Universe

Here’s the best, most inspiring and coolest science we encountered this year

A major report plotting the future of U.S. particle physics calls for cuts to the beleaguered DUNE project, advocates a “muon shot” for a next-generation collider and recommends a new survey of the universe’s oldest observable light

No one has ever seen a newborn star feeding on its natal disk anywhere outside our galaxy—that is, until now

Amaterasu—the most powerful cosmic ray seen in three decades—seems to come from an empty point of the sky. New telescopes may solve the mystery of its origins

The Xuntian Space Telescope is China’s entry in a global race to unlock the secrets of dark energy, and it will now lift off no earlier than mid-2025

The earliest active supermassive black hole ever seen offers clues on how these enigmatic objects first formed

The James Webb Space Telescope is gazing across the universe to find galaxies close to the “cosmic dawn”—and you can explore them from the palm of your hand

Several unexplained measurements are threatening to upend scientists’ understanding of the universe’s origin and fate

The darkness of the night sky offers a profound insight on the nature of the cosmos

Quantum physics’ oddities seem less surprising if you stop thinking of atoms as tennis balls, and instead more like waves pushing through water

A surprisingly complex galaxy cluster suggests that in the search for dark matter, nothing is as simple as it seems

The European Space Agency says a software patch restored stability to its cosmos-mapping Euclid spacecraft — but slower operations could extend the mission