We’ve never found eight stars bound together in the same stable system. But nature might make it so. The Universe that we have is often more wondrous and bizarre than even […]

Dark matter is perhaps the most mysterious substance in the Universe. What exactly it is, however, still eludes us. Dark matter is one of the most mysterious and yet most ubiquitous […]

It’s an incredibly useful approximation. But the truth takes us far deeper. Anyone who’s ever taken a physics course has learned the same myth for centuries now: that any object thrown, […]

The full Moon is always a sight worth looking at. This March, the full Worm Moon is a little more “super” than usual. The full Moon is always a spectacular sight: […]

No one has seen an equinox this early since the 19th century. And you’d better get used to it. This year, on March 19, 2020, the equinox will occur. For a […]

After the Big Bang, merging supermassive black holes are unparalleled. Here’s how we’ll find the first one. Last week, NASA’s Chandra X-ray observatory made history by announcing the most energetic explosive […]

A black hole punched a hole 15 Milky Ways across in a galaxy cluster’s gas, by far the largest ‘kaboom’ ever seen. The Universe, everywhere we look, is full of cataclysmic […]

It isn’t just a day that comes every four years; it’s everything we need to keep our calendar aligned with Earth’s orbit. Once every four years, at least under most circumstances, […]

Ever wonder, exactly, how stars form from molecular gas and dust? So do scientists. One of the great challenges for astronomy is to determine, in gory detail, how stars are […]

It’s one of only five spacecraft that will exit the Solar System, and the only one we have a chance to aim at another star. Of all the spacecraft ever launched, […]

Sure, cosmic inflation has its detractors. But it also has something no alternative possesses: predictions and tests. Perhaps the most compelling part of any remarkable story is its origin: how it […]

One of NASA’s original great observatories, Spitzer showed us the infrared Universe as never before. On January 30, 2020, NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope was retired after a 17 year mission. Prior […]

And how cutting just $1 billion per year in funding from NASA’s budget would be a catastrophe for science. When you think of the great cosmic beyond and what we know […]

Only one dark matter detection experiment ever gave a positive result, in conflict with all the others. This could be why. For multiple generations now, it’s been apparent to astronomers that […]

We’ve come fantastically far in our understanding of the distant Universe. Here’s how we’ll go even farther. Sometime in 2021, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope will launch, deploy, and begin science […]

It’s been called the biggest conundrum in all of cosmology, and recent measurements just add to the confusion. One of the most puzzling facts about the Universe is that different […]

For over 50 years, it’s been the scientifically accepted theory describing the origin of the Universe. It’s time we all learned its truths. The Universe we know today, filled with stars […]

Two of our biggest science-fiction dreams might not remain fiction for much longer. Here’s how 21st-century science could make it real. For as long as human beings have looked up at […]

If galaxies are cities in the Universe, how unfortunate that our ‘cosmic country’ is dissolving. On the largest cosmic scales of all, planet Earth appears to be anything but special. […]

The center of the galaxy is mostly obscure in visible light. But thanks to the world’s most powerful infrared telescope, we can see inside. Throughout history, the sight of the Milky […]

A fascinating podcast on the topic with NASA scientist Dr. Jessie Christiansen. How many planets are out there in the Universe? How many stars have planets, and what kinds of […]

In General Relativity, the fabric of space doesn’t remain static over time. Everything else depends on the details we measure. If there’s one thing we’ve experimentally determined to be a constant […]

All supernovae are not created equal. After a 14 year investigation, the brightest ones have a surprising explanation. In 2006, astronomers witnessed a supernova that defied conventional explanation. Typically, supernovae […]

If dark matter is fundamentally different from the normal matter we know, there should be a way to test it. Here are the results. Dark matter — despite the enormous indirect evidence for […]

Within the next billion years, the Magellanic Clouds might merge with our galaxy. But the new stars are already here. Within the Milky Way, there are only a few instances of […]

It’s one thing to find a galaxy that “shouldn’t exist.” It’s quite another to learn why it does. Above a certain size, spiral galaxies shouldn’t exist. A single major merger — where two […]

A decade ago, we didn’t know if dwarf galaxies had black holes. Today, half of the ones we see aren’t where we expected. Normally, galaxies have supermassive black holes millions […]

The age of the Universe is only 13.8 billion years, but we know that protons survive much longer. Here’s how. Since the discovery of radioactivity in the 19th century, humanity has […]

After 13.8 billion years, there’s still a whole lot that’s changing as time goes on. With each new year that comes upon us, there are a slew of new events awaiting […]

The Eagle Nebula, complete with the Pillars of Creation, tells a mini-version of the story of how all the Universe’s stars formed. The Eagle Nebula, found 7,000 light-years away, demonstrates how […]