Astrophysics

Astrophysics

A vivid cosmic scene reveals colorful nebulae and stardust in vibrant shades of blue, purple, and orange, set against a backdrop of space. NASA observatories capture this celestial beauty, unveiling hidden holes in the vast tapestry of the universe.
NASA's space telescopes and observatories bring humanity unrivaled science images and scientific discoveries. Here's what should be next.
A vibrant cosmic explosion with bright colors radiating outward, set against a starry space background, captures the mystery of a bizarre supernova.
In the year 1181, a "guest star" was recorded in the constellation of Cassiopeia. Its modern supernova remnant is weirder than we imagined.
Diagram of the expanding universe concept with cosmic inflation, light cone, and time axis.
Almost everyone asserts that the Big Bang was the beginning of everything, followed by inflation. Has everyone gotten the order wrong?
einstein
Many mavericks look to Einstein as a unique figure, whose lone genius revolutionized the Universe. The big problem? It isn't true.
Einstein
Beyond stars, galaxies, and gravity, studying the fundamental workings of nature reveals widely applicable lessons for learners everywhere.
ring nebula hubble jwst nircam miri
More than two years after JWST began science operations, our Universe now looks very different. Here are its biggest science contributions.
A panoramic image of the Milky Way galaxy, with an inset showing a zoomed view of distant galaxies, tells a cosmic story. This region, highlighted in textured detail, echoes the exploration themes of the Euclid mission.
What are dark matter and dark energy? The large-scale structure of the cosmos encodes them both, with ESA's Euclid mission leading the way.
Friedmann equation
The most common visual depictions of the history of the Universe show the Big Bang as a growing tube with an "ignition" point. Why is that?
The fabric of spacetime is four-dimensional, with three for space and only one for time. But wow, time sure is different from space!
Rocky, reddish Martian landscape with scattered boulders and a hazy sky.
Caption:“At this time in Mars’ history, we think CO2 is everywhere, in every nook and cranny, and water percolating through the rocks is full of CO2 too,” Joshua Murray says.
A starry night sky over a snow-capped mountain, known as one of Earth's best astronomy locations, with bright city lights shimmering in the distance on the horizon.
There are a number of factors to consider when choosing where to build a telescope. These 3 locations, on their merits, surpass all others.
flame nebula infrared spitzer
The Universe changes remarkably over time, with some entities surviving and others simply decaying away. Is this cosmic evolution at work?
hawking radiation black hole decay
Black holes encode information on their surfaces, but evaporate away into Hawking radiation. Is that information preserved, and if so, how?
Illustration of Mars with overlaid data graphs and lines, offering analytical representations that unravel the mysteries of dark matter.
Watching for changes in the Red Planet’s orbit over time could be new way to detect passing dark matter.
Book cover titled "Infinite Cosmos" with a vibrant galaxy and stars. Includes "National Geographic" logo and the text "Visions from the James Webb Space Telescope." Introduction by Brian Greene.
National Geographic's first James Webb Space Telescope book shows us the cosmos like never before.
A starry sky with a magnified view highlights an orange, cloud-like structure representing one of the youngest astronomical objects in the Milky Way, shimmering as it subtly rotates.
The earliest Milky Way-like galaxy, REBELS-25, was spotted rotating about its axis. It's only 700 million years old: 5% of our present age.
Two observatory domes under a starry night sky, with the Milky Way visible, form a stunning backdrop as an optical interferometer captures the universe's secrets.
Interferometry gave us a black hole's event horizon, but that was in the radio. What can we accomplish with a new optical interferometer?
Collaged image of text and a black-and-white scene with a dinosaur and mountainous backdrop. The year "1950" is visible in the bottom left corner.
Dinosaurs and other beasts were once thought to be the “undisputed masters” of Venus.
A clock face with moon phases as numbers, set against a blue sky with scattered clouds, creates a whimsical portrayal of lunar time.
Physicists recently created Coordinated Lunar Time, a time zone for our Moon.
A vibrant, high-resolution image of a spiral galaxy with rich clusters of stars and interstellar dust, where most stars formed.
The Universe has been creating stars for nearly all 13.8 billion years of its history. But those photons can't match the Big Bang's light.
A large telescope observatory under construction at dusk with a visible moon and stars in the sky. Cranes and construction equipment are present around the structure.
Comet A3, also known as Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, has sprung to life since 2024's last equinox. Here's how to catch the show for yourself.
dark matter substructure intracluster light
In theory, dark matter is cold, collisionless, and only interacts via gravity. What we see in ultra-diffuse galaxies indicates otherwise.
A spacecraft travels at the fastest spacecraft speed record through bright, yellow-orange streaks of plasma and solar wind near the Sun.
The Parker Solar Probe is about to undergo its seventh encounter with Venus on its journey toward the Sun. Here's how fast it'll go.
Lockman hole galaxy cluster herschel
In all directions, at great distances, the Universe looks younger, more uniform, and less evolved. Does that mean Earth must be the center?
time dilation
Time is relative, not absolute, as gravity and motion both cause time to dilate. Your head and feet, therefore, don't age at the same rate.
A deep-space image captured by the JWST showcases numerous galaxies of various shapes, sizes, and colors scattered across a dark background, potentially setting a new cosmic distance record.
Despite many ultra-distant galaxy candidates found with JWST, we still haven't seen anything from the Universe's first 250 million years.
Two views of the same celestial object: the fiery orange-blue image on the left and a cooler blue-pink image on the right, showcasing an hourglass-shaped cloud of gas and dust in space.
Just 460 light-years away, the closest newborn protostars are forming in the Taurus molecular cloud. Here are JWST's astonishing insights.
entanglement across space
It's possible to remove all forms of matter, radiation, and curvature from space. When you do, dark energy still remains. Is this mandatory?
A vivid depiction of a cosmic event showing a jet of orange and red energy extending from a bright source in the vastness of space, surrounded by stars and interstellar matter.
With the discovery of Porphyrion, we've now seen black hole jets spanning 24 million light-years: the scale of the cosmic web.