Galaxies

For the past year, astronomers around the world have been watching the center of the Milky Way in anticipation of a once-per-eon event. Right around now (or, technically, 24,000 years ago--that's roughly how far away the galactic center is in light years), a cloud of gas and dust plummeting toward our galaxy's supermassive black hole, [...]

Live streaming video by Ustream It doesn’t get much better than this (well, of course being in space might be better, albeit colder).

Data from the damaged spacecraft reveal new worlds

Astronomers hope that one day soon we’ll obtain a spectrum of light that might tell us whether or not an Earth-sized exoplanet harbors life.

As any avid Star Trek fan can tell you, the eccentric physicist Zefram Cochrane invented the warp-drive engine in the year 2063. It wasn't easy.

The Cherenkov Telescope Array will track high-energy photons to probe black holes, dark matter and relativity

The IceCube experiment has taken hits from three neutrinos carrying energies above the outlandishly high peta–electron volt range that suggest they may radiate from titanic explosions in the depths of space
 

Excess gamma-ray light at the galactic center may indicate invisible dark matter particles
 

The stars in the nearby Segue 1 dwarf galaxy have fewer metals than any other galaxy known, suggesting the object is a relic from the baby universe
 

Gas from another galaxy is hitting our own, triggering the birth of bright new stars and adding fresh luster to the Milky Way

Do yourself a favor. Don't read this article just yet--first, take a moment to zoom around this incredible panorama of our galaxy and soak in the splendor: http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/glimpse360/aladin.

A curved signature in the cosmic microwave background light provides proof of inflation and spacetime ripples