Astronomy

Astronomy

‘Under Alien Skies’ imagines what the sky looks like on other planets

Astronomer Philip Plait’s new book takes readers on a thrilling ride to Mars, Pluto and even a black hole.

Astronomy

Alien life may be possible even at the Milky Way’s edges

Phosphorus detected far from the Milky Way’s center seems to extend the zone where life could exist in the galaxy by thousands of light-years.

Astronomy

In a first, JWST detected starlight from distant galaxies with quasars

Until JWST’s sharp infrared eyes came along, it wasn’t possible to see the galaxies hosting extremely bright supermassive black holes called quasars.

Astronomy

A supermassive black hole orbiting a bigger one revealed itself with a flash

A supermassive black hole binary system has puzzled astronomers for decades. Now they’ve finally seen direct signals from the smaller of the two.

Astronomy

Jupiter-sized planets are very rare around the least massive stars

A six-year search of 200 nearby low-mass red dwarf stars found no Jupiter-like planets, boosting the standard theory for how such planets form.

Astronomy

The Parker Solar Probe may have spotted the origin of high-speed solar winds

Kinks in the magnetic fields near the surface of the sun appear to be the cause of fast-moving flows in the solar wind.

Astronomy

A simulation of a dying star shows how it could create gravitational waves

Massive jets and an expanding cocoon of debris from a collapsing star could be a source of never-before-seen ripples in spacetime.

Astronomy

Weird black holes may hold secrets of the early universe

Big black holes in little galaxies, rogue black holes and other behemoths could offer clues to cosmic evolution.

Astronomy

The first radiation belt outside the solar system has been spotted

Encircling a Jupiter-sized body about 18 light-years from Earth, the radiation belt is 10 million times as bright as the ones around Jupiter.

Astronomy

A reappearing supernova offers a new measure of the universe’s expansion

Supernova Refsdal blew up once but burst into view at least five times. The timing of its appearances provides clues to how fast the universe is growing.

Astronomy

The James Webb telescope revealed surprise asteroids in the Fomalhaut star system

New images of Fomalhaut confirm that an alleged planet is probably just dust while also revealing a new asteroid belt and a “Great Dust Cloud.”

Astronomy

A streak of light may not be a black hole fleeing its galaxy after all

A suspicious trail of starlight may just be a spiral galaxy seen edge on, not stars that formed in the wake of a runaway supermassive black hole.