Astronomy

Superluminal velocities are common but illusory

Overcoming three recent failed tries, Elon Musk’s rocket company successfully flew its reusable jumbo booster and upper-stage Starship spacecraft

Fresh results from near-infrared instruments foretell a bright future for finding life elsewhere in the Milky Way

The 60-meter asteroid 2024 YR4 has a 4 percent chance of hitting the moon. Could such a lunar collision create a dangerous new meteor shower?

Using the powerful James Webb Space Telescope, scientists have spotted a moon nestled near Uranus’s rings that’s so small you could walk around it

The search for extraterrestrial life has periodically been turned upside down

Neptune’s discovery was a race that ended not long after this magazine came to be

The Perseids are the best annual meteor shower, but this year’s show will be dimmed by a bright gibbous moon

Bizarre phenomena called light echoes create strange, shifting shapes seen in some telescopic images and help astronomers chart the heavens above

In some of its most ambitious work yet, the James Webb Space Telescope looked to spot a planet in a potentially habitable orbit around Alpha Centauri A, the nearest sunlike star to our solar system

Satellite streaks are ruining astronomical images. Can scientists and space companies find solutions before it’s too late?

Scientists are uncovering how spinning black holes launch jets, warp spacetime and shape the cosmos