This Nearby Brown Dwarf May Have Auroras—And a Moon, Too
Glowing methane on a brown dwarf dozens of light-years from Earth may signal the presence of a large lunar companion
Milky Way
Bizarre Dark Object Could Be First-Known ‘Empty’ Galaxy from the Early Universe
A serendipitously discovered object nearly as massive as the Milky Way appears to be made of primordial gas that has formed almost no stars
Information Theory Can Help Us Search for Life on Alien Worlds
Information theory can help us decode signs of biological activity hiding in the atmospheres of distant exoplanets
The Language of Astronomy Is Needlessly Violent and Inaccurate
Astronomy is beautiful and elegant. The language we use to describe its processes is anything but
Stars Don’t Slow Down with Age like Astronomers Thought
Middle-aged stars hit cruise control, stifling their magnetic fields and resisting the slowdown that scientists expected
Astronomers Spy First Star-Forming Disk beyond the Milky Way
No one has ever seen a newborn star feeding on its natal disk anywhere outside our galaxy—that is, until now
In the Search for Life beyond Earth, NASA Dreams Big for a Future Space Telescope
Astronomers are moving ahead in planning NASA’s Habitable Worlds Observatory, a telescope designed to answer the ultimate question: Are we alone in the universe?
Six-Planet System in Perfect Harmony Shocks Scientists
Six “sub-Neptune” worlds locked in a delicate dance around a nearby star offer fresh insights for the orbital evolution of planetary systems
The Second Most Powerful Cosmic Ray in History Came from—Nowhere?
Amaterasu—the most powerful cosmic ray seen in three decades—seems to come from an empty point of the sky. New telescopes may solve the mystery of its origins
See JWST’s Spectacular New View of the Crab Nebula
The James Webb Space Telescope’s studies of the Crab nebula may shed new light on the supernova remnant’s origins
Euclid Space Telescope Releases Stunning First Science Images
Fresh images show off the Euclid space telescope’s ability to capture crisp pictures of vast swaths of sky
Astronomers May Have Witnessed Worlds in Collision
A planet-vaporizing impact is the leading explanation for a distant star’s curiously fluctuating light