In a galaxy less than 300 million years after the Big Bang, oxygen's presence abounds. That's expected; its absence would truly be profound.

There will always be "wolf-criers" whose claims wither under scrutiny. But aliens are certainly out there, if science dares to find them.

If you can identify a foreground star, the spike patterns are a dead giveaway as to whether it's a JWST image or any other observatory.

The highest-energy particles could be a sign of new, unexpected physics. But the simplest, most mundane explanation is particularly iron-ic.

While humanity has been skywatching since ancient times, much of our cosmic understanding has come about only recently. Very recently.

Our Universe doesn't just expand and cool, but the expansion itself is accelerating. Can stars form under such structure-erasing conditions?

Earth orbits the Sun while spinning on its tilted axis, with two annual occasions marking that maximal tilt. That's where solstices arise.

With the observation of SN 2025wny, a lensed superluminous supernova, astronomy's future comes into sharp, exciting focus.

It takes a wide variety of processes in the Universe to make all the elements that populate space today. We're still discovering new ones!

Some vital, key ingredients must be in place for the Universe to make more matter than antimatter. The LHC took us one step closer in 2025.

Finding alien Earths requires seeing Earth-sized planets at Earth-like distances from Sun-like stars. A new discovery completes the roadmap.

With a waning Moon and a denser-than-ever debris trail, 2025's Geminids might be the year's best meteor shower, and 2026's could be amazing.

There are so many problems, all across planet Earth, that harm and threaten humanity. Why invest in researching the Universe?

Although American Thanksgiving only comes once a year, the scientific rules that make our Universe possible are always worth appreciating.

The far side of the Moon is incredibly different from the Earth-facing side. 66 years later, we know why the Moon's faces are not alike.

Everything ever seen — every star, mountain, and face — makes up less than 5 percent of the universe. Astrophysicist Janna Levin reminds us that the rest — dark matter and dark energy — is invisible, mysterious, and everywhere. We are the luminous exception in a universe of darkness.

Such massive, early supermassive black holes have puzzled astronomers for decades. At last, we've finally figured out how they form.

Every observation out into deep space is also a look back in time.

One side of the Moon always faces us: the near side. The "dark side" of the Moon began as a mere metaphor, but today, science can weigh in.

Spirals, ellipticals, and irregulars are all more common than ring galaxies. At last, we know how these ultra-rare objects are made.

Wavelengths stretch, distances grow, and temperatures cool as the Universe expands with time. How are the various cosmic parameters related?

Weird-looking galaxies, with tentacle-like tails or prominent dual streams, appear like jellyfish or bunny ears. But that’s just the start.

For over 10 billion years, the cosmic star-formation rate has been dropping and dropping. Someday, the final star in the Universe will die.

In 2017, a kilonova sent light and gravitational waves across the Universe. Here on Earth, there was a 1.7 second signal arrival delay. Why?

What if the first search for life beyond Earth actually succeeded?

Planets grow from protostellar material in disks, leading to full-grown planetary systems in time. At last, the final gap has been filled.

Stellar streams are faint trails of stars that appear to "stream" out of galaxies. A new one, escaping galaxy M61, may point to many others.

When dying, Sun-like stars have binary companions, spectacular sights arise from the ionization. JWST spots the Red Spider Nebula in action!

Scientists are notoriously resistant to new ideas. Are they falling prey to groupthink? Or are our current theories just that successful?

Nearly 100 years after being theorized, the strange behavior of the neutrino still mystifies us. They could be even stranger than we know.