Scientists inch closer than ever to signal from cosmic dawn

Around 12 billion years ago, the universe emerged from a great cosmic dark age as the first stars and galaxies lit up. With a new analysis of data collected by the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) radio telescope, scientists ...

Explosions of universe's first stars spewed powerful jets

Several hundred million years after the Big Bang, the very first stars flared into the universe as massively bright accumulations of hydrogen and helium gas. Within the cores of these first stars, extreme, thermonuclear reactions ...

How NASA's Roman Space Telescope will illuminate cosmic dawn

Today, enormous stretches of space are crystal clear, but that wasn't always the case. During its infancy, the universe was filled with a "fog" that made it opaque, cloaking the first stars and galaxies. NASA's upcoming Nancy ...

The JWST is rewriting astronomy textbooks

When the James Webb Space Telescope was launched at the end of 2021, we expected stunning images and illuminating scientific results. So far, the powerful space telescope has lived up to our expectations. The JWST has shown ...

Which came first: Black holes or galaxies?

Black holes not only existed at the dawn of time, they birthed new stars and supercharged galaxy formation, a new analysis of James Webb Space Telescope data suggests.

Nancy Grace Roman could find the first stars in the universe

In the beginning, the universe was so hot and so dense that light could not travel far. Photons were emitted, scattered, and absorbed as quickly as the photons in the heart of the brightest stars. But in time the cosmos expanded ...

page 4 from 7