Astronomy

Astronomy

runaway black hole
At four million solar masses, the Milky Way's supermassive black hole is quite small for a galaxy its size. Did we lose the original?
The idea of black holes has been around for over 200 years. Today, we're seeing them in previously unimaginable ways.
supermassive black hole
Astronomers in 2017 caught an image of a supermassive black hole in a galaxy far, far away. Doing it in our own galaxy is a huge milestone.
After years of analysis, the Event Horizon Telescope team has finally revealed what the Milky Way's central black hole looks like.
cryovolcanoes
We have long thought that Pluto was completely frozen solid, but the discovery of cryovolcanoes challenges that assumption.
ancient greeks aliens
Speculation about the existence of aliens goes all the way back at least to the Greek philosophers. Their arguments will sound familiar.
planetary nebula
Everything that gets heated up has to, somehow, radiate that energy away. Here's what we see when that happens in the Universe.
local bubble
For a thousand light-years in all directions, there's a "bubble" that the Sun sits at the center of. Here's the story behind it.
Europa may be difficult to access. But if a recent study is correct, its subsurface ocean would be more accessible than previously thought.
NEO Surveyor
Most potentially hazardous asteroids remain unidentified. NEO surveyor could change that, but only if it's funded, and soon.
humans universe
All life forms, anywhere in our Universe, are chemically connected yet completely unique.
life mars
Was there ever life on Mars? Is there life on Mars now? Did it originate there or here, on Earth? All possibilities are fascinating.
It was supposed to have a 5.5-10 year lifetime, and take 6 months to calibrate. It's performing better than anyone anticipated.
If there are human-sized creatures walking around on other planets, would we be able to view them directly?
alien messages
There are pros and cons to sending interstellar messages to aliens that may or may not exist.
planet 9
Pluto failed to meet the definition of a planet, but some astronomers think there might be a legitimate Planet 9 out there.
The European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter recently captured images that could help scientists better under the mysterious physics of our Sun.
Dr. Tyson explains where we might find aliens, why "dark matter" is a misleading term, and why you can blame physics for your favorite team's loss.
quasar-galaxy hybrid
Single objects rarely change the course of an entire scientific field. Distant object GNz7q, a galaxy-quasar hybrid, might do exactly that.
farthest galaxy
We've fooled ourselves before with galaxies that look just like this one. The evidence we have simply isn't strong enough.
In the latest edition of the Starts With A Bang podcast, we talk with soon-to-be Dr. Arianna Long about galaxies, from birth to today.
An optical telescope with a massive 20-foot (6-meter) mirror has an eye-popping price tag of $11 billion.
cosmic rays
Our Universe requires dark matter in order to make sense of things, astrophysically. Could massive photons do the trick?
science god
Many people perceive the struggle to understand our Universe as a battle between science and God. But this is a false dichotomy.
earendel
The Hubble Space Telescope, 32 years after its launch, broke the all-time record for most distant star. It won't do better.
The story of how Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune were made isn't a universal one. Some gas giants were built different.
earendel
The light from Earendel took 12.9 billion years to reach Hubble. The star is millions of times brighter than our Sun and 50 times as massive.
mercury diamonds
Due to a crust of carbon, the absence of oxygen, and constant bombardment from meteorites, the planet Mercury may be littered with diamonds.
gravitational waves
To study the origin of the Universe, we could build a constellation of six expensive spacecraft — or we could just use the Moon.
how many planets
For some reason, when we talk about the age of stars, galaxies, and the Universe, we use "years" to measure time. Can we do better?