For decades, one nearby galaxy kept its heart hidden. Wrapped in thick veils of gas and dust, the nucleus of…
Category: Astronomy
The Milky Way’s Central Black Hole Might Actually Be a Giant Knot of Dark Matter
For decades, astronomers have spoken about the heart of the Milky Way with a kind of hushed certainty. Somewhere deep…
Dead Stars Are Helping Scientists Build the First Map of the Invisible Universe
For decades, astronomers have learned to read the universe through light. Radio waves revealed hidden galaxies. X-rays exposed violent cosmic…
Astronomers Finally Found the Smoking Gun for a 60 Year Old Mystery in Space
Most stars are creatures of habit. They circle the galaxy calmly, drifting along with their neighbors in a slow, predictable…
The James Webb Telescope Found a Massive Red Potato Hiding in the Early Universe
In the crowded, tangled architecture of the early universe, some places are meant to be loud with creation. Gas flows…
Scientists Think an Invisible Explosion From Before the First Stars Just Messaged Earth
In 2023, something extraordinary slipped quietly into Earth from the depths of space. It left no flash in the sky,…
Astronomers Finally Measured the Violent Winds Raging Around the Eye of a Black Hole
At the heart of almost every galaxy, including our own, lies something immense and unsettling: a supermassive black hole. Astronomers…
James Webb Found a Time Capsule Galaxy That Shouldn’t Exist in the Modern Universe
When astronomers point a telescope toward the deep universe, they are also looking back in time. In this case, that…
The James Webb Space Telescope Found a Cosmic Traffic Jam That Shouldn’t Exist Yet
The ocean covers most of our planet, yet it remains more mysterious than the Moon or Mars. Satellites have mapped…
General Relativity Is Throwing Planets Into a Dead Zone Where They Simply Cannot Survive
When astronomers look out into the galaxy, they see planets everywhere. Thousands upon thousands of exoplanets have been confirmed, most…
Scientists Discovered That Martian Soil Toxins Help Bacteria Grow Better Space Bricks
Mars has a way of humbling Earthly assumptions. What thrives in our familiar soil may struggle, or even fail, in…
Kepler’s Supernova: The Star That Exploded and Changed Humanity’s View of the Universe
In the autumn of 1604, the night sky performed a quiet miracle. In a familiar constellation that sailors, scholars, and…
This Sleeping Black Hole Suddenly Exploded Into the Most Powerful Gamma Ray State on Record
For more than a decade, a distant cosmic beacon sat in near silence, its immense power hidden behind a calm…
James Webb Reveals the Universe Grew Up Much Faster Than We Ever Imagined
The light arriving at the James Webb Space Telescope today began its journey almost as soon as the universe itself…
New Math Suggests Dyson Bubbles Can Stay Stable Using Only Gravity and Starlight
For as long as humans have looked up, the stars have invited imagination. Somewhere in that darkness, astronomers wonder, might…
Astronomers Have Finally Seen the Invisible Scaffolding That Shapes the Cosmos
For most of human history, the universe seemed built only from what our eyes could catch. Stars burned, galaxies spun,…
Scientists Finally Discovered the Elusive Carbon Stars That Were Missing From Our Closest Galactic Neighbor
For decades, astronomers have sifted through the faint fingerprints of stars, searching for the rare ones that carry stories from…
Scientists Discovered 400,000 Cosmic Secrets Hidden in 22 Years of X-Ray Data
Imagine a recording artist with a career so long and so rich that every performance, every improvisation, every subtle shift…
Astronomers Found the Largest Sulfur Molecule Ever Detected in Deep Space
In the cold, quiet reaches of space, far from planets and sunlight, chemistry still unfolds. Inside a vast molecular cloud…
This Ancient Planet Is Literally Being Stripped To Its Bones By Its Own Sun
It began, as so many planetary discoveries do, with a faint and persistent flicker in starlight. NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey…
These Cosmic Time Travelers Are Staying Young by Sucking the Life Out of Their Neighbors
In the quiet depths of the Milky Way’s oldest star clusters, time is supposed to move in only one direction.…
Astronomers Found a Supermassive Black Hole Ignoring a Universal Speed Limit
Twelve billion years ago, when the universe was still young and galaxies were only beginning to take shape, a brilliant…