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universe

Image of the constellation Lupus taken by the LSST camera

‘The Greatest Cosmic Movie Ever Made’: The World’s Largest Digital Camera Begins a Historic, Decade-Long Survey of the Night Sky

After a year of testing, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile has started capturing data as part of the much-anticipated Legacy Survey of Space and Time

Crystal containing thorium-229 atoms used in the European team's clock

The World’s First Nuclear Clocks Are Ticking, Opening a New Way to Investigate Dark Matter and Other Mysteries of Physics

Two independent teams of scientists have created the first functional clocks that can keep ultraprecise time using the nuclei of a radioactive element

The largest 3D map of the universe. Earth is at the center, and each point marks a galaxy.

This Is the Largest, Most Detailed 3D Map of the Universe. It’ll Help Astronomers Investigate a Cosmic Mystery: Dark Energy

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument spent five years observing the sky from Arizona. Now, researchers have a trove of data to study how the universe has evolved over billions of years

Stars in the ancient dwarf galaxy Pictor II

Astronomers Discover a Rare Primitive Star That Provides a Chemical Snapshot of the Early Universe

PicII-503 is likely a second-generation star, born from the remnants of the very first stars, according to a new study

The antimatter went on a roughly 30-minute road trip.

In a First, the World’s Most Expensive and Volatile Substance—Antimatter—Traveled by Truck

The work paves the way for longer-distance transport of the rare material so scientists can study it at other facilities

The suspected meteorite landed in an upstairs bedroom of a Houston-area home.

This Suspected Meteorite Tore Through the Roof of a Suburban Houston Home

A bright meteor streaked across the afternoon sky and exploded over southeast Texas this weekend

CDG-2 as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope

Astronomers Spotted a Galaxy That’s Made Up Almost Entirely of Dark Matter

The researchers found the galaxy thanks to the Hubble Space Telescope

An artist's rendition of an imploding star, surrounded by expelled gas and dust shown in red

A Star Suddenly Brightened, Then Faded Into Darkness. Astronomers Say It May Have Turned Into a Black Hole

If confirmed, this disappearing act might provide the closest and best observational evidence for the birth of a black hole

The particle collider smashes together atomic nuclei—comprised of particles called protons and neutrons—to break them into their smaller components.

The U.S.’s Only Particle Collider Recreated Moments From the Early Universe. Now, It Has Closed—to Make Way for a New Instrument

The end of the facility’s 25-year run is “bittersweet”

Lab-made cosmic dust on a chip

Physicists Create Homemade Cosmic Dust, Which Could Help Them Figure Out How the Building Blocks of Life First Reached Earth

Cosmic dust normally comes from dying stars. The recipe for a lab-made version includes a few gases, vacuum tubes and electricity

The JADES-ID1 protocluster

Astronomers Spot a Huge Cluster of Galaxies Forming Earlier in Cosmic History Than Thought Possible

The young galaxy cluster existed about 12.8 billion years ago and has an estimated mass 20 trillion times that of the sun

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

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

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

An artistic rendering depicting dozens of exoplanets

Exoplanet Discoveries Pass the 6,000 Mark, Shedding Light on How Our Solar System Compares With the Rest of the Universe

The rate of finding these distant worlds has recently increased, with astronomers scrambling to accommodate the data

Water may have arisen as early as 100 million years after the universe began.

Did Water Form in the Earliest Years of the Universe?

A recent study suggests huge volumes of the molecule emerged during the cosmic dawn

Enceladus (center) orbits Saturn in this 2007 image captured by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft.

Should Scientists Inject Saturn’s Moon Enceladus With Life?

A new study proposes that seeding the orb’s underground ocean with microbes might help us learn how to make other worlds habitable

An artistic rendering of a magnetar—or highly magnetized neutron star—losing material into space. The magnetic field lines, shown in green, direct the movement of charged material.

Astrophysicists Track Down the Mysterious Cosmic Origins of Gold and Other Heavy Metals in Our Galaxy

Researchers suggest powerful bursts from magnetars—collapsed stars with strong magnetic fields—may have contributed up to 10 percent of all elements heavier than iron in the Milky Way

JADES-GS-z14-0 is the most distant known galaxy, dating to less than 300 million years after the Big Bang. Scientists were surprised to find oxygen there.

Scientists Detect ‘Unexpected’ Oxygen in the Most Distant Galaxy Ever Found, Defying Ideas About the Early Universe

The findings suggest galaxies formed much more quickly than astronomers assumed

DESI, seen here beneath star trails, aims to create a 3D map of the universe.

Mysterious Dark Energy Might Be Weakening—and That Could Upend Predictions About the End of the Universe

Astronomers thought dark energy was a constant. But now, findings from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument provide even more evidence that it may be fluctuating

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