Astronomy
TESS has Found A Second Earth-Sized World in This System. Exoplanet Science is Maturing
For planet-hunters, finding an Earth-sized exoplanet must be special. NASA estimates there are about 100 billion planets in the Milky…
JWST Pioneer Passes Along Advice for Future Space Telescope Builders
After a quarter-century of development, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is a smashing success. But senior project scientist John Mather,…
Astronomers Begin to Understand Strange “Backsplash” Galaxies
Clusters of galaxies do not appear in an instant. Instead they gradually form through the accumulation of many galaxies. But…
Astronomers use the World's Biggest Radio Telescope to map new Features of the Milky Way
Using China's FAST radio telescope, a team of Chinese researchers observed previously-unmapped regions of the Milky Way and made some…
How a Rotating Universe Makes Time Travel Possible
It turns out that time travel into the past is actually relatively easy. All you need to do is make…
This Star is Blasting Out a Concentrated Jet of Material at 500 km/s
MWC 349A is a star about 3,900 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. It's huge, about 38 times as massive…
The James Webb Links Modern Green Pea Galaxies to Ancient Galaxies in the Cosmic Dawn
When the James Webb Space Telescope lifted off from Earth on Christmas Day in 2021, it carried a lot of…
Blue Straggler Stars are Weird
All stars follow a particular path in their lives once they start fusing hydrogen. As they live they steadily get…
The JWST is the Shiny New Space Telescope, but the Dependable Hubble is Still Going Strong
The Venerable Hubble Space Telescope has cemented its place in history. Some call it the most successful science experiment ever.…
This Serpent’s Tail is Made of Starry Nebulae
The ancients didn't have the scientific understanding of nature that we have now. All they could do was look up…