Astronomy

Space

ESA’s Solar Orbiter will be the first spacecraft to study the sun’s polar zones

ESA's Solar Orbiter is now on its way to the sun, beginning a nearly two-year journey.

Space

This is the first fast radio burst known to have a steady beat

Brief blasts of radio energy from other galaxies keep stumping astronomers, but one seems to be on a 16-day cycle, a new clue in an ongoing puzzle.

Space

The wobbling orbit of a pulsar proves Einstein right, yet again

Astronomers have found a pulsar’s orbit being rocked to and fro as a neighboring white dwarf whips up spacetime, in accordance with general relativity.

Space

As NASA’s Spitzer telescope’s mission ends, here’s a look back at its discoveries

For more than 16 years, the Spitzer Space Telescope has witnessed the births and deaths of stars, charted the Milky Way, found faraway worlds and more.

Space

Phosphorus, a key ingredient of life, has been found in a newborn star system

Astrochemists map phosphorus-bearing molecules in a star-forming cloud, giving clues to how this vital element may have arrived on Earth.

Space

A second planet may orbit Proxima Centauri

The star closest to the sun may harbor another planet, this one much more massive and colder than Earth.

Space

This ancient stardust is the oldest ever to be examined in a lab

Tiny grains of stardust that formed long before our solar system are giving new insight into star formation in the Milky Way.

Space

Dark matter pioneer Vera Rubin gets a new observatory named after her

A new effort to study the cosmos is named after Vera Rubin, an astronomer who searched out dark matter and battled sexism.

Space

A giant wave of gas lurks near our solar system

The Earth and sun are relatively near a newfound, wavy rope of star-forming gas, named the Radcliffe Wave.

Space

Young stars have been found in an old part of our galaxy

A newly discovered star cluster in the Milky Way’s halo seems to have been deposited there by gas torn off of two satellite galaxies.

Space

Bubble-blowing galaxies could help solve a cosmic mystery

Three galaxies ionizing hydrogen 680 million years after the Big Bang show a potential step in the ionization of nearly all hydrogen in the cosmos.

Space

The home galaxy of a second repeating fast radio burst is a puzzle

The second galaxy known to host brief, brilliant flashes of radio waves known as a recurrent fast radio burst looks nothing like the first.