Astronomy & Space News

The sun's glint beams off a partly cloudy Atlantic Ocean just after sunrise as the International Space Station orbited 263 miles above on March 5, 2025.

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has taken the most detailed image of planetary nebula NGC 1514 to date thanks to its unique mid-infrared observations. Webb shows its rings as intricate clumps of dust. It’s also easier to see holes punched through the bright pink central region.

This towering structure of billowing gas and dark, obscuring dust might only be a small portion of the Eagle Nebula, but it is no less majestic in appearance for it. 9.5 light-years tall and 7000 light-years distant from Earth, this dusty sculpture is refreshed with the use of new processing techniques.

The space shuttle Discovery launches from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, heading through Atlantic skies toward its 51-D mission. The seven-member crew lifted off at 8:59 a.m. ET, April 12, 1985.

A scrub jay perches on a branch near the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on June 22, 2020.

On March 18, 2025, NASA’s IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe) arrived at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for thermal vacuum testing at the X-ray and Cryogenic Facility (XRCF), which simulates the harsh conditions of space.

This new image showcases the dazzling young star cluster NGC 346. Although both the James Webb Space Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope have released images of NGC 346 previously, this image includes new data and is the first to combine Hubble observations made at infrared, optical, and ultraviolet wavelengths into an intricately detailed view of this vibrant star-forming factory.

NASA astronauts Jim Lovell, Fred Haise, and Jack Swigert launch aboard the Apollo 13 spacecraft from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 11, 1970.

In northwest Australia, the Great Sandy Desert holds great geological interest as a zone of active sand dune movement. While a variety of dune forms appear across the region, this astronaut photograph features numerous linear dunes (about 25 meters high) separated in a roughly regular fashion (0.5 to 1.5 kilometers apart).

A Soyuz rocket launches to the International Space Station with Expedition 73 crew members aboard, Tuesday, April 8, 2025, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

This March 4, 2020, image shows Deep Space Station 43, a 70-meter-wide (230-feet-wide) radio antenna at NASA’s Deep Space Network facility in Canberra, Australia. The facility celebrated its 60th anniversary on March 19, 2025, while also breaking ground on a new radio antenna. The pair of achievements are major milestones for the network, which communicates with spacecraft all over the solar system using giant dish antennas located at three complexes around the globe.

From the mountains of Turin to the deserts of Arizona, a core element of Gateway, humanity’s first lunar space station, is now one step closer to the Moon.

NASA astronaut Jonny Kim poses for a portrait while wearing a spacesuit on July 17, 2024. In his first mission, Kim will serve as a flight engineer during Expedition 72/73 on the International Space Station.

The four astronauts who will be the first to fly to the Moon under NASA's Artemis campaign – NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen – have designed an emblem to represent their mission that references both their distant destination and the home they will return to.

In about 5 billion years, our Sun will run out of fuel and expand, possibly engulfing Earth. These end stages of a star’s life can be utterly beautiful – as is the case with this planetary nebula called the Helix Nebula. Astronomers study these objects by looking at all kinds of light. This images show X-rays from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory (magenta), optical light data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (orange, light blue), infrared data from the European Southern Observatory VISTA telescope (gold, dark blue), and ultraviolet data from GALEX (purple) of the Helix Nebula.

Steve Leonard from Markham, Ontario, Canada The visual appearance of the March 13/14 total lunar eclipse was captured in this composite of three stacks of images: One for the eclipsed Moon, one for the background star field, and a third stack of overexposed frames to capture the diffuse glow around the Moon. The imager usingContinue reading "Blood glow"

The post Blood glow appeared first on Astronomy Magazine.

In this episode, Astronomy magazine Editor Dave Eicher invites you to head out before sunrise and view brilliant Venus. The planet, which is only outshone by the Sun or the Moon, will lie low in the eastern sky. It will rise and hour or so before the Sun. Even as morning twilight begins to brighten the sky,Continue reading "This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher: Venus in the Morning Sky"

The post This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher: Venus in the Morning Sky appeared first on Astronomy Magazine.

The phenomenon of a Full Moon arises when our planet, Earth, is precisely sandwiched between the Sun and the Moon. This alignment ensures the entire side of the Moon that faces us gleams under sunlight. Thanks to the Moon’s orbit around Earth, the angle of sunlight hitting the lunar surface and being reflected back toContinue reading "2025 Full Moon calendar: When to see the Full Moon and phases"

The post 2025 Full Moon calendar: When to see the Full Moon and phases appeared first on Astronomy Magazine.

Huang Dandan/Liu Dongyu, taken from Ming’antu Town, Xilin Gol League, Inner Mongolia, China The stars spin above the north-south-aligned antennas of the Interplanetary Scintillation Observation (IPS) Telescope, China’s first radio telescope for studying interplanetary scintillation. This stacked image was captured with a Sony mirrorless camera and 14mm lens, with 15-second exposures at f/3.2 and ISOContinue reading "Scintillating star trails"

The post Scintillating star trails appeared first on Astronomy Magazine.

NASA’s Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) mission launched March 12, sending up a constellation of four Earth-orbiting satellites with the goal of studying how the Sun’s activity influences the space environment around Earth. This week, the four satellites opened their cameras to the sky and captured their so-called first light images inContinue reading "PUNCH sees first light, prepares to study how the Sun creates our space weather"

The post PUNCH sees first light, prepares to study how the Sun creates our space weather appeared first on Astronomy Magazine.

Looking like a bird ready to take flight from atop a post, this dusty filament within the Eagle Nebula was recently captured in intricate detail by the Hubble Space Telescope.  Also known as M16, this nebula lies some 7,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Serpens the Serpent and surrounds an open star cluster. ThisContinue reading "A dark, dusty pillar stretches across re-released Hubble image"

The post A dark, dusty pillar stretches across re-released Hubble image appeared first on Astronomy Magazine.

Be careful out there, astronomers: There could be a dark galaxy in our midst.  In research published today in Science Advances, researchers from the Chinese National Academy of Sciences discovered that a fast-moving cloud of gas near the Milky Way may not be a cloud at all, but rather a small galaxy made mostly ofContinue reading "Astronomers find a rare ‘dark galaxy’ within our Local Group"

The post Astronomers find a rare ‘dark galaxy’ within our Local Group appeared first on Astronomy Magazine.

Sky This Week is brought to you in part by Celestron. Friday, April 18Jupiter still rules the early-evening skies, standing prominently in Taurus in the west as darkness falls. Located between the two horns of Taurus the Bull and above its red giant eye, Aldebaran, Jupiter is the brightest point of light in the west,Continue reading "The Sky This Week from April 18 to 25: The Lyrid meteor shower peaks"

The post The Sky This Week from April 18 to 25: The Lyrid meteor shower peaks appeared first on Astronomy Magazine.

The Southern Pinwheel Galaxy (M83) in Hydra checks almost every box an amateur astronomer could desire. This stunning barred spiral spans a hefty 14′ and, at magnitude 7.5, ranks among the sky’s 10 brightest galaxies. Its only drawback is location — at a declination of –30°, it lies farther south than any other galaxy inContinue reading "M83: Big, bright, and beautiful"

The post M83: Big, bright, and beautiful appeared first on Astronomy Magazine.

Scientists have reported new observations from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) that strengthen the case that the exoplanet K2-18 b has molecules in its atmosphere that, on Earth, are produced only by life. The work, announced Wednesday, builds on previous observations from JWST published in 2023 by the same team that yielded weak hintsContinue reading "K2-18 b could have dimethyl sulfide in its air. But is it a sign of life?"

The post K2-18 b could have dimethyl sulfide in its air. But is it a sign of life? appeared first on Astronomy Magazine.

During a close flyby on April 20th, NASA’s Lucy spacecraft surprised its science team by revealing an asteroid that was once two smaller pieces that have been conjoined into a larger whole.

The post Meet Asteroid Donaldjohanson: Long and Lumpy appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Researchers reanalyzing Cassini data think the plumes from Enceladus might provide direct access to the Saturnian moon's underground ocean.

The post Plumes from Saturn's Moon Enceladus Might Come Straight from Its Hidden Ocean appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Bright Jupiter is getting lower in the west week by week and is nearly at its farthest from Earth. But it's still the brightest point in the evening sky, qualifying as the "Little Evening Star" in the absence of Venus.

The post This Week's Sky at a Glance, April 18 – 27 appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

When astronomers discovered a star that had swallowed its own planet, they found a surprise — the planet may have spiraled in to its demise.

The post Webb Telescope Reveals What Happens When a Planet Spirals Into Its Star appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

The space science community is deeply concerned after recent reports that NASA's budget would be halved.

The post NASA’s Space Science Budget: Major Cuts Loom Large appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Regular bursts of high-energy X-rays might herald the birth of active galactic nuclei, the supermassive black holes in galaxy cores.

The post Supermassive Black Hole Wakes Up appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

The annual Lyrid meteor shower should put on a great show this year. Enjoy it with a dash of the "dark side" of Saturn's rings.

The post See the Lyrid Meteor Shower the Night of April 21–22 appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

In February, Sky & Telescope Contributing Editor Govert Schilling visited three new astronomical observatories in northern Chile. This chronicle of the Simons Observatory is the first of a three-part blog series.

The post Simons Observatory: Big Bang Examiner appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

The bright Moon pairs with Spica on Saturday the 12th. Three nights later, the waning Moon in the small hours occults one of the head stars of Scorpius.

The post This Week's Sky at a Glance, April 11 – 20 appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Smartscopes starred at this year's Northeast Astronomy Forum in New York, and Sky & Telescope welcomed conversations with our readers.

The post New Gear at the Northeast Astronomy Forum appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

A planet 140 light-years from Earth is rapidly coming apart due to its close proximity to its star. The roasting planet is effectively evaporating away: It sheds an enormous amount of surface minerals as it whizzes around its star.

Geologists weigh in on a long-running debate about Mars: Billions of years ago, was the Red Planet warm and wet or cold and dry?

Researchers have developed a new coronagraph that could make it possible to see distant exoplanets obscured by light from their parent stars.

New research finds that despite large rivers and seas of liquid methane, Saturn's moon Titan seems mostly devoid of river deltas, raising new questions about the surface dynamics on this alien world.

Research from NASA's Curiosity rover has found evidence of a carbon cycle on ancient Mars.

Astronomers have detected the most promising signs yet of a possible biosignature outside the solar system, although they remain cautious.

Why do comets and their meteoroid streams weave in and out of Earth's orbit and their orbits disperse over time? Researchers show that this is not due to the random pull of the planets, but rather the kick they receive from a moving Sun.

Astronomers have found a planet that orbits at an angle of 90 degrees around a rare pair of peculiar stars. This is the first time we have strong evidence for one of these 'polar planets' orbiting a stellar pair.

An international team has discovered the most distant spiral galaxy candidate known to date. This ultra-massive system existed just one billion years after the Big Bang and already shows a remarkably mature structure, with a central old bulge, a large star-forming disk, and well-defined spiral arms. The discovery was made using data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and offers important insights into how galaxies can form and evolve so rapidly in the early Universe.

Scientists have designed a 'cosmic radio' detector which could discover dark matter in 15 years.

Observations of Jupiter show that ammonia is unevenly distributed in the upper atmosphere, against expectations of uniform mixing. Scientists found evidence for a complicated but apparently real process associated with fierce lightning storms: strong updrafts generate slushy, ice-coated hailstones of ammonia and water that eventually plunge into the planet and deplete areas of ammonia. This is part of the first 3D picture of the planet's atmosphere, which shows storms are primarily shallow.

First ever supercomputer simulations of Mars with a fully molten core could explain the Red Planet's unusual magnetic field. Billions of years ago, Mars had an active magnetic field. Mysteriously, its imprint is strongest in the southern hemisphere. Researchers found that Mars could have produced a one-sided magnetic field with a fully molten core, rather than the traditional, Earth-like solid inner core setup.

A new study modeled the chemistry of TOI-270 d, an exoplanet between Earth and Neptune in size, finding evidence that it could be a giant rocky planet shrouded in a thick, hot atmosphere. TOI-270 d is only 73 light years from Earth and could serve as a 'Rosetta Stone' for understanding an entire class of new planets.

Researchers may have answered one of space science's long-running questions -- and it could change our understanding of how life began. Carbon-rich asteroids are abundant in space yet make up less than 5 per cent of meteorites found on Earth.

Astronomers are investigating the longest and most energetic bursts of X-rays seen from a newly awakened black hole. Watching this strange behavior unfold in real time offers a unique opportunity to learn more about these powerful events and the mysterious behavior of massive black holes.