Our Galaxy’s Biggest Black Hole Just Got a New Close-up. What’s Next Could Be Even Wilder
As the Event Horizon Telescope pursues ambitious upgrades, the project’s latest results reveal the magnetic fields around our galaxy’s supermassive black hole
Could Gravitational-Wave ‘Memories’ Prove Einstein Wrong?
According to Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity, the universe remembers every gravitational wave—and scientists could soon test these cosmic recollections
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First-Ever Magnetic Map of Milky Way’s Black Hole Reveals a Mystery
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 Dead Star Will Soon Spark a Once-in-a-Lifetime Display in Earth’s Skies
A nova called T Coronae Borealis spectacularly erupts every 80 years. Your only chance to see it will come any day now
Astronomers Fight to Save X-ray Telescope as NASA Dishes Out Budget Cuts
The Chandra X-ray Observatory faces a premature end under new funding cuts proposed by NASA—and astronomers aren’t happy
The Scale of Space Will Break Your Brain
The scale of the cosmos exceeds the bounds of human comprehension. But that doesn’t mean the universe is beyond our understanding
JWST Will Finally Hunt for Alien Moons—And Much More
The next year of science for the James Webb Space Telescope has been selected. It includes remote galaxy observations and, at last, a hunt for exomoons
How Heavy Is a Neutrino? Physicists Are Still Racing to Find Answers
A new generation of lab experiments is aiming to weigh neutrinos with astonishing accuracy
Two Giant U.S. Telescopes Are Threatened by Federal Funding Cap
The Thirty Meter Telescope and Giant Magellan Telescope might need to compete for survival in the face of federal spending limits
New X-Ray Map of Cosmic Megastructures Unravels Subatomic Mysteries
A new catalog of more than 12,000 galaxy clusters is helping scientists better understand the universe’s clumpiness, dark energy and some of the smallest particles in the cosmos: neutrinos
Dwarf Galaxies Set the Universe Alight after the Big Bang
Some of the faintest objects ever observed suggest that small galaxies were responsible for clearing the “fog” pervading the early cosmos
Can Exploding ‘Axion Stars’ Help Pin Down Dark Matter?
Scientists have proposed a new way to learn whether hypothetical particles called axions really exist—and whether axions make up most of the universe’s dark matter