I used to love rocket launches when I was younger. During every launch, I imagined what it would feel like to be an astronaut sitting in the spacecraft, listening to that final countdown and then feeling multiple gees push me up through the atmosphere and away from our blue marble. But as I learned more…

Updated Feb. 24 to clarify scope of COPUOS work. WASHINGTON — A United Nations committee will study the interference risks that satellite constellations pose to astronomy, a year after rejecting a similar proposal to do so. At the conclusion of the meeting earlier this month of its scientific and technical subcommittee, the U.N.’s Committee on…

The brightest known object in the universe, a quasar 500tn times brighter than our sun, was “hiding in plain sight”, researchers say. Australian scientists spotted a quasar powered by the fastest growing black hole ever discovered. Its mass is about 17bn times that of our solar system’s sun, and it devours the equivalent of a…

Scientists have spotted the brightest and fastest-growing quasar ever seen — a monster black hole that’s devouring a sun’s-worth of material every day. The brightly burning object, named J0529-4351, weighs between 17 billion and 19 billion solar masses and is located 12 billion light-years from Earth — meaning it dates to a time when the…

Infrared astronomy has become much better understood by non-astronomers in recent years, thanks in part to the incredible image and discoveries of the James Webb Space Telescope. But why is infrared so good for observing the Universe, and why do astronomers choose to observe a galaxy or star-forming region in infrared rather than optical light?…

What questions about the Universe keep you awake at night? Do you ever think about how the Universe began, how it will end, whether there was anything before this Universe? Questions abound in science, physics and astronomy. That’s what keeps science so dynamic and interesting: there’s always something new to discover, even if it’s simply…

What it is: The Gemini North telescope When it was published: Feb. 7, 2024 Where it is: The Gemini Observatory at the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii Why it’s so special: Stars twinkle — and that isn’t good if you want to study them using large telescopes. The twinkling comes from light passing through…

Researchers just detected dark matter on the cosmic web for the first time. Using a technique known as gravitational lensing, the team was able to detect the presence of dark matter even though we can’t see it, further confirming a long-held theory about the superstructure of our universe. Hopefully, the discovery will be able to…