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Astronomy

Illustration of NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) observing an M dwarf star with orbiting planets.

TESS Space Telescope Will Find Thousands of Planets, but Astronomers Seek a Select Few

NASA’s new space telescope has already discovered two planets, but the hunt for a world like Earth is just getting started

New Research

The Universe’s Strongest Material is a Cosmic Lasagna

A new study suggests that the “nuclear pasta” found in neutron stars is 10 billion times stronger than steel

New Research

This Pulsar is Giving Off Weird Infrared Light and We’re Not Sure Why

Researchers believe a disk of dust from a supernova or a pulsar wind nebula could explain the strange energy signal

Trending Today

‘It Wasn’t Aliens’: Solar Observatory That Was Mysteriously Evacuated Will Reopen Tomorrow

The Sunspot Observatory in New Mexico was closed for ten days due to a ‘security threat,’ though aliens and solar flares have been ruled out

Jocelyn Bell Burnell photographed in 2011

Decades After Being Passed Over for a Nobel, Jocelyn Bell Burnell Gets Her Due

Honored with a Special Breakthrough Prize, the astrophysicist says she’ll use the winnings to fund scholarships to support today’s outsiders in the field

Artist's impression of galactic wind.

New Research

Astronomers Spot Galactic Wind From Early Universe

The ejection of molecular gas from a galaxy 12 billion light-years away may have kept an early galaxy from burning out too quickly

Artist's rendering of COSMOS-AzTEC-1.

New Research

Monster Galaxy Churns Out 1,000 Times As Many Stars As Our Own

COSMOS-AzTEC-1 is almost 13 billion years old highly organized but unstable and could shed light on galaxy evolution

Artist's rendering of "Orbital Reflector," a reflective space sculpture set to be launched into space this October

Art Meets Science

Astronomers Say This Reflective Space Sculpture Will Cause Unneeded Light Pollution. The Artist Argues Otherwise

‘Orbital Reflector,’ a 100-foot long, diamond-shaped balloon, aims to inspire humans to gaze up at the night sky with a renewed sense of wonder

New Research

Why Astronomers Want to Look for Earth’s Mini-Moons

A new, powerful telescope in Chile will be able to detect tiny asteroid chunks circling our planet, which could be a goldmine for researchers

Andromeda

New Research

The Andromeda Galaxy Ate The Milky Way’s Lost Sibling

New simulations show Andromeda absorbed the large galaxy M32p about 2 billion years ago

Total lunar eclipse photographed near Calgary, Alberta, Canada, in 2007.

The Century’s Longest Lunar Eclipse Will Shroud the Moon This Week

Including phases where the moon is partially masked, the event will last nearly four hours total

Cool Finds

Jupiter Officially Has 12 New Moons

The new satellites are mostly tiny and include one oddball that is on a collision course with some of the 78 other moons orbiting the planet

Berry started his career colorizing actual telescope data. His more recent work includes this artistic impression of a black hole at the heart of galaxy NGC 1068. The material trapped around the black hole is moving so fast that the light itself is either compressed to blue where the material is coming toward the viewer, or stretched to red, where it is rushing away from the viewer.

Art Meets Science

The Supernova That Launched a Thousand Gorgeous Space Images

By colorizing one of the first Hubble satellite images, illustrator Dana Berry ushered in a new era of stunning space visuals

New Research

Scientists Explain The Thrill of Detecting a Neutrino From a Far-Off Galaxy

For the first time, the IceCube observatory has triumphantly tracked a neutrino back to a massive blazar

New Research

Our Galaxy Is Really Greasy and Smells Like Moth Balls

A new study estimates that a quarter to half the carbon in interstellar space is in the form of greasy aliphatic carbon

Cool Finds

Now That the Smog Has Lifted, Astronomy Returns to London’s Royal Observatory

A new telescope that filters out light pollution and interference will watch the stars from the site constructed in 1675

A 2018 colorized image of Jupiter's south pole created by citizen scientist Gabriel Fiset, using data from NASA's Juno spacecraft.

How Jupiter May Have Gifted Early Earth With Water

A new model of the solar system suggest we have gas giants to thank for our watery world

The oxygen distribution from MACS1149-JD1 appears green in this ALMA image.

New Research

Astronomers Find Signature From the Universe’s Earliest Known Stars

The first lights may have winked to life just 250 million years after the Big Bang

An artist’s illustration of a black hole “eating” a star.

Big Data is Transforming How Astronomers Make Discoveries

The next game-changer is likely lurking in the data we already have—but it will take scientists years to uncover it

Perhaps our sun will produce something as beautiful as the Cat's Eye Nebula.

New Research

The Sun Will Produce a Beautiful Planetary Nebula When It Dies

A new model of stellar death shows our low-mass star has enough juice to produce a beautiful ring of gas and dust before winking out

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