Astronomy

Comet "Snowstorm" Swirling in This Stunning GIF Is a Tricky Illusion

“Things are not quite as they seem," explains astronomer Mark McCaughrean

Gaia's all-sky view of our Milky Way Galaxy and neighboring galaxies, based on measurements of nearly 1.7 billion stars.

New Star Map Could Change Everything We Know About the Milky Way

The map includes 1.7 billion stars and is already revealing new details about star evolution and the formation of our galaxy

Five Things to Know About NASA's New Planet-Hunting Satellite

TESS will scan the skies in search of the next crop of exoplanets

The Center of the Milky Way May Be Chock-Full of Black Holes

Researchers spotted about a dozen black holes lurking at our galactic center—and there may be up to 10,000 more

Icarus, the most distant star ever detected

Meet Icarus, The Most Distant Star Yet Detected

The blue supergiant lies 9 billion light-years away

Diffuse galaxy NGC1052-DF2

Scientists Thought All Galaxies Had Dark Matter, but They Just Found One Without It

The find defies the assumption that the mysterious matter is necessary for galaxy formation

Marvin, a trailblazer in more ways than one, surveys the Antarctic terrain on her meteorite-hunting expedition of 1978-79.

The Rockstar Geologist Who Mapped the Minerals of the Cosmos

A professor told Ursula Marvin she should learn to cook. Instead she chased down meteorites in Antarctica

70,000 Years Ago, a Passing Star Shook Up Our Solar System

The red dwarf likely came within one light-year of the sun, altering the course of some asteroids and comets

How It All Began: A Colleague Reflects On the Remarkable Life of Stephen Hawking

The physicist probed the mysteries of black holes, expanded our understanding of the universe and captured the world's imagination, says Martin Rees

Saturn's hazy moon Titan

Purple Haze: Alien Atmospheres Recreated In the Lab

By combining various gases with plasma, researchers are learning about the haze around distant planets

Artists interpretation of the earliest stars

Astronomers May Have Just Detected the Universe's First Stars

A long-sought radio signal indicates the first stars began burning 180 million years after the initial Big Bang

Nicknamed the Hand of God, this pulsar wind nebula is powered by a pulsar: the leftover, dense core of a star that blew up in a supernova explosion. Before astronomers had any idea what they were, Jocelyn Bell Burnell found the signal of a pulsar in her telescope data in 1967.

Fifty Years Ago, a Grad Student’s Discovery Changed the Course of Astrophysics

By identifying the first pulsars, Jocelyn Bell Burnell set the stage for discoveries in black holes and gravitational waves

If you look closely at the lower right of galaxy NGC 613, the baby supernova pops into existence at the end of one of the galaxy's spiral arms.

Amateur Astronomer Captures Supernova's First Winks of Light

Scientists say the chances were less than one in a million

Researchers estimate more than a trillion planets could exist in the elliptical galaxy at the center of this image.

Astronomers Spot Signs of Planets Outside the Milky Way

Researchers estimate that more than a trillion planets may lurk beyond our galaxy's bounds

The most detailed image ever taken of Lupus 3, a dense cloud of gas and dust that collapses to create new stars. This image is a compilation of data from the VLT Survey Telescope and the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope.

Dark Nebula Hides a Brilliant Streak of Baby Stars

South American observatory captures most detailed peek yet at Lupus Clouds stellar nursery

Pi^1 Gruis

Astronomers Get Best Look Yet at the Surface of a Red Giant Star

The image shows convection cells on the star are huge, confirming some theories about star evolution

The IMAGE satellite

Amateur Astronomer Finds Long-Lost NASA Satellite

The hobbyist was in search of the lost Zuma satellite when he spotted IMAGE, which went offline in 2005

The moon turned blood red when the moon passed through Earth's shadow on September 28, 2015.

Don't Miss This Celestial Triplet: a Blue Moon, Supermoon and Lunar Eclipse

January’s second full moon will appear slightly larger during its blood-red lunar eclipse

Galaxy SPT0615-JD

Behold Hubble's Best Image of a Distant Galaxy Yet

The galaxy is roughly 13.3 billion light years away, and formed just 500 million years after the universe began

Astronomers Spy a Black Hole's Double 'Burp'

New observations suggest that black holes cycle between activity and rest

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