Cosmology

Astronomers use Kepler telescope to study weather on Jupiter-size planets beyond our solar system

In his latest book Nobel Prize winner Steven Weinberg explores how science made the modern world, and where it might take us from here

A detector fitted on an airplane picked up a signature spike in photons that does not fit any known source of antiparticles

A vast region of space colder than expected is also largely devoid of galaxies, and the two observations are no coincidence. Clara Moskowitz reports

Controversy swirls around a bold proposal for a bigger, better—and expensive—replacement for NASA’s premier space telescope

On April 30, if all goes well, after running out of fuel to fight off orbital decay NASA’s long-running MESSENGER spacecraft will end its mission to Mercury by crashing into the planet’s surface at nearly 4 kilometers per second.

Scientists and astronauts recall the telescope’s finest hours as well as threats to its 25-year existence
 

Imagine a trio of aerobatic aircraft. Over the years they've gotten very good at their routine. But they want to add another five or six or seven members.

Astronomers watching galaxies collide found evidence of nongravitational forces that could suggest dark matter interacts with itself
 

The most far-seeing search ever performed for “Dyson spheres” and other artifacts of “astroengineering” comes up empty. Where is everybody?

A survey has charted clusters and voids of invisible matter over hundreds of millions of light-years

A recent article by Samuel Arbesman in the science magazine Nautilus discusses the extraordinary sounding possibility that – just perhaps – a search for extraterrestrial intelligence could be made by looking at our DNA.