Universe

Record-breaking objects can tell us about the most powerful events in the cosmos—sometimes

New experiments show how RNA might form not just on Earth but on other rocky planets, too

In our topsy-turvy universe, sometimes the farther away an object is, the bigger it seems to be

Although these findings from JWST are yet to be confirmed, they mark the closest astronomers have come to locating the universe’s most ancient stars

A thin crescent moon and dark skies could give watchers a clear view of this astronomical event

A cosmic explosion known as GRB 250702B is by far the longest gamma-ray burst astronomers have ever seen—if it’s even one at all

Huge eruptions from the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole in the distant past may have sterilized much of the inner galaxy

Theorists have found that a “warm” version of cosmic inflation is consistent with known physics, linking it to the hunt for dark matter

Voracious supermassive black holes light up the cores of “active” galaxies across the universe. How we see them, however, is a matter of perspective

When space itself expands, weird things can happen—like galaxies breaking the universe’s ultimate speed limit

Gauging the mass of a black hole is tricky, but astronomers have devised multiple methods to measure the heft of these galactic gluttons

The answer to this supposedly simple particle physics question isn’t so simple