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Space Telescopes
In all the Universe, there’s only one Earth. But can we find the other worlds that are like ours? Even though the ingredients for life have been confirmed to be practically […]
In order to reap the greatest rewards, we have to think big and invest big. One of these four missions will deliver like never before. When it comes to exploring the […]
Happy birthday to Pluto, discovered on this day in 1930. Pluto, first discovered in 1930, was no more than a distant dot in our most powerful telescopes. Clyde Tombaugh’s original images […]
The first planet beyond ‘naked eye’ astronomy will pass within just 1° of Mars. Although there are eight major planets in the Solar System, most of us never see Uranus or […]
With an assist from Einstein’s gravity and the power of the Hubble Space Telescope, it’s the brightest quasar we’ve ever discovered. In astronomy, there are two types of questions to […]
Kepler showed us that the Universe is full of planets around other stars. TESS is giving us our next great leap. It’s been nearly a decade since NASA’s Kepler mission first […]
The 40th edition of the Starts With A Bang Podcast features Astronomer John O’Meara, the first pristine matter ever seen, and a 15-meter space telescope proposal! One of the great […]
We can explore the farthest reaches of the Universe, but can’t even complete our own cosmic backyard. The history of astronomy has been a history of receding horizons. The invention […]
Despite being 28 years old and having a gyroscope failure, Hubble still delivered these 10 amazing snapshots in 2018. Year after year since its 1990 launch, Hubble keeps revolutionizing our view […]
It will be the most extreme test of Einstein’s General Relativity ever. And we already have the data. With every year that goes by, the total amount of knowledge that humanity […]
With thousands of discovered planets around stars beyond our own Sun, why haven’t we found the next Earth? Over the past 30 years, astronomers have gone from zero known extra-solar planets […]
Galaxies are found uniformly everywhere in the Universe, except in the Milky Way’s plane. Here’s why. From the time of their very first discovery, the Universe’s grand spirals have puzzled astronomers. […]
Hubble holds the record, finding a galaxy when the Universe was just 3% it’s age. In just a few years, James Webb will shatter it. One of the great scientific lessons […]
From newborn planets to entire galaxies, we’re seeing the Universe as never before. The idea of a modern telescope is simple: collect light from a distant object, at high resolution, and […]
The cosmic records we have are meant to be broken, but oh, have we ever gone so far. The great cosmic abyss contains more that humanity can ever hope to see, […]
As the Event Horizon Telescope prepares to release its first results, we can expect not just one, but two black hole images. What does a black hole actually look like? For […]
NASA’s Chandra X-ray observatory has shown us the Universe like nothing else ever before. When it comes to the Universe, it mainly generates X-rays through high-temperature heating. X-rays from Chandra reveal […]
The Big Bang happened everywhere at once, but stars are a different story. The Universe, back at its inception, was almost perfectly identical everywhere. It was the same high temperature […]
We can’t help but wonder if it’s habitable, or even inhabited, but the evidence isn’t there for it. Every star that fills the night sky carries along with it one of […]
These three reasons are why there’s no getting around the fact that astronomy needs the James Webb Space Telescope. Even the most powerful telescope in history, the Hubble Space Telescope, […]
A new set of images from NASA’s Chandra X-ray observatory shows us what we’ve never seen before. The Pillars of Creation, 7,000 light years away in the Eagle Nebula, represents one […]
The most unusual star known has finally had its dimming scientifically explained. Here’s the unusual, dusty resolution. The science of planet-hunting has truly taken off in the 21st century, with […]
One of the night sky’s most famous sights isn’t what it appears to be. Perhaps the most famous sight of a dying star is the Ring Nebula, known since 1779. The […]
In the search for the youngest planet in the Universe, astronomers may have accidentally stumbled upon something entirely new. Growing up is hard to do in the Universe. In the great […]
‘Luck’ is the wrong word. The Universe cooperated, but we gave ourselves the opportunity by being prepared. It was already 28 years ago that the Hubble Space Telescope was launched […]
If everything goes right, astronomy will take a magnificent leap into the future. But here’s what needs to happen first. Back in 2000, NASA held their decadal survey, choosing what would […]
They’re less than a billion years old. And, thanks to ALMA, they might finally pave the way to understanding how galaxies form. How do galaxies like our Milky Way come to […]
The Event Horizon Telescope has come online and taken its data. Now, we wait for the results. Black holes are some of the most incredible objects in the Universe. There are […]
The ‘big discovery’ is nothing of the kind. We need a new planet-finding mission to probe the next frontier. Last week, NASA dropped a bombshell that it’s Kepler mission — the greatest […]
If December’s best natural sky show seems to get better every year, it isn’t your imagination. It’s science, and it’s spectacular! Every year, the Earth travels some 940 million kilometers […]