Universe

The spins of some early galaxies could be a clue that the entire observable universe exists within a black hole—except, that is, for all the evidence to the contrary

A long-simmering disagreement over the universe’s present-day expansion rate shows no signs of resolution, leaving experts increasingly vexed

The final results from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope offer the sharpest, most sensitive view of the early cosmos that anyone has ever seen

In colorful photographs of galaxies, stars, planets, and more, what you see isn’t necessarily what you get

New simulations suggest that habitable worlds could have begun forming only 200 million years after the big bang

A nearly century-old offshoot of Einstein’s general theory of relativity may hold promise for solving the mysteries of dark matter, dark energy and more

It’s neither fast nor food, but a spectacular object called HH 30 looks appetizing for astronomers in a new image from the James Webb Space Telescope

Strange x-ray pulses hint at a surprisingly long-lived white dwarf orbiting precariously close to a supermassive black hole

According to a tenet scientists call the cosmological principle, our place in space is in no way exceptional. But recent observations could overturn this long-held assumption

The celestial equivalent to latitude and longitude lets astronomers find their way across the heavens

The universe’s light-starved early epochs, as well as the first stars and galaxies, lie beyond the reach of conventional observatories but could be revealed by a new generation of radio telescope arrays

Barnard 68 is often mistaken for a hole in space, but it’s actually a dense, opaque cloud of dust—for now