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THE PRINT that artist Erika Blumenfeld shows me is an expanse of deep blue, a rich color that speaks of romance and night. It's stippled with gold marks, some as [...]

IN THE SUMMERS OF MY CHILDHOOD, I Spent time in upstate New York at my grandparents' lakeside home, far from the polluting light of big cities. At night, I would [...]

Our home galaxy, the Milky Way, along with a few dozen of its neighbors, belongs to a group of galaxies, just a small knot in a larger cosmic network. To [...]

Though it was fantasy just a few decades ago, space-based solar power may soon be reality--and a renewable energy breakthrough: accessible anytime, unlike ground-based solar panels limited by darkness, and [...]

THE UNIVERSE DELIVERED MANY SURPRISES IN 2018, and Astronomy always enjoys ranking the top 10 of those cosmic curve-balls. The past year spanned everything from the planet next door to [...]

On the evening of September 11, 2017, Griffith Observatory hosted an enthusiastic group of observers. The assembled crowd looked through the 12-inch Zeiss refracting telescope, the centerpiece of the venerable [...]

Each year, Astronomy ranks the top 10 astronomical discoveries and space stories. Choosing 2017's top stories wasn't easy, as it was a year full of exciting discoveries and unexpected findings. [...]

Some call Saturn the jewel of the solar system, with its distinctive rings, variety of moons, and swift atmospheric winds. The first glances of the planet through a telescope certainly [...]

IN 1994 astronomer Renee Kraan-Korteweg spotted some 600 galaxies lying the same distance away from us, all clustered around the constellations Hydra and Vela. These findings hinted that the region [...]

THE MOON'S ACTUAL COLOR is an off-white brown-gray when its dusty surface is sunlit. But Earth's atmosphere modifies our views of the moon, altering colors and shape. Italian photographer Marcella [...]

Aglow undetectable to the human eye permeates the universe. This light is the remnant signature of the cosmic beginning--a dense, hot fireball that burst forth and created all mass, energy, [...]

In the late 1990s, our understanding of the universe's ingredient list underwent a major recalibration. It began when two competing teams of astrophysicists studying the light from distant stellar explosions [...]

Douglas Finkbeiner was an outsider to the world of high-energy astrophysics. His expertise was dust--the galactic kind--and studying its microwave emission. But that different perspective allowed Finkbeiner and his colleagues [...]

Planetary science drew the most attention in 2015, and for good reason. Mysterious bright spots on the largest asteroid in our solar system puzzled scientists. The spacecraft following a comet [...]

Before extending to what lies in the distant cosmos, scientists must understand our neighborhood. As we've seen, the force of gravity binds the Milky Way and its Local Group neighbors [...]

For 24 terrifying minutes, Fiona Harrison and her team watched the spikes in electric current. Each burst indicated that another one of their space telescope's tinker-toy-like sections had exited its [...]

From radio waves to gamma rays, the cosmos is awash in the faint light of the extragalactic background. Where does it all come from? Astronomers have long wondered how much [...]

Every day, the editors of Astronomy have the privilege to learn what scientists are uncovering about our cosmos. With sophisticated instruments scouring the skies from Earth's surface and space, it's [...]

For decades, the United States has led space science and exploration. Ever since July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon, NASA established itself as the world's [...]

ON August 26, 1999, scientists with the Chandra X-ray Observatory held a media briefing to reveal the new space telescope's first images. As usually happens during one of these events, [...]

Sedimentary rocks made of layers of sand and silt did turn up in the delta front region (bottom), which the rover has been exploring since April of last year. The samples come from the crater floor, delta front rocks and even the thin Martian atmosphere. Features In August 2021 on a lonely crater floor, the newest Mars rover dug into one of its first rocks. About a year after landing on Mars, Perseverance rolled several kilometers across the crater floor to the delta front - where it encountered a very different geology. [Extracted from the article]

The article states that the U.S. Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP) presented Ellen Gould Zweibel with the Catherine Wolfe Bruce Gold Medal in 2022, while Jedidah C. Isler received the Arthur B. C. Walker II Award for leadership.

News Fifty years ago, three NASA astronauts splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, concluding the final Apollo mission. China landed a rover safely there in 2021 and is gearing up for a sample-return mission in the same time frame as a NASA-European Space Agency sample-return mission to Mars. The rocket pushed the Orion capsule toward the moon, on a flight testing the technology that will eventually bring astronauts, both men and women, back to the lunar surface. The moon goddess NASA astronauts likely won't be the only people exploring the lunar surface. [Extracted from the article]

The Planck spacecraft--the culmination of nearly two decades of nonstop effort by hundreds of scientists and engineers--has given astronomers their best look ever at the infant cosmos. Since 2009, the [...]

During the mid-20th century, astronomers compiled a list of strong radio sources visible across the sky. Some of these objects also emitted optical light. But scientists were puzzled: According to [...]

Your birth date and mine--the specific date and time each of us was born--are marked on certificates. We're able to celebrate an anniversary each year and count down to the [...]

Each year seems to bring greater discoveries and bigger news in the world of astronomy--and 2012 was no exception. A thrilling landing on the Red Planet excited scientists and the [...]

Whether through a telescope, a photograph, or your unaided eyes, the Moon's surface shows evidence of a violent youth. Impact craters and lava-filled 'seas' (or maria) cover our familiar satellite. [...]

In the late 18th century, two scientists (John Michell and Pierre-Simon Laplace) separately theorized that a star could be so massive that not even light could escape its surface. But [...]

On May 4, 2011, scientists announced the results of the Gravity Probe B mission, confirming two effects predicted by Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity while also completing one of [...]

Astronomy doesn't adhere to humans and their timescales. Cosmic objects typically take thousands, millions, or even billions of years to evolve. But every so often, the universe gifts us an [...]

IT ALL STARTED with a simple idea. In 2012, Matt Mountain was the director of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), the organization that manages the Hubble Space Telescope. He [...]

Gravitational wave astronomy began in 2016, when scientists revealed that humans could now look upon the universe with never-before-used senses. Advanced instruments had detected the quiet rumble of black holes [...]

The article discusses the first images and spectra of five cosmic targets revealed by the James Webb Space Telescope, which show details captured through the observatory's mirror combined with precise engineering over a total of 120 hours of observations.

More than 250 people funnel into the North Door bar on the East Side of Austin, find a place to sit or stand, and look toward the stage. A projector [...]

The study of the universe cannot depend solely on observations of celestial objects, on computer simulations of cosmic history, or on mathematical equations. Instead, it is a combination of the [...]

This article discusses the phenomenon of light echoes and how astronomers use them to study cosmic events. Light echoes occur when light from a cosmic event, such as a supernova or black hole explosion, bounces off nearby dust and takes a longer path to Earth, arriving later than the original burst's signal. By studying these echoes, astronomers can reconstruct the details of the original event and gain insights into how it evolved. The article highlights specific examples of astronomers using light echoes to study supernovae and the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. Future projects and technology advancements are also mentioned, which will further enhance the study of light echoes. [Extracted from the article]

Think today's society would be the same without the big eye in the sky? Think again. The Hubble Space Telescope--arguably one of the greatest technological achievements ever--was in trouble. Astronauts [...]