf galaxy Wolf-Lundmark-Melotte ~3 million light-years away, JWST reveals the Universe's star-forming history firsthand.
every square degree
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?
earth
We cannot afford to dream about living on other worlds while we continue to destroy ours.
moon base
From astrobiology to geology, a Moon base could serve as a laboratory unlike anything on Earth.
At 1,600 light years away, the black hole is practically in our cosmic backyard.