Gravitational Lensing
Searching for Objects Even Stranger Than Black Holes
Black holes are already plenty bizarre. Imagine all the mass of several suns compressed down into an object of potentially…
Most Distant Galaxies Ever Seen
Astronomers announced today that they've located the most distant galaxies ever seen, 13.2 billion light-years away, formed when the Universe…
Spitzer Locates a Binary Pair of Black Holes
A clever trick has enabled NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope to calculate the distance to a distant object, confirming that it's…
Podcast: Gravitational Lensing
Astronomers are always trying to get their hands on bigger and more powerful telescopes. But the most powerful telescopes in…
How Dark Matter Might Have Snuffed Out the First Stars
What role did dark matter play in the early Universe? Since it makes up the majority of matter, it must…
Use Galactic Gravitational Lenses to Really See the Universe
To see any distance in space, you need some kind of telescope. We've got some pretty powerful ones here on…
Astronomers Peer Inside a Quasar
Quasars are some of the brightest objects in the Universe, and astronomers believe they're caused by the outpouring of radiation…
Galaxy Collision Separates Out the Dark Matter
There's more dark matter than regular matter in the Universe, and they're normally all mixed up together in galaxies. But…
Hubble Finds an Exoplanet’s Parent Star
When a star flared briefly, astronomers knew it was because a dimmer star had passed directly in front, acting as…
Podcast: A Puzzling Difference
Imagine looking at red houses, and sometimes you see a crow fly past. But every time you look at a…