For as long as humans have looked up at the night sky, we’ve wondered: Are we alone? Could there be…
Category: Astronomy
First Light: The Earliest Galaxies in the Universe
Imagine a universe drenched in darkness. No stars twinkling in distant skies, no galaxies swirling in elegant spirals, no light…
Why Do Some Planets Have Rings While Others Don’t?
Have you ever gazed up at pictures of Saturn, its gleaming rings stretching out like cosmic jewelry, and wondered, Why…
The Science of Exoplanet Atmospheres: Detecting Alien Skies
When we gaze up at the night sky, what do we see? Tiny points of light, distant suns burning in…
The Artificial Brain That Hunts Interstellar Objects
In the vast, silent theater of space, a rare class of cosmic wanderers makes a fleeting appearance—interstellar objects (ISOs). These…
Hypernovae: The Cosmic Titans That Forge the Universe
The universe is a grand, unfolding epic of creation and destruction, a stage where stars are born, live out brilliant…
Could a Rogue Black Hole Pass Through Our Solar System?
Imagine looking up at the night sky and realizing something is wrong. The stars seem to be shifting, strange gravitational…
Stellar Cannibalism: When Stars Eat Their Neighbors
Deep in the vast blackness of space, where the rules of life and death play out on scales beyond human…
Hypernovae: The Most Violent Explosions in the Universe
Among the countless wonders of the universe, few events are as spectacular—or as terrifying—as hypernovae. These cosmic explosions release more…
Dyson Swarms: Harvesting the Sun, Heating the Planet
Imagine a future where humanity—or some distant, hyper-advanced civilization—has grown so powerful, so energy-hungry, that the meager output of an…
Euclid Telescope Uncovers Thousands of Dwarf Galaxies
Two years into its mission, the European Space Agency’s Euclid space telescope is living up to its promise of unlocking…
The Asteroid That Killed the Dinosaurs: Could It Happen Again?
Sixty-six million years ago, Earth was thriving in the Late Cretaceous Period. Dinosaurs roamed forests and plains. Giant marine reptiles…
Why Are Some Stars Blue and Others Red?
On a clear night, away from the glare of city lights, the sky transforms into a canvas dotted with thousands…
The Oort Cloud: The Solar System’s Mysterious Outer Shell
Imagine a vast, icy realm, so distant from Earth that even light, traveling at 186,000 miles per second, would take…
Can We Survive a Supernova Near Earth?
Imagine one peaceful evening, you look up at the sky. The stars are twinkling, as they always do. But then,…
The Big Bang Theory: The Epic Story of the Universe’s Birth and Beyond
Since the dawn of humanity, we’ve asked the biggest question imaginable: Where did everything come from? When you look up…
The Cosmic Ballet: How Galaxies Move Through Space
Far beyond the blue sky, past the twinkling stars that decorate our night, beyond the reach of even the most…
Ancient Oxygen Discovery in the Most Distant Galaxy Ever Seen is Rewriting Cosmic History
In a discovery that’s shaking up our understanding of the early universe, two teams of astronomers have independently detected oxygen…
FAST Discovers an Ancient, Gas-Rich Ultra-Faint Dwarf Galaxy
Imagine peering deep into the cosmos and uncovering a tiny, ancient city, one that has survived billions of years relatively…
Dark Energy Might Be Changing—And It Could Rewrite Our Understanding of the Universe
For decades, scientists have gazed into the vastness of space and wondered about a mysterious force that seems to be…
Neutron Stars: The Most Dense Objects in the Universe
Imagine taking the entire mass of our Sun—around 330,000 times the mass of Earth—and cramming it into a ball the…
Exploring the Far Side of the Moon: What Lies Beneath?
For as long as humans have tilted their heads to gaze at the night sky, the Moon has been a…