"Asking the question of, where did the entire universe come from, is no longer a question for poets and theologians and philosophers. This is a question for scientists, and we have some amazing scientific answers to this question that have defied even the wildest of our expectations."

Just 165,000 light-years away, the Large Magellanic Cloud is suspected to house a supermassive black hole. At last, evidence has arrived.

Fears of celestial collisions — and calculations of their likelihood — go back to the very origins of modern science itself.

One of the most promising dark matter candidates is light particles, like axions. With JWST, we can rule out many of those options already.

Astronomers see spiral and elliptical nebulae nearly everywhere, except by the Milky Way's plane. We didn't know why until the 20th century.

Perhaps the most well-known equation in all of physics is Einstein's E = mc². Does mass or energy increase, then, near the speed of light?

The full extent of the Andromeda galaxy, the nearest large galaxy to our own, has been entirely imaged with Hubble's exquisite cameras.

Dark matter doesn't absorb or emit light, but it gravitates. Instead of something exotic and novel, could it just be dark, normal matter?

Asteroid 2024 YR4, which could devastate a city's worth of humans, has gone from 1.2% to 2.3% to 2.6% to 3.1% chances of impact. Here's why.

At extremely close distances to their stars, even rocky planets can be completely disintegrated. We've just caught our first one in action.

Ring galaxies are rare, but we think we know how they form. A new, early-stage version, the Bullseye galaxy, provides a new testing ground.

Here in our Solar System, terrestrial bodies get moons from gravitational capture or collisions. The Pluto-Charon system? It was both.

The ultimate multi-messenger astronomy event would have gravitational waves, particles, and light arriving all at once. Did that just occur?

A young, nearby, massive star, whose protoplanetary disk appears perfectly edge-on, was just viewed by JWST, with staggering implications.

A new SETI study shows how far the field of technosignatures has come.

Historically, astronomers have often named things creatively, bizarrely, and often inaccurately. But which terms are the most egregious?

Seeking life beyond the Solar System, we first look to the closest star systems with Earth-like planets. Here's why that's not good enough.

Our Moon is full of craters, basins, and ancient lava flows. But two large lunar Grand Canyons have the same origin: a single, giant impact.

There are only four super star clusters in all the Local Group: rarities today. Here's what the youngest, the just-discovered N79, shows us.

First discovered in the mid-1960s, no cosmic signal has taught us more about the Universe, or spurred more controversy, than the CMB.

It's the ultimate game of cosmic "cover up," as the dimming occurs when a circumbinary disk from a nearby star passes in front of T Tauri North.

Matter is made up largely of atoms, where atomic nuclei can contain up to 100 protons or more. But how were the heaviest elements made?

Cosmic inflation, proposed back in 1980, is a theory that precedes and sets up the hot Big Bang. After thorough testing, is it still valid?

Scientists just viewed one of the tiniest, most isolated, lowest-mass galaxies ever found with JWST. Despite all odds, it's still growing.

New telescopes, radio dishes, and gravitational wave detectors are needed for next-generation science. Will the USA lead the way?

The Ring Nebula, a bright, circular planetary nebula, is created by a dying Sun-like star. After centuries, we finally know its true shape.

Since mid-2022, JWST has been showing us how the Universe grows up, from planets to galaxies and more. So, what's its biggest find of all?

Seven years ago, an outburst in a distant galaxy brightened and faded away. Afterward, a new supermassive black hole jet emerged, but how?

Here in our Universe, stars shine brightly, providing light and heat to planets, moons, and more. But some objects get even hotter, by far.

Most stars shine with properties, like brightness, that barely change at all with time. The ones that do vary help us unlock the Universe.