Joanna Thompson

In its first year of operations, the James Webb Space Telescope has already revolutionized our view of the cosmos. Its one-year anniversary image is a spectacularly beautiful addition.

A distant star system has Milky Way-like spiral arms orbiting it. New research suggests a giant planet may be to blame.

A prominent extraterrestrial-hunting scientist thinks that more than 50 tiny, metal spheres pulled from the Pacific Ocean might be the work of intelligent aliens. Others are skeptical.

A phenomenon called coronal rain produces hot plasma clumps that streak through the sun's atmosphere like meteors, new data reveals.

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have discovered a clump of ancient galaxies that may be the oldest strand of the "cosmic web" ever detected.

Space weather has been known to cause power outages and disrupt satellite function. Is the internet safe?

The James Webb Space Telescope's new images of Saturn aren't finished, but they're still mind-blowingly cool.

The cold and mysterious Oort cloud at the edge of our solar system may be hiding a rogue exoplanet, new research suggests.

Scientists have discovered a weird celestial object that's blurring the line between planet and star.

For the first time, researchers have observed how just one particle of light can trigger photosynthesis in bacteria — finally revealing the first step of the crucial process.

NASA officials overestimated their ability to contain alien microbes after the first moon landing, a new analysis suggests.

The 1.5-million-light-year-long gas trail was caused by a group of galaxies moving 3 million miles per hour

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope discovered evidence of complex organic molecules in a galaxy 12.3 billion light-years away — the furthest and oldest ever detected.

Japan's private Hakuto-R spacecraft broke into at least four large pieces of debris, according to new images from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Here's what we know (and don't know) about China's mysterious space plane, which just landed after nine months in orbit on a secret mission.

A new analysis of a comet in the asteroid belt reveals frozen water from the early solar system, hinting at the origins of water on Earth.

A rogue black hole may not be to blame for a mysterious streak of stars coursing through space, a new study suggests.

A gas cloud 13 billion light-years away may be the resting place of some of the earliest stars in the universe.

After more than 50 years, scientists finally confirmed that the moon has a solid inner core, just like Earth.

Data from China's unresponsive Zhurong rover suggests that Mars had snow and frost as recently as 400,000 years ago.

Japan's Hakuto-R lander may have crashed on the moon, but the spacecraft still sent back valuable images.

Global temperatures did not plummet in the aftermath of the asteroid impact that caused the demise of the dinosaurs, a new study suggests.

A rare double quasar system 10 billion light-years away could help astronomers uncover the secrets of the early universe.

Students at Carnegie Mellon University are sending America's first lunar rover to the moon this May, beating NASA to the punch by about a year.

The two closest black holes to Earth, named Gaia BH1 and BH2, may be part of a rare class of black holes never seen before, new research suggests.