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Someone using one of the best telescopes
Best telescopes 2025: Observe galaxies, nebulas and planets Find the best telescopes to unlock the wonders of the night sky and view lunar occultations, celestial conjunctions and planetary parades in January.
Huge, red "super-Jupiter" exoplanet orbits its star.
What's the largest planet in the universe? Astronomers have found planets that are twice as wide as Jupiter and more than 10 times as heavy, but there's a limit to how big planets can get.
An artist's illustration of the James Webb Space Telescope.
James Webb Space Telescope quiz: How well do you know the world's most powerful telescope? The James Webb Space Telescope can look deeper (and earlier) into the cosmos than any telescope before it. How much do you know about this wonder of technology and its incredible findings?

Latest about space

The blue marble of Earth creeps over the lunar horizon during a solar eclipse. The moon's black shadow can be seen over Australia.

'Everything has changed since Apollo': Why landing on the moon is still incredibly difficult in 2024

By Sharmila Kuthunur last updated

More than 50 years after the Apollo era, major governments and well-funded private companies still struggle with lunar landing missions. Why is landing on the moon so hard in 2024?

The Moon
A star in the Lizard constellation appears to be dragging a trail of stardust behind it.

Passing stars may have changed Earth's orbit and climate, study finds

By Abha Jain published

Passing stars may have altered Earth's orbit, and its climate, many times throughout cosmic history. New research digs into what that means when it comes to understanding our planet's past.

Cosmology
Close-up image of a petri dish containing lab-grown mini brains being held by a scientist wearing blue gloves. The scientist's face can be seen blurred in the background

Could mini space-grown organs be our 'cancer moonshot'?

By Emily Cooke published

Scientists say they're growing "organoids" in space to better understand cancer, neurological diseases and aging, and to hopefully uncover treatments.

Anatomy
The six planets orbit their central star HD 110067 in a harmonic rhythm with planets aligning every few orbits.

'Mathematically perfect' star system being investigated for potential alien technology

By Sharmila Kuthunur published

A distant star system housing 6 planets that move in 'mathematically perfect' orbits has ignited a search for possible alien technosignatures.

Exoplanets
The final images of ERS-2 tumbling through the sky. They were captured by the Tracking and Imaging Radar (TIRA) at the Fraunhofer Institute for High Frequency Physics and Radar Techniques FHR in Germany.

Radar images show Europe's doomed ERS-2 satellite buckle and burn during final orbits of Earth

By Andrew Jones published

New radar images show surprise changes to the doomed ERS-2 spacecraft as it tumbled through Earth's atmosphere on Feb. 21.

Exoplanets
Illustrated in this artist concept are two possible structures for asteroid 2011 MD. NASA Spitzer infrared camera helped reveal that this asteroid consists of about two-thirds empty space.

Earth has extra moons, and they may hold the secrets of our solar system's past

By Kiley Price published

Earth's closest cosmic companions, known as 'minimoons' or 'quasi-moons', could hold the secrets to the history of our early solar system.

Asteroids
An illustration shows a gravastar stacked like a cosmic matryoshka doll.

Bizarre 'Russian doll stars' predicted with Einstein's general relativity equations

By Robert Lea published

A new solution to Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity suggests hypothetical gravitational stars that look like black holes could be nested within one another.

Cosmology
A full moon rises in Chile's Atacama Desert.

February's full 'Snow Moon' rises this weekend. Here's why it's one-of-a-kind.

By Jamie Carter last updated

February's 'Snow Moon', the second full moon of 2024, will be the farthest from Earth this year and will appear the smallest in the sky when it rises on Saturday (Feb. 24).

The Moon
An illustration shows the TMTS J0526 binary star system.

Dead star smaller than Jupiter is one of the tiniest in the known universe

By Robert Lea published

The discovery or an ultra-tiny white dwarf could reveal how stars smaller than Jupiter are born.

Cosmology
The planet Venus shining brightly over ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile at twilight.

Conjunction! How to see Venus and Mars side by side in the sky tonight

By Jamie Carter published

On Feb. 22, Venus and Mars will look like a cosmic colon as they appear side by side in the predawn sky.

Planets
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