Optics

A candidate “rogue” supermassive black hole may weigh as much as 20 million suns and has sparked a trail of star formation that is 200,000 light-years long

Looming gaps in astronomers’ views of the heavens could undercut the revolutionary potential of NASA’s latest, greatest space telescope

Booming exploration and commercial activity could ruin the quiet, astronomy-friendly environment of the lunar far side

By releasing astronomers’ data before they’ve had a chance to analyze the information, NASA will make research less fair and equitable

Elon Musk’s Starlink and other satellite sources of light pollution and orbital debris should face an environmental review, the U.S. Government Accountability Office finds

An investigation by agency historian finds no evidence explicitly linking former director James Webb with anti-LGBT+ actions

We are drawn to breathtaking images of the heavens, but there is beauty in the numbers those images hold

SpaceX and the entrepreneur Jared Isaacman are pursuing a plan to rescue the iconic Hubble Space Telescope from a fiery plunge into Earth’s atmosphere

Nearly two years after the collapse of its 305-meter radio telescope, the Arecibo Observatory’s fate has been decided. The iconic giant dish will not be rebuilt, but research and public outreach at the site may continue

Revised calibrations for the James Webb Space Telescope’s instruments are bedeviling researchers studying the distant universe

A new investigation of unidentified aerial phenomena could have bigger impacts on atmospheric science than on astrobiology

Deep-field images of “empty” regions of the sky from JWST and other space telescopes are revealing more of the universe than we ever thought possible