How do you create the world’s largest virtual optical telescope and the most advanced visible-light astronomical observatory? Teamwork. The Very Large Telescope at the Paranal Observatory combines the visual prowess of four huge telescopes — for the first time ever — to mimic a 130m wide mirror. More »
In a few million years, our dear sun will look like this, a beautiful glowing eye of spent starstuff trash in the shape of Sauron’s Eye. And no ring is going to save us from this one. More »
This new image of the Eagle Nebula — without a doubt one of the most amazing objects in space — is stunningly trippy. It combines the two opposite ends of the electromagnetic spectrum in one shot: far-infrared and x-ray. Absolutely gorgeous. More »
This is exciting. If everything goes well, we may get the first-ever photo of a black hole really soon. A large number of astronomers are getting ready to achieve this feat using a global network of telescopes: More »
An international team of astronomers have reached the most definitive conclusion, one with profound implications: our galaxy contains a minimum of 100 billion planets. Of those, most are small planets like ours. Statistically, every star would have at least one planet. More »
Someone call John Lithgow and pull French Stewart out of storage. A team of astronomers using the Kepler telescope have discovered the smallest exoplanets — and tiniest solar system — so far. And their existence may show that our solar system isn’t all that unique. More »
Astronomers have found two more new planets orbiting binary stars: Kepler-34b and Kepler-35b. Their discovery, which follow the original Tatooine discovery back in September 2011, is quite important: now we know there are millions of planets orbiting binary stars. More »
Astronomers have discovered the far, far away galaxies. The farthest galaxy cluster ever seen, in fact, a whooping 13.1 billion light-years away. According to the researchers, “these galaxies formed during the earliest stages of galaxy assembly, when galaxies had just started to cluster together.” More »
Repent, sinners! SATAN EXISTS! And his evil eye is looking at you from the sky! I mean, if there is an Eye of God* up there there has to be an Eye of Satan in permanent staring competition, right? More »
The little grey ball is Dione, the third largest Saturn moon. The large brown sphere with the ethereal haze is Titan, the largest. On the background, that’s Saturn and its rings. Never an astronomy picture looked so painterly to me. More »
