Astronomy news
The latest astronomy and space news, including updates from the professional observatories and spacecraft exploring the cosmos.
Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2024 | See this year's winning images
Watch the Polaris Dawn mission's spacewalk live
Watch the first ever commercial spacewalk live, as Commander Jared Isaacman and mission specialist Sarah Gillis prepare to conduct an EVA
Video and images show bubbles 75 times as big as the Sun forming on a huge red giant star
Has JWST solved the question of the Universe's expansion rate?
Got a Unistellar telescope? Company says new processing software will be made available to all users
MCG-03-34-64 galaxy merger and black hole collision
Galaxy merger MCG-03-34-64 is 800 million lightyears away and contains binary black holes 300 lightyears apart in the process of colliding.
Moon's tenuous atmosphere is formed mostly by meteorite impacts, according to study of Apollo samples
Study shows that the thin exosphere is gas liberated by millennia of bombardment.
Rare artefacts from Apollo and the history of space flight on display at the UK's Space Vault exhibition
One of the largest private collections of space artefacts in the UK is currently on display at the River & Rowing Museum, Henley-on-Thames. Curator Dr Michael Warner reveals why he put the exhibition together
'Eccentric' planet has stretched-out orbit and could be on its way to becoming a scorching gas giant
Hubble creates most precise map of star movement in a galaxy, revealing clues about the structure of dark matter
Astronomers find new clues to the mysterious substance’s distribution across a galaxy.
Star Diary | 2 to 8 September 2024
A line of star’s will appear to tumble down the sky into a nearby cluster this week, like a waterfall flowing into a splash pool, a feature known as Kemble’s cascade.
NASA is developing robots that will swim beneath Antarctic ice and measure how quickly it's melting
Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) is due to reappear in our skies over the coming weeks
Could Comet A3 become another Great Comet, or even simply reach naked-eye brightness? We'll find out in autumn 2024...
NASA's Jupiter moon mission has been given its solar arrays, and it's now bigger than a basketball court
Europa Clipper needs huge solar arrays to power it within the cold darkness of Jupiter's shadow.
Star Diary | 26 August to 1 September 2024
The crescent Moon joins Mars and Jupiter to form a striking celestial trio before the Moon dips out of the way to allow stargazers a stunning view of the Milky Way.
NASA rocket makes first detection of electric field that explains why Earth's atmosphere is escaping into space
Liquid water has been found on Mars, and could provide a potential habitat. But there's a catch
'Earth-sized' telescope makes highest resolution observations of space ever achieved from the ground
Webb hasn't 'broken' cosmology, study says. Black holes could make early galaxies appear bigger and brighter
Key missing link in black hole evolution could lie within the Omega Centauri star cluster, Hubble data shows
The iconic Pillars of Creation appears in x-ray and infrared in brand new Chandra and Webb image
A new view of one of the most famous star-forming regions in space.
This image shows the centre of our galaxy and its supermassive black hole captured in x-ray light
Two powerful observatories combine to produce a spectacular image showing the centre of our galaxy.
Launch pad engulfed in flames as rocket explodes during test at UK’s SaxaVord spaceport
An anomaly during a test-fire at the Saxavord Spaceport resulted in the rocket exploding, though all humans escaped harm