Astronomy

  1. A headshot of theoretical physicist Julian Muñoz against a brightly lit backdrop
    Physics

    Julian Muñoz has a ‘ruler’ that could size up the early universe

    The measurement tool could lay out a distance scale for cosmic dawn —and offer clues to the nature of dark matter.

    By Emily Conover
  2. A photo of the pages of a book called the Dresden Codex.
    Astronomy

    50 years ago, a search for proof that the Maya tracked comets came up short

    The mystery of whether the ancient civilization tracked comets endures, but recent evidence hints the Maya tracked related meteor showers.

    By Erin Garcia de Jesús
  3. An image from the Hubble Space Telescope of globular star cluster M92.
    Astronomy

    A star cluster in the Milky Way appears to be as old as the universe

    Globular cluster M92 is about 13.8 billion years old, a new calculation suggests. Getting the age right could help resolve a bigger cosmic conundrum.

    By Lisa Grossman
  4. A photo of NASA's curiosity rover on the surface of Mars.
    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.

    By Ashley Yeager
  5. An illustration of the Milky Way galaxy.
    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.

    By Bas den Hond
  6. an illustration of a galaxy with a quasar, shown as a a swirl of blue and pink with a beam bisecting the center against the starry backdrop of space
    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.

    By Lisa Grossman
  7. An illustration of a supermassive black hole orbiting an even larger black hole with a field of stars in the background.
    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.

    By Lisa Grossman
  8. An artist's creation shows a red Jupiter-like planet with a red star shining in the distance.
    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.

    By Ken Croswell
  9. An illustration of the Parker Solar Probe heading towards the sun with orange light streaks shooting around it.
    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.

    By James R. Riordon
  10. A snapshot of a collapsing star spewing jets, colored red and green, outward against the backdrop of space
    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.

    By Lisa Grossman
  11. illustration of a black hole
    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.

    By Ashley Yeager
  12. An illustration of a reddish planet with swirling patterns depicting its radiation field
    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.

    By Lisa Grossman