Astronomy

As wildfires grow in severity and frequency, they’re not only threatening lives but also our visual connection to the cosmos

The celestial equivalent to latitude and longitude lets astronomers find their way across the heavens

Barnard 68 is often mistaken for a hole in space, but it’s actually a dense, opaque cloud of dust—for now

“Twilight rays” are but one of several viewing treats for the liminal time between day and night

The more exciting, transformative and revolutionary a science result appears, especially if it comes out of nowhere, the more likely it is to be dead wrong. So approach science headlines with a healthy amount of skepticism and patience

Called Olbers’ paradox, the seemingly simple mystery of the sky’s darkness is something that stumped astronomers for centuries

The nearby star Vega, featured in the 1997 movie Contact, appears to have a smooth disk devoid of giant planets for reasons we can’t explain

In 1974 we beamed a radio transmission into space that changed the way we think about our place in the cosmos

The Chandra X-ray Observatory is facing closure. Shutting it down would be a loss to science as a whole

Finding a perfect sphere is actually pretty difficult

The Martian new year arrives with the Red Planet’s vernal equinox. Explaining why requires a deep dive into celestial mechanics and Earth’s calendrical history

A galaxy cluster bends light from seven background galaxies around it, letting astronomers peer into space and time