Galaxies

Private funding for the Arecibo Observatory—the largest single-dish radio telescope in the world—may be a poison pill

With a $100-million donation, billionaire Yuri Milner plans to revolutionize the astronomical quest to find alien life

Astronomers have discovered more than 800 so-called "ultradiffuse galaxies" that are virtually invisible because they have relatively few stars and are mostly dark matter. Clara Moskowitz reports

As the legendary space telescope enters its twilight years, astronomers are searching for a replacement, but no one agrees about what it should accomplish

Galactic collisions replicated in the lab help researchers investigate the origins of vastly amplified magnetic fields in the universe

A bright galaxy may hold starts from a generation that seeded the rest of the universe

NASA’s former director of astrophysics plans to revolutionize space science with agile, privately funded missions

The universe’s hidden stuff could be a mirror world of invisible particles and “dark atoms”

The ALMA telescope array glimpses a far-distant galaxy through an Einstein ring

A galaxy 12.5 billion light-years away gives off the light of 300 trillion suns, because its feeding black hole produces enough heat to set the whole galaxy's dust glowing. Lee Billings reports

This never-before-seen phenomenon could help explain what comprises dark matter

Galaxies in every corner of the universe have been sending out photons, or light particles, since nearly the beginning of time. Astronomers are now beginning to read this extragalactic background light