About 9.2 billion light-years from Earth is a colossal structure which has confounded astronomers. The discovery might upend current cosmological theories. What they’ve found is a 1.3-billion-light-year-across, almost perfect ring of galaxies. No such structure has been seen before. And it doesn’t match any known formation mechanism. It has been dubbed the “Big Ring.” The…

13 May 2024 Expert commentary Solar flares and storms have the potential to damage satellites, knock down power grids, and — as seen this weekend — trigger bright auroras.  Solar activity is closely linked with the number of sunspots, or bundles of magnetically charged plasma, which can collide, shear, and snap, sending strong radiation out…

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has detected the best evidence to date for the existence of an atmosphere around a rocky exoplanet. The discovery could aid the continued search for habitable planets outside our solar system. “55 Cancri e” is a hot rocky planet orbiting a star 41 light-years from Earth. Its orbit is…

What it is: CG 4, a “cometary globule” often called “God’s Hand” Where it is: Gum Nebula, 1,300 light-years away in the constellation Puppis (the “poop deck”) When it was shared: May 6, 2024 Why it’s so special: CG 4 is a fairly typical cloud of gas and dust where stars are being born, but…

Some people see a face in the moon; others see a rabbit or a toad. But regardless of what you see on the lunar surface, we all view the same side of our natural satellite. So why don’t we ever see the far side of the moon? From Earth, it appears as if the moon…

Who are the greatest and most famous astronomers of all time? The history of astronomy is the story of how humanity has uncovered the secrets of the cosmos, from early astronomers defining the mechanics of the Solar System and how the night sky changes over time, to astrophysicists studying the chemistry of stars, the expansion…

Officials warned of potential blackouts or interference with navigation and communication systems this weekend, as well as auroras as far south as Northern California or Alabama. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured these images of the solar flares, as seen in the bright flashes in the upper right, on May 5 and May 6. The image…

Grand plans: Both the Giant Magellan Telescope and the Thirty Meter Telescope are seen as the future of US ground-based astronomy and stem from advances in mirror technology (courtesy: Damien Jemison/Giant Magellan Telescope – GMTO Corporation (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)) The US National Science Foundation (NSF) is to assemble a panel to help it decide whether…

Over the past few years, our planet has become increasingly encircled by Starlink, OneWeb and other “megaconstellation” satellites. Yes, the emergence of those megaconstellations offers great benefits for humanity. But in a wait-a-minute pause, there are also substantial costs, including a growing imposition on astronomy. That’s the view of David Koplow, the Scott K. Ginsburg…

Electromagnetic waves are a form of energy that have both an electric and magnetic component. They’re different from mechanical waves since they’re one of the only things that can propagate long distances through the vacuum of space. A Webb / Hubble combined view of the Phantom Galaxy, M74, in optical and infrared. Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA…