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Astronomy

An image containing nearly 800,000 galaxies from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, overlaid with dark-matter clumps shown in blue

See the Most Detailed Map of Dark Matter Ever Made, Bringing Astronomers a Step Closer to Unraveling Its Mysterious Nature

The invisible stuff makes up about 85 percent of all matter in the universe, but researchers know little about it

Ice can take on more than 20 forms, or phases, depending on the temperature and pressure conditions as water crystallizes.

Researchers Discover a New Phase of Ice by Squeezing Water Between Diamonds

The new form, called Ice XXI, appeared at room temperature in the lab, and it may have a similar density to ice on distant moons in our solar system

A "bar" of iron atoms, colored red in this image, has been hiding inside the Ring Nebula.

Cool Finds

Astronomers Discover a Mysterious Bar-Shaped Cloud of Iron Within the Iconic Ring Nebula

Humans have been eyeing the colorful Ring Nebula for nearly 250 years, but testing out a new telescope tool led to the perplexing finding

Researchers were shocked to find a shock wave around a dead star. 

This Mysterious Gas Cloud Spotted Around a Dead Star Is Beautiful—but Astronomers Say It Shouldn’t Be There

The stellar corpse is spewing star stuff, which is heating and compressing surrounding gas, resulting in a multicolored display. But it’s missing a component thought to be necessary for this phenomenon

Cloud-9, shown in magenta. The circle represents the region where researchers focused their search for stars—the peak of radio emission.

Astronomers Find an Odd Space Cloud, Like a Galaxy Without Stars, That Could Shed Light on the Secrets of Dark Matter

Named “Cloud-9,” the discovery is a new type of celestial object known as a RELHIC, which is unlike anything scientists have ever observed

An artistic representation of a galaxy cluster forming shortly after the universe began

Cool Finds

This Early-Universe Cluster of Galaxies Is Way Hotter Than It Should Be

Gas within the cluster, which existed merely 1.4 billion years after the Big Bang, is at least five times hotter than computer simulations predict it should be, a study suggests

Look up throughout the year to catch a wide array of astronomical sights.

Don’t Miss These Ten Celestial Events in 2026, From Aligned Planets to a Total Solar Eclipse

The upcoming year will offer a blood-red moon, spectacular meteor showers and the first glimpse of the sun’s corona since April 2024

An artistic representation of a superkilonova

In a First, Astronomers May Have Witnessed a Rare Double Explosion of a Star Called a Superkilonova

A massive star may have burst, leaving behind two dense, dead cores, which then collided and caused another explosion

An artistic representation of exoplanet PSR J2322-2650b, on the left, and the pulsar it orbits, on the right

This Lemon-Shaped Planet Has an Atmosphere Unlike Anything Astronomers Have Ever Seen

The James Webb Space Telescope detected an atmosphere rich with carbon and helium, which is unexpected on this hot planet roughly 2,000 light-years from Earth

In 2025, researchers watched an interstellar comet, learned about human origins and traced the spread of measles.

The Ten Most Significant Science Stories of 2025, From Medical Breakthroughs to an Interstellar Visitor

All year long, these moments captivated the public, demonstrated dangerous trends, and pushed research and innovation forward

Six infrared images of Titan created with data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft

Saturn’s Moon Titan May Not Have an Underground Ocean After All

A new analysis of data from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft may upend Titan’s status as an ocean world. But it might still have pockets of water within a slushy ice layer

David Rankin, operations manager at the Catalina Sky Survey, keeps tabs on space rocks in search of new and potentially hazardous asteroids.

From a Remote Observatory, He’s Defending Our Planet. Get a Glimpse Inside the Life of a Doomsday Asteroid Hunter

David Rankin of the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona spends nights scanning the solar system for potentially catastrophic space rocks. Here’s what he has to say about that “high consequence” work, an interstellar comet and living with uncertainty

NASA’s Lucy spacecraft, which is investigating a group of asteroids that share Jupiter's orbit around the sun, snapped this image on September 16 as 3I/ATLAS approached Mars. 

Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Is About to Make Its Closest Approach to Earth. Here’s How to View It With Binoculars or a Telescope

On December 19, avid skywatchers can catch a glimpse of the mysterious visitor through powerful binoculars or a telescope when it’s around 170 million miles from our home planet

Elihu Vedder's 19th-century painting "Star of Bethlehem"

The Bible’s Star of Bethlehem May Have Been a Comet, Analysis of Ancient Records Suggests

An odd star brightened for more than 70 days in 5 B.C.E., according to a Chinese text. The object may have been a comet that looked like it rose, then stood still over Bethlehem

Supernova remnant Cassiopeia A, which sits within the Milky Way

Astrophysicists Found an Abundance of Odd Elements Essential for Life in the Leftovers of an Exploded Star

The surprisingly high amounts of chlorine and potassium in a supernova remnant could help solve the mystery of where these crucial elements come from

Astronauts Tom Stafford (left) and Wally Schirra (right) demonstrating with two model space crafts during an interview in the 1960s

Sixty Years Ago, When Instruments Were Played in Space for the First Time, It Was ‘Jingle Bells’ All the Way

Astronauts Tom Stafford and Wally Schirra delighted mission control with their rendition of the Christmas classic

An image simulating the contamination from satellite trails in observations by ARRAKIHS, a European Space Agency telescope planned to launch in 2030

More Than 500,000 Satellites Are Set to Orbit Earth by 2040. They May End Up Photobombing the Images Captured by Space Telescopes

Fleets of satellites interfere with snapshots taken by Earth-bound observatories. But a new study suggests these orbiters will also contaminate observations by four space telescopes, including Hubble

A supermoon in December 2017

Look Up This Week to See the Bright ‘Cold’ Moon, the Last Supermoon of the Year

December’s full moon will reach peak brightness on Thursday, but it will look striking for the next few nights—especially when it’s just above the horizon

A long-exposure view of the Milky Way, seen from Brandenburg, Germany, is cut through by the light trails of passing satellites.

Giant Mirrors in Space Could Bring Sunlight After Dark, One Startup Says—and Astronomers Are Concerned

Critics argue the satellites, billed as a way to harness solar energy at night, could hamper sky observations and may pose a threat to human and animal health

An artist's impression of a coronal mass ejection on a star

In a First, Astronomers Saw a Distant Star Shoot Some of Its Plasma Into Space

The powerful coronal mass ejection would have likely destroyed the atmospheres of any potentially habitable planets nearby

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