Gravitational Lensing
JWST Reveals Star Formation at Cosmic Noon
Understanding the star formation rate (SFR) in a galaxy is critical to understanding the galaxy itself. Some galaxies are starburst…
No Merger Needed: A Rotating Ring of Gas Creates A Hyperluminous Galaxy
Some galaxies experience rapid star formation hundreds or even thousands of times greater than the Milky Way. Astronomers think that…
Webb Sees Globular Clusters Forming in the Early Universe
Picture the Universe's ancient beginnings. In the vast darkness, light was emitted from a particular galaxy only 460 million years…
Rotation Curves of Galaxies Stay Flat Indefinitely
In his classic book On the Structure of Scientific Revolutions, the philosopher Thomas Kuhn posited that, for a new scientific…
If Gravity Can Exist Without Mass, That Could Explain Dark Matter
Dark Matter is Nature's poltergeist. We can see its effects, but we can't see it, and we don't know what…
Gravitational Lenses Could Pin Down Black Hole Mergers with Unprecedented Accuracy
Gravitational wave astronomy has been one of the hottest new types of astronomy ever since the LIGO consortium officially detected…
Formation-Flying Spacecraft Could Probe the Solar System for New Physics
It's an exciting time for the fields of astronomy, astrophysics, and cosmology. Thanks to cutting-edge observatories, instruments, and new techniques,…
The World's Largest Digital Camera is Complete. It Will Go Into the Vera Rubin Observatory
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory, formerly the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), was formally proposed in 2001 to create an…
Dwarf Galaxies Banished the Darkness and Lit Up the Early Universe
During the Universe's Dark Ages, dense primordial gas absorbed and scattered light, prohibiting it from travelling. Only when the first…
JWST Sees a Milky Way-Like Galaxy Coming Together in the Early Universe
The gigantic galaxies we see in the Universe today, including our own Milky Way galaxy, started out far smaller. Mergers…