The 570-megapixel Department of Energy-fabricated Dark Energy Camera (DECam) captures a vibrant scene filled with swirls and stars reminiscent of Van Gogh's The Starry Night. This new cosmic masterpiece features the glowing ...
Astronomy
Jul 16, 2026
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Despite their depiction as massive monsters that simply suck in everything, including light, astronomers know black holes actually spin. And they spin really, really quickly. Determining just how quickly is key to understanding ...
Astronomy
Jul 15, 2026
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Peak star formation took place during cosmic noon, between 2–3 billion years after the Big Bang. The star formation rate (SFR) back then was up to 100 times greater than it is today. For the SFR to be so high, gas had to ...
Astronomy
Jul 15, 2026
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The U.S. National Science Foundation National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NSF NRAO) has completed observations for the Very Large Array Sky Survey (VLASS), the most detailed radio survey of the sky ever conducted, providing ...
Astronomy
Jul 14, 2026
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There are parts of the universe that are extremely hard to see, even for our most advanced telescopes. Gas and dust don't emit light and are visible only by the light they block from stars and galaxies. Magnetic fields are ...
Astronomy
Jul 14, 2026
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This summer, Subaru Telescope will welcome a new near-infrared spectrograph, NINJA, for its first on-sky engineering observations. NINJA is a new spectrograph designed for time-critical observations of rapidly evolving cosmic ...
Astronomy
Jul 14, 2026
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The Euclid space telescope has spotted the oldest quasars—the brightest objects in the universe—ever discovered, deepening a cosmic mystery that has been puzzling scientists.
Astronomy
Jul 12, 2026
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There's a bit of a historical mystery surrounding the star Theta Eridani. Ptolemy in the second century A.D. and al-Sufi in A.D. 964 both recorded Theta Eridani as one of the 13 brightest stars in the sky. Hipparchus may ...
Astronomy
Jul 10, 2026
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We've talked plenty of times here about the infeasibility of launching a mirror big enough to directly image exoplanets using current rocket fairings—at least as long as we're not sending them 500-plus AU away to a gravitational ...
Astronomy
Jul 9, 2026
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This image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope showcases Messier 3 (M3), one of the Milky Way's most massive globular clusters, or spherical collections of gravitationally bound stars.
Astronomy
Jul 8, 2026
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