Astronomers map distances to 56000 galaxies, largest-ever catalog
How old is our universe, and what is its size?
A team of researchers led by the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa astronomers Brent Tully...
Asteroid that formed Vredefort crater much bigger than previously thought
About two billion years ago, an impactor hurtled toward Earth, crashing into the planet in an area near present-day Johannesburg, South Africa.
The impactor—most likely...
Astronomers explain Mars’ watery reflections
There is water in many places on Mars, including most of both polar ice caps – all in the frozen form.
But recently, bright reflections...
NASA’s DART mission hits asteroid in first-ever planetary defense test
After 10 months flying in space, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) – the world’s first planetary defense technology demonstration – successfully impacted its...
The moon’s poles have wandered over billions of years
Until 1959, humans had only seen one side of the Moon.
The Moon is tidally locked with Earth, and so we can only see one...
Webb Telescope scans a nearby brown dwarf and finds it has clouds made of...
In its first few months of operation, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is already proving that it was well worth the wait!
To date,...
Astronomers detect hot gas bubble swirling around the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole
Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), astronomers have spotted signs of a ‘hot spot’ orbiting Sagittarius A*, the black hole at the centre...
Astronomers unveil new and puzzling features of mysterious fast radio bursts
Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are millisecond-long cosmic explosions that each produce the energy equivalent to the sun’s annual output.
More than 15 years after the...
Astronomers find a sun-like star orbiting a nearby black hole
In 1916, Karl Schwarzchild theorized the existence of black holes as a resolution to Einstein’s field equations for his Theory of General Relativity.
By the...
Saturn’s magic ring is from its lost moon Chrysalis, shows study
Rings appear to be common around planets in the solar system, but the dramatic rings of Saturn have long puzzled astronomers, as has the...