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Space Exploration
Astronomers see spiral and elliptical nebulae nearly everywhere, except by the Milky Way's plane. We didn't know why until the 20th century.
The full extent of the Andromeda galaxy, the nearest large galaxy to our own, has been entirely imaged with Hubble's exquisite cameras.
Dark matter doesn't absorb or emit light, but it gravitates. Instead of something exotic and novel, could it just be dark, normal matter?
Asteroid 2024 YR4, which could devastate a city's worth of humans, has gone from 1.2% to 2.3% to 2.6% to 3.1% chances of impact. Here's why.
At extremely close distances to their stars, even rocky planets can be completely disintegrated. We've just caught our first one in action.
Ring galaxies are rare, but we think we know how they form. A new, early-stage version, the Bullseye galaxy, provides a new testing ground.
Here in our Solar System, terrestrial bodies get moons from gravitational capture or collisions. The Pluto-Charon system? It was both.
Only 5% of the Universe is made of normal "stuff" like we are. Could there be dark matter or dark energy life, or even aliens, out there?
The ultimate multi-messenger astronomy event would have gravitational waves, particles, and light arriving all at once. Did that just occur?
A young, nearby, massive star, whose protoplanetary disk appears perfectly edge-on, was just viewed by JWST, with staggering implications.
A new SETI study shows how far the field of technosignatures has come.
If we wish to tackle the very real problems society faces, we require expert-level knowledge. Valuing it starts earlier than we realize.
Our Moon is full of craters, basins, and ancient lava flows. But two large lunar Grand Canyons have the same origin: a single, giant impact.
Life may have arisen far earlier — and more rapidly — than previously thought.
From LIGO, there weren't enough neutron star-neutron star mergers to account for our heavy elements. With a JWST surprise, maybe they can.
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.
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.
Motility was suggested as a promising "biosignature" as early as the 1960s, but the technology was insufficient — until now.
The discovery of ultra-bright, ultra-distant galaxies was JWST's first big surprise. They didn't "break the Universe," and now we know why.
Seven years ago, an outburst in a distant galaxy brightened and faded away. Afterward, a new supermassive black hole jet emerged, but how?
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.
Featuring SpaceX's "Mechazilla," a first-of-its-kind spacewalk, and more.
A recent measurement has simultaneously settled an ongoing scientific debate while puzzling scientists.
On larger and larger scales, many of the same structures we see at small ones repeat themselves. Do we live in a fractal Universe?
Experts answer 10 big questions about the nightmare scenario that could send us back to the pre-Space Age.
Earth is actively broadcasting and actively searching for intelligent civilizations. But could our technology even detect ourselves?
Did the Milky Way form by slowly accreting matter or by devouring its neighboring galaxies? At last, we're uncovering our own history.
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?"