Astronomy

The alien comets could illuminate the history of their planetary system

A satellite will scour the Milky Way for exoplanets orbiting stars just like the sun

E-mailed exchanges show the space agency’s internal struggle to address pleas to change the controversial name of its latest, greatest observatory

A new generation of scientists are challenging the biased, hierarchical status quo

An updated communication could be beamed out for space alien listeners in hopes of making first contact

Three decades after it began, the exoplanet revolution shows no sign of slowing down

Low levels of bombardment reveal that the TRAPPIST-1 system probably grew quickly

A recently spotted bright light in the sky is improving astronomers’ understanding of stellar death

Proxima d might be only a quarter the mass of Earth, potentially making it one of the smallest worlds yet discovered beyond our solar system

Why salamanders are so strange, why people jump to conclusions, and more in our February 2022 issue

From Neolithic constructions to atomic clocks, how humans measure time reveals what we value most

The ambitious observatory has arrived at its home—near a gravitationally stable spot called L2—for a premier view of the universe