astrophysics

Every galaxy you’ve ever seen in a photograph is hiding something. Beyond the glowing disc of stars and gas that the camera captures lies a vast, ghostly outer region called a halo, too faint to see easily but packed with clues about how that galaxy came to be. ESA has just formally committed to a […]

A spectacular new image from NASA combines Webb and Hubble observations to reveal the unusual dynamics of the Black Eye Galaxy.

Astronomers have discovered a powerful “galaxy-killing wind” in the early universe that may help solve one of the biggest mysteries in modern astronomy: why so many massive galaxies stopped forming stars much earlier than scientists expected. The discovery suggests that some young galaxies grew rapidly and then died just as quickly, not because of exotic […] The post Cosmic “galaxy-killing wind” …

The nights surrounding the new moon on June 14 are the perfect time to hunt for planets and sparkling constellations in the late spring sky.

"We were totally amazed when we noticed this mass and size range of planet formation."

The four astronauts on NASA’s Artemis II mission captured more than they bargained for when they photographed the nightside of Earth, right after starting their historic journey to the moon.

Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column.  June 13: Catch Comet 220P/McNaught Asteroid 14 Irene reaches opposition at 6 A.M. EDT tomorrow morning, making now a great time to catch it. Glowing at mid-9th-magnitude, Irene is already 20° high in the south an hour before midnight and stands highest Continue reading "The Sky Today on Sunday, June 14: Irene nears oppos…

Have you ever wondered how astronomers predict the exact position of a distant galaxy or track a probe hurtling through the outer solar system? It isn't done with the wall-clock on your microwave. To the cosmos, our human-made calendars are a chaotic patchwork of political decisions and leap seconds. For an AI model or a precise calculation, this simply won't do. You need a clock as linear and un…

A favorable aurora forecast could give millions of Americans a chance to witness the northern lights before activity weakens again.

Hubble’s latest image of galaxy cluster MACS0329-0211 reveals a powerful gravitational lens that is magnifying some of the most distant galaxies ever observed.

Venus appeared to move closer to Jupiter in Earth's sky, as the two planets drifted farther apart in space.

GW231123 defies our best models of stellar collapse, hosting two black holes that shouldn't exist. A new paper proposes a radical solution: these monsters may have been born in the early universe as primordial black holes, quietly feeding for billions of years until they became the record-breakers we detected today.

Using the Keck Observatory, astronomers measured the spins of dozens of giant planets and brown dwarfs orbiting distant stars. They found that giant planets can spin faster than much more massive brown dwarfs, challenging simple assumptions about mass and rotation. The results suggest that magnetic fields and formation processes play a major role in determining how fast worlds end up spinning.

NASA’s AstroPix detector is heading to orbit aboard a robotic technology mission, aiming to improve observations of some of the most energetic events in the universe.

Dark matter remains one of the biggest mysteries in science. Scientists cannot see it directly, yet they believe it makes up most of the matter in the universe. Now, a new study suggests that dark matter may gather around supermassive black holes, forming large invisible clouds that influence their surroundings. Researchers from Virginia Tech have […] The post Scientists use light echoes to hunt …

A newly detected black hole may not be what it seems. Scientists say its unusual characteristics make it one of the most intriguing cosmic signals seen in recent years.

Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full Sky This Week column.  June 12: The Moon meets Mars Turn your telescope toward southern Pisces this morning, where Saturn outshines any of the stars in this part of the sky. This is where Comet 220P/McNaught recently underwent an outburst, quickly brightening from 18th magnitude to Continue reading "The Sky Today on Saturday, June 13: Catch Co…

I'm looking for an SF short story in which some stars start changing places in the sky, all at the same time, which is doubly impossible — both stars suddenly starting to move, and especially all at ...

Astronomers using NASA’s powerful James Webb Space Telescope may have solved one of the biggest mysteries of the early universe. A strange object known as a “little red dot” appears to be a rapidly growing supermassive black hole hidden inside a thick cloud of gas. Little red dots were first discovered by the James Webb […] The post Mysterious “little red dot” may be a giant black hole wrapped in…

The quasar existed 12.9 billion years ago and shows that supermassive black holes were able to age rapidly in the early universe.