Astronomy

Astronomy

A dense field of distant galaxies and bright stars against a black background, as captured in a JWST early galaxies deep space telescope image.
Many collaborations have used JWST to take deep-field images: some wider and some deeper than others. Here's how it can surpass them all.
View of a planet’s surface in the foreground with a red moon or planet and stars visible in the background against the dark space.
7mins
30 years ago, we didn’t know other stars had planets orbiting them. Now, we may be on the verge of finding Earth’s Twin. Sara Seager explains.
Image of a star field with numerous galaxies; several objects are circled in white, and one object is marked with an “X” near the center.
The Universe formed stars, galaxies, and even galaxy clusters extremely early on in our cosmos. This new marvel is one more JWST surprise.
A deep space image showing a field of distant galaxies with several regions zoomed in to highlight faint, small JWST objects.
Just like animals, galaxies often have bizarre, unusual, or even unique properties. But finding many, all at once, really does raise alarms.
Bald man wearing glasses and a dark suit jacket sits against a plain white background, looking slightly to the side with a neutral expression.
25mins
"In the process of mapping the heavens, it doesn't take long to realize the data problem they generated."
moon landing Apollo 11
Our view of the world, the Universe, and ourselves can change with just one glimpse of what's out there. It's happened many times before.
venus jupiter earth iss
Outer space begins just over 100 kilometers up, but what we can see extends for billions of light-years. Here's what all of it looks like.
Raisin bread expanding Universe
Even in an expanding Universe, we expect both redshifted and blueshifted galaxies. But nearly every one we see is redshifted. Here's why.
Green and red aurora borealis lights, sparked by a recent solar radiation storm, arc across the night sky and reflect over a calm lake with a rocky shoreline.
The Sun often produces solar flares and coronal mass ejections, but a rare solar radiation storm made the 2026's first great auroral show.
A vivid image of a galaxy with bright blue and red nebulous clouds, set against a black star-filled background in deep space.
With unprecedented resolution, wavelength sensitivity, and light-gathering power, JWST reveals our cosmos like no other observatory ever.
A deep space image shows numerous distant galaxies and stars against a dark background, including several bright spots shaped by a gravitational lens cross, with diffuse light sources scattered throughout.
Gravitational lenses arise when foreground masses and background light sources properly align. Einstein rings are rare, but crosses abound.
Diagram showing light from a distant galaxy bending around a red-hued massive object, reaching telescopes on Earth via different paths and at different times.
The VENUS survey isn't about planets at all, but about finding multiply-lensed supernovae. The ambition? To save the expanding Universe.
Astro2020
US science is worth fighting for, but so are the science projects and scientists denied opportunities. Here are 4 paths all worth exploring.
Five panels show NASA Chandra images of Kepler's supernova remnant as it expands over 25 years, with increasingly diffuse blue filaments against a starry background; a composite is shown in the last panel.
Back in 1604, Johannes Kepler discovered the Milky Way's last naked-eye supernova. Here's how NASA's Chandra sees it over the 21st century.
A colorful map shows the distribution of nearby galaxies, with distances and redshift factors labeled, created by DESI; NSF, NOIRLab, and Kitt Peak logos are visible.
The seeds of cosmic structure that were planted back during the Big Bang grew into the cosmic web we see today. What is it telling us?
Three planets are silhouetted against deep space with a bright red star and nebula clouds in the background.
Astronomer Lisa Kaltenegger spoke with Big Think about how "the colors of life" could leave detectable traces on distant planets.
Even the youngest galaxies are often dust-rich, even with very low levels of heavy elements. Nearby dwarf galaxy Sextans A explains why.
A galaxy cluster with a faint purple glow, showing a dotted yellow circle in the center, surrounded by distant stars and galaxies.
Astronomers have found starless gas clouds before, but Cloud 9 might be the most pristine one of all, with big lessons for cosmic history.
A field of distant galaxies in space with a blue-tinted, magnified section highlighting a single bright celestial object observed by JWST, possibly rich in oxygen.
In a galaxy less than 300 million years after the Big Bang, oxygen's presence abounds. That's expected; its absence would truly be profound.
how many planets
There will always be "wolf-criers" whose claims wither under scrutiny. But aliens are certainly out there, if science dares to find them.
jwst Abell 2744 450 million
If you can identify a foreground star, the spike patterns are a dead giveaway as to whether it's a JWST image or any other observatory.
An artist's impression of an ultra high energy cosmic ray.
The highest-energy particles could be a sign of new, unexpected physics. But the simplest, most mundane explanation is particularly iron-ic.
JADES galaxies
While humanity has been skywatching since ancient times, much of our cosmic understanding has come about only recently. Very recently.
A nebula in space glows with bright purple, pink, and blue hues, surrounded by stars and cosmic dust where new stars form in our expanding universe.
Our Universe doesn't just expand and cool, but the expansion itself is accelerating. Can stars form under such structure-erasing conditions?
Diagram illustrating Earth's orbit around the Sun, showing the tilt of Earth's axis, the seasons, equinoxes, solstices, and directions to celestial poles.
Earth orbits the Sun while spinning on its tilted axis, with two annual occasions marking that maximal tilt. That's where solstices arise.
Diagram showing light from a distant galaxy bending around a red-hued massive object, reaching telescopes on Earth via different paths and at different times.
With the observation of SN 2025wny, a lensed superluminous supernova, astronomy's future comes into sharp, exciting focus.
Illustration of various carbon molecules, including buckyballs and graphene sheets, floating in space near a bright cosmic background with stars and nebulae.
It takes a wide variety of processes in the Universe to make all the elements that populate space today. We're still discovering new ones!
A large group of people stands together inside a spacious, industrial facility—likely the LHC—surrounded by tall machinery, pipes, and metal structures, celebrating the best 2025 discovery in particle physics.
Some vital, key ingredients must be in place for the Universe to make more matter than antimatter. The LHC took us one step closer in 2025.
Two space telescopes with solar panel arrays are shown against a plain, dark background. NASA's Habitable Worlds Observatory is represented by one with a hexagonal mirror, highlighting its role in advancing space science.
Finding alien Earths requires seeing Earth-sized planets at Earth-like distances from Sun-like stars. A new discovery completes the roadmap.
A mesmerizing starry sky with shooting stars and a majestic tree.
With a waning Moon and a denser-than-ever debris trail, 2025's Geminids might be the year's best meteor shower, and 2026's could be amazing.