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Universe


On Thursday 27 March, the European Space Agency (ESA) sent its last messages to the Gaia Spacecraft. They told Gaia to shut down its communication systems and central computer and said goodbye to this amazing space telescope. Gaia has been the most successful ESA space mission ever, so why did they turn Gaia off? What …

A hundred years ago, astronomer Edwin Hubble dramatically expanded the size of the known universe. At a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in January 1925, a paper read by one of his colleagues on his behalf reported that the Andromeda nebula, also called M31, was nearly a million light years away – too remote …

O n this day three years ago, we witnessed the nail-biting launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the largest and most powerful telescope humans have ever sent into space. It took 30 years to build, but in three short years of operation, JWST has already revolutionised our view of the cosmos. It’s explored …

On Sunday November 23 1924, 100 years ago this month, readers perusing page six of the New York Times would have found an intriguing article, amid several large adverts for fur coats. The headline read: Finds Spiral Nebulae are Stellar Systems: “Dr Hubbell Confirms View That They Are ‘Island Universes’; Similar to Our Own”. The …

The big idea A bright flash of gamma rays from the constellation Boötes that lasted nearly one minute came from a kilonova, as we described in a new paper. This finding challenges what astronomers know about some of the most powerful events in the universe. The unusual cosmic explosion was detected by the Neil Gehrels …

James Webb Space Telescope being tested on Earth

The James Webb Space Telescope is scheduled to head to space on Dec. 22, 2021. With it, astronomers hope to find the first galaxies to form in the universe, will search for Earthlike atmospheres around other planets, and accomplish many other scientific goals. I am an astronomer and the principal investigator for the Near Infrared …

Halloween is a time to be haunted by ghosts, goblins and ghouls, but nothing in the Universe is scarier than a black hole. Black holes – regions in space where gravity is so strong that nothing can escape – are a hot topic in the news these days. Half of the 2020 Nobel Prize in …

Until now, everything we’ve known about black holes — celestial objects with intense gravitation — has been from theories and illustrations. Now, thanks to an international collaboration called the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), a cosmic portrait of a supermassive black hole exists. At the center of the galaxy Messier 87 (M87) in the Virgo constellation, the …

Although there are no seasons in space, this cosmic vista invokes thoughts of a frosty winter landscape. It is, in fact, a region called NGC 6357 where radiation from hot, young stars is energizing the cooler gas in the cloud that surrounds them. This composite image contains X-ray data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and …

Earth-mass world spotted in orbit around Proxima Centauri Astronomers using ESO telescopes and other facilities have found clear evidence of a planet orbiting the closest star to Earth, Proxima Centauri. The long-sought world, designated Proxima b, orbits its cool red parent star every 11 days and has a temperature suitable for liquid water to exist …