4+ hour, 5+ min ago   (663+ words) The cosmic microwave background is the oldest light we can observe. Here is where it came from, what its tiny patterns reveal, and why it still matters. About 380,000 years after the Big Bang, the expanding universe had cooled enough for…...

2+ day, 20+ hour ago   (924+ words) Hubble has found a growing ten-sided atmospheric wave around Saturn’s south pole—the first large regular-sided jet seen there. Saturn has long been known for a strange shape in its clouds. A vast hexagon circles the planet’s north pole, holding…...

4+ day, 2+ hour ago   (495+ words) giving astronomers a new counterpart to the planet’s famous northern hexagon. The southern pattern appears to be evolving, raising a question that a single striking image cannot answer: will it become another enduring feature of the planet’s weather? A study…...

5+ day, 23+ hour ago   (637+ words) Satellite constellations can leave bright trails across telescope images. Here is what that means for astronomy and the night sky. Satellites are changing the night sky in a way that has little to do with the old glow of city…...

2+ week, 4+ day ago   (656+ words) The Tarantula Nebula is one of the busiest stellar nurseries in our galactic neighbourhood. Thousands of young stars are packed into a web of gas and dust in the Large Magellanic Cloud, about 160,000 light-years away. Now three NASA space telescopes…...

4+ week, 1+ day ago   (758+ words) Look up on a clear night and the sky between the stars is mostly black. That seems obvious until you ask a deceptively simple question: if the universe contains an enormous number of stars, why is every direction not filled…...