Astronomy
The Hubble Aims Its Powerful Ultraviolet Eye at Super-Hot Stars
Some stars are so massive and so energetic that they're a million times brighter than the Sun. This type of…
The Milky Way’s Smallest, Faintest Satellite Galaxy Found
The Milky Way has many satellite galaxies, most notably the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. They're both visible to the…
Astronomers Catch a Supernova Explode Almost in Realtime
Catching a supernova in action is tricky business. There is no way to predict them, and they don’t occur very…
Webb Joins the Hunt for Protoplanets
We can't understand what we can't clearly see. That fact plagues scientists who study how planets form. Planet formation happens…
This Supernova Lit Up the Sky in 1181. Here’s What it Looks Like Now
Historical astronomical records from China and Japan recorded a supernova explosion in the year 1181. It was in the constellation…
Astronomers Only Knew of a Single Binary Cepheid System. Now They Just Found Nine More
Measuring the distance to far away objects in space can be tricky. We don't even know the precise distance to…
Brown Dwarf Pairs Drift Apart in Old Age
The only thing worse than drifting through space for an eternity is doing it alone. Observations with the Hubble Space…
The Sound of an Interstellar Meteor Might Have Just Been a Rumbling Truck
A 2023 expedition to the Pacific Ocean, searching for debris from a suspected extraterrestrial object, may have been looking in…
Ice is Starting to Cloud Euclid's Optics
On July 1st, 2023, the European Space Agency (ESA) launched the Euclid Observatory, a mission that will spend the next…
Red Giants Offer a New Way to Measure Distance in the Universe
For nearly three decades now, it's been clear that the expansion of the Universe is speeding up. Some unknown quantity,…