The Wow! Signal Might Not Have Been Aliens—But a Weird Cosmic Outburst
A new explanation for the Wow! signal suggests it was a chance detection of a furious flare crashing into a hydrogen cloud. But some researchers doubt that this idea has truly cracked the case
What If We Never Find Dark Matter?
Dark matter has turned out to be more elusive than physicists had hoped
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How to See Sunspots with Your Own Eyes
Surging solar activity means enormous sunspots are in the space-weather forecast. Here’s how to view them safely
How Do Stars Really Die?
There’s more than one way for a star to die. Some go with a whimper, and some go with a very, very big bang
Expect Auroras, Solar Flares and More Space Weather from the Solar Maximum
Space weather is heating up in our current solar cycle peak
NASA Retires Asteroid-Hunting Telescope
NASA’s NEOWISE telescope has searched for asteroids, brown dwarfs and luminous galaxies. The spacecraft will soon burn up in Earth’s atmosphere
Nope—It’s Never Aliens
Claims of alien starships visiting Earth always fall short, but people still fall for them
5 New Types of Gravitational-Wave Detectors Could Reshape Astrophysics
With the confirmation of gravitational waves less than a decade old, scientists are barreling ahead with new detectors to pick up ever more elusive ripples in spacetime
JWST’s ‘Little Red Dots’ Offer Astronomers the Universe’s Weirdest Puzzle
The James Webb Space Telescope’s search for the earliest stars and black holes has yielded a very weird, very red, puzzle
Supernova Slowdowns Confirm Einstein’s Predictions of Time Dilation
Analyzing 1,504 supernovae into the distant universe, astronomers have shown the clearest evidence yet for cosmological time dilation as predicted by Einstein
JWST Detects the Earliest, Most Distant Galaxy in the Known Universe—And It’s Super Weird
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope observed an unusually large and highly luminous galaxy at a record-breaking 290 million years after the big bang
The North Star Has an Age-Defying Secret: Stellar Cannibalism
The iconic star Polaris appears to be much younger than its true age. The secret: it’s eating another star