The rarest stars in the Universe are the ones we need the most to make humanity possible. Like everything in the Universe, stars are born, they live a little while, […]

When you view your right hand in a mirror, it appears as a left hand. Writing is reversed, as is the direction of any spinning object: clockwise becomes counterclockwise and […]

An almost 40-year-old theory finally has ‘smoking gun’ evidence for it. During most of their lives, stars burn stably, changing imperceptibly. The rotten egg nebula, at lower right (and shown in […]

Despite all the challenges, Hubble has vindicated this discovery. Practically everywhere we look in the Universe, the large-scale objects that we see — small galaxies, large galaxies, groups and clusters of galaxies, […]

And either way, is energy or information conserved? When two things in the Universe that “always” occur meet one another, how do you know which one will win? Gravitational waves, […]

Is the Universe the same everywhere? Or are there truly ‘special places’ around? For practically all of human history, one assumption about our place in the Universe had long gone unchallenged: […]

How two seemingly distinct exoplanet systems turned out to be related. Practically every star in the Milky Way has a similar origin story. At some point in the past, a molecular […]

If you want to find life in the Universe, this is how you do it. When it comes to uncovering the ultimate truths about reality, we can only reap what we […]

An artist’s impression of what the fully-deployed James Webb Space telescope will look like from the perspective of an observer on the ‘dark’ (non-Sun-facing) side of the observatory. (NORTHRUP GRUMMAN) […]

The sacrifices of early astronauts paved the way for Apollo’s successes, and so much more. In all of history, only 24 humans have ever escaped Earth’s gravity. The very first launch […]

And a combination of all three might take us farther than ever. If you want to see the farthest objects in the Universe, you have to know not only where to […]

‘Fast Optical Bursts’ will confound ground-based astronomy. As of 2021, planet Earth is currently experiencing the least pristine night sky in recorded history. Prior to the development of artificial lighting, […]

Has all this happened before, and will all this happen once again? There are only a few questions, when we ask them, that force us to reckon with the fundamental nature […]

It occurred naturally, and scientists know this for certain. Starting in late 2019, a novel strain of coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, began infecting human beings for the very first time. Discovered in samples […]

Even the ones hunting for aliens aren’t excited. Here’s the reason why. In this world, there are very few issues more polarizing than the notion of aliens. For as long as […]

Find out the truth for yourself. If this past year has shown us anything, it’s how thoroughly we rely on high-quality expertise. As the COVID-19 pandemic swept the globe, it […]

If it weren’t for a subatomic quantum rule, our Universe would be vastly different. In many ways, our views of the distant Universe are the closest things we’ll ever get […]

Do they have real, observable effects, or are they merely calculational tools?

Deniers will never stop misleading others. Here’s the truth. Every so often, advocates of a fringe theory — one that doesn’t fit the evidence as well as the mainstream theory — do what they can […]

We can do so much more, so much faster, with the same data. When you think about how astronomy works, you probably think about observers pointing telescopes at objects, collecting data […]