1861–1880 of 6,715 results

Night Sky Sights

Globular Clusters Await: Hello, Messier 3!

Globular cluster season is here. Time to get out your charts, binoculars, and telescopes and enjoy these wondrous objects.

Comet SWAN heads north

Celestial News & Events

Comet SWAN's Final Song

Despite early expectations Comet SWAN appears to be fizzling, providing yet another opportunity to appreciate what makes these objects so unique.

SPHERE image of AB Aurigae

Exoplanets

Astronomers Witness the Birth of Planets

Two new sets of observations show astronomers what planet formation looks like.

Roman Space Telescope

Astronomy and Society

NASA Renames WFIRST: The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope

NASA is renaming its next flagship space observatory to honor pioneering NASA astronomer and "Mother of Hubble," Nancy Grace Roman.

Whirlpool Galaxy

Night Sky Sights

See Spring's Finest Spiral Galaxies

Spring skies offer some of the best sights of spiral galaxies. Point your scope at some of these magnificent cosmic whirlpools.

Artist's concept of early disk galaxy

Galaxies

Rotating Disk in Early Universe Explains Galaxy Formation

The discovery of a stably rotating disk galaxy in the early universe is the best indicator yet for how galaxies like the Milky Way formed.

Delta Scuti star and light curve

Stellar Science

Astronomers Investigate Stellar Interiors

Astronomers have untangled the constantly changing brightness of variable stars known as Delta Scuti stars, yielding estimates for their ages.

Night Sky Sights

See the Phases of Venus

If you have a set of binoculars or a telescope, watch for Venus’s thinning crescent over the next couple weeks.

Eclipse mosaic

Astronomy and Society

Medieval "Dark Eclipse" Helps Date Ice Cores — and Time Volcanic Eruptions

Scientists have used a famous "dark eclipse" of the Moon to help date ice cores collected in Greenland and the Antarctic.

OJ 287 (artist's concept)

Black Holes

Black Hole Duo Flares Right on Time

Astronomers have forecast a flare from a supermassive black hole duo 3.5 billion light-years away.

All-season Triangle

Night Sky Sights

This May, Find the Star Pattern That Spans All Seasons

Widen your view to see the All-Season Triangle asterism, whose stars span the year.

Celestial News & Events

Supernovae Light Up in M61 and NGC 3643

Two new supernovae for amateur telescopes are keeping things lively this month.

Magnetar

Stellar Science

Milky Way Magnetar Makes Fast Radio Burst

Fast radio bursts are mysterious — and powerful — flashes of radio waves. Now, we've found one of these flashes coming from a magnetar in our own galaxy.

An arm to the sun

Space Missions

Details of SpaceX's Starlink "VisorSat" Revealed

SpaceX has revealed new details on its plans to darken the Starlink satellites.

composite image of Ryugu's rubbly surface

Solar System

Ryugu May Have Skirted Close to the Sun

Observations by the Japanese Hayabusa 2 spacecraft show subtle color differences, indicating something has reddened the asteroid’s surface.

Mars: dry vs. wet

Solar System

Weak Martian Magnetic Field May Have Let Air Out

Mars's magnetic field weakened and disappeared billions of years ago. Now, scientists have found that the weak field might have been worse than none at all.

Celestial News & Events

Comet SWAN Expected to Put on a Splendid Show

Comet SWAN will grace northern skies in the days to come.

illustration of triple system HR 6819

Black Holes

Closest Black Hole to Earth? Maybe

An international team of astronomers says that they’ve discovered the closest black hole to Earth — an invisible object dancing with two large, bright stars 1,000 light-years away.

Black Holes

What Kinds of Black Hole Partners Merge?

New research on black hole mergers reveals that the black hole pairs tend to have similar masses — suggesting that they start out as massive stellar pairs.

E. oli bacteria

Astrobiology

Could There Be Life Under a Hydrogen Sky?

Scientists have discovered that life could survive within a hydrogen-dominated atmosphere. The finding is not necessarily a surprise but could have implications for the search for life.