In the early 1990s, a group of scientists had a dream: a new type of telescope that would push astronomy, astrophysics, and imaging technology further than ever before. It would be a device that could see giant swaths of the sky and help unravel the mystery of dark matter. 30 years later, that dream is a reality.
A photographer spent five years traveling the world to turn the lens on amateur astronomers who have contributed to science.
Even as telescopes and observatories uncover more details about space, it remains mysterious. One puzzle revolves around the "smallest object that can form in a star-like manner," according to NASA. With the help of the James Webb Space Telescope, scientists have identified a new record holder for that category: a free-floating brown dwarf.
A supernova witnessed by Chinese astronomers in the year 185 A.D. has been captured by the Dark Energy Camera telescope.
The Vaonis Vespera Observation Station is a small robotic telescope designed to be smart and fully automated, taking the guesswork out of astronomy and making it easy for beginners to start their journey.
A team of scientists has leveraged the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to produce a massive mosaic of space made up of 690 photos. The image covers an area of the sky about eight times as large as the telescope's first deep field image released on July 12.
NASA is celebrating the Hubble Space Telescope's 32nd birthday through a remarkable photo that shows a collection of five closely-knit galaxies called The Hickson Compact Group 40.
NASA is set to launch the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the successor to the legendary Hubble Space Telescope, on December 25, and what it will be first set to observe was determined from more than 1,000 proposals.
NASA has successfully fully restored Hubble to full operation, and all four of its active instruments are back online and collecting science observations.
NASA is making significant progress on reviving the Hubble Space Telescope, which has been in safe mode since early November after the synchronization of messages that control its instruments were becoming lost.
The Hubble Space Telescope's scientific operations have been suspended for the second time this year. It is currently in safe mode and NASA engineers are trying to figure out what went wrong.
In December of last year, Hubble captured a photo of a distant galaxy that, thanks to gravitational lensing, appeared almost as a perfect "Einstein Ring." A year later, astronomers revealed what they learned from examining the photo.
Hundreds of astronomers, satellite operators, and dark-sky advocates recently joined forces to call out a problem that impacts all three groups: the growing number of SpaceX 'Starlink' satellites in orbit, and how these 'constellations' could actively hurt scientific progress and have a 'fatal' impact on some forms of astrophotography.
The world's first photo of a black hole, revealed this past April, was the result of years of collaboration between 347 astronomers from around the world. Today, those astronomers get to figure out how to split $3,000,000 in prize money for their hard work.
Last year, NASA released a 20-gigapixel photo of the Milky Way that was made up of over 2 million infrared photos. Back in January, NASA published a 1.5-gigapixel photo of the Andromeda Galaxy. If you thought those were big photos, get this: German astronomers have created the largest astronomical photo ever made: a ridiculously big 46-gigapixel photo of the Milky Way that took 5 years to make.
NASA astronomers announced today that they are certain that our galaxy is on an unavoidable collision course with the Andromeda Galaxy, the closest spiral galaxy to us. Don't worry though, it won't be happening for another 3.5 billion years or so. What's interesting is that the collision will drastically change what our night sky looks like, and the astronomers released a series of photo illustrations showing what future astrophotographers will be shooting when they point their cameras at the heavens.