Space News & Blog Articles

Crescent Venus, ever thinner and lower in twilight, dives toward the Sun. Jupiter and Saturn bide their time. The bright winter constellations fill the east after dark. Mars and Antares pair up at dawn.

Venus presents a stunning crescent at dusk before switching over to the morning sky early next month. After dodging the Moon for the Geminids, it's dark skies all around for the Quadrantid meteor shower.

The material that the Hayabusa 2 spacecraft returned from asteroid Ryugu is the most pristine sample we've ever gotten our hands on.

Dramatic Venus is becoming a dramatically thinner, larger crescent the southwestern twilight. A few people can even resolve the crescent naked-eye. Saturn and Jupiter stay lined up behind it. And the bright winter constellations officially come into their own with the turning of the solstice.

Long focal length scopes are usually discouraged for beginner deep sky astrophotography, but solar system imagers need that extra focal length reach.

The soon-to-be-launched James Webb Space Telescope should shed light on exoplanet atmospheres and peer back to the universe's first stars.

On its eighth close pass, NASA’s record-breaking Parker Solar Probe entered our star’s atmosphere and “touched” the surface of the Sun.

Stargazers can find solace for grief in the stars.

New data and analysis show that a long-standing discrepancy in the measurement of the current expansion rate of the universe is real — even as the reason for it remains a mystery.

Astronomers have identified the origin of a mysterious flash that occurred three years ago.

Comet Leonard switches from low in the dawn to low in the dusk this week; you'll need those binocs. The Venus-Saturn-Jupiter line slides westward. And the high full moon of December rides across the sky in Taurus, at the top of the ecliptic.

Sky & Telescope and friends report on the total solar eclipse that occurred over Antarctica earlier this week.

The Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer will shed new light on energetic and enigmatic sources such as magnetars, supernovae, and black holes.

At first glance, the annual Geminid meteor shower appears to be on a collision course with a bright Moon. But a closer look reveals a happy window of dark skies.

Astronomers have imaged a giant planet around a massive pair of stars, a discovery that challenges our notions of how planets form.

A satellite galaxy dwarfed by the Milky Way has a black hole nearly as massive as the one at the center of our galaxy.

Galaxy clusters take eons to collide. Now, astronomers have caught a pair of merging clusters in an in-between stage never seen before.

NASA will end support for the International Space Station by 2030, transitioning low-Earth orbit to commercial operations.

New research may explain why satellite galaxies align themselves around the Milky Way

The year's brightest comet is now on display in the predawn sky this week and next. Here's how to find it.

The crescent Moon at dusk hangs under Venus, then Saturn, then Jupiter. Comet Leonard is at its best before dawn. And welcome in, Orion!