Milky Way

Giant bubbles erupting across this red supergiant star’s surface could solve a lingering astrophysical mystery

Figuring out whether there are more stars in the universe than sand grains on Earth’s seashores requires math—and imagination

Polarized light from Sagittarius A*, our galaxy’s supermassive black hole, shows swirling magnetic fields that may hint at the presence of an unseen jet

A nova called T Coronae Borealis spectacularly erupts every 80 years. Your only chance to see it will come any day now

At least one in a dozen binary stars shows signs of eating their planets

NASA is reaching across more than 15 billion miles to rescue its malfunctioning Voyager 1 probe—but this hallowed interstellar mission can’t live forever

The scale of the cosmos exceeds the bounds of human comprehension. But that doesn’t mean the universe is beyond our understanding

Maps of stellar motions can show whether the Milky Way will someday merge with the Andromeda galaxy—and a whole lot more

Scientists have finally found the compact object at the heart of the famous supernova of 1987, and it’s not a black hole

Despite being some six billion kilometers away, the sun from Pluto would be a dazzling sight to behold—carefully, that is

Images of possible planets around white dwarf stars suggest that some gas-giant worlds survive the deaths of their stellar host

We’re looking for another Earth. But how likely is it that we’ll find a duplicate of home?