The Universe

In our topsy-turvy universe, sometimes the farther away an object is, the bigger it seems to be

A technique called interferometry can greatly magnify tiny objects on the sky, and is powerful enough to reveal the surfaces of nearby stars

Comets don’t just orbit our sun. “Exocomets” are common around other stars in the galaxy, too

Centuries before other galaxies were known to exist, astronomers called them “spiral nebulas.” Today the defunct term still sparks confusion

Observations show the disk of our galaxy is not flat but warped and waving. Astronomers are still working out the reasons why

Huge eruptions from the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole in the distant past may have sterilized much of the inner galaxy

A comet’s brightness depends on how it’s made, how and when we see it, and even a bit of unpredictable luck

Voracious supermassive black holes light up the cores of “active” galaxies across the universe. How we see them, however, is a matter of perspective

If you pick the right time, our home world and our moon could be easily visible from the Red Planet

When space itself expands, weird things can happen—like galaxies breaking the universe’s ultimate speed limit

Many asteroids are related, but their family trees can be hard to trace

Gauging the mass of a black hole is tricky, but astronomers have devised multiple methods to measure the heft of these galactic gluttons