Calling all citizen scientists: The Australian National University wants you to join the search for supernovae. Brad Tucker from the ANU Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics says it’s not… Read More
A new project called Astronomy Rewind is recruiting citizen scientists to bring decades-old cosmic images back from the dead and restore them to their rightful place. It’s the latest offering from… Read More
Citizen scientists can join an online hunt for icy worlds, brown dwarfs and other yet-to-be-discovered objects beyond the orbit of Neptune, using a technique that’s not all that different from… Read More
While NASA’s Juno orbiter is giving Jupiter its close-up, a new video based on more than 1,000 images taken by 91 amateur astronomers provides the wide-angle view. “A Journey to… Read More
That mysterious “alien megastructure” star is still a mystery, but the most plausible explanations appear to be dense patches of interstellar gas or dust that just happened to pass in… Read More
It’s been almost a year since astronomers first speculated that a strangely dimming star called KIC 8462852 might harbor an alien megastructure, and newly reported observations are making the case… Read More
Are Mars’ two moons asteroids that were captured by the Red Planet’s gravitational field, or are they the result of an ancient smash-up? Astronomers have now laid out a series… Read More
Scientists say they’ve detected a giant planet circling a star that’s only 5 million to 10 million years old, which would make it the youngest exoplanet ever identified. The super-Neptune-sized planet traces… Read More
Eighty percent of Americans can’t see the Milky Way from where they live, according to a new analysis of light pollution’s effect on the night sky. The global dark sky… Read More
For the next couple of weeks, Mars will look bigger than it’s looked in a decade! And no, this is not a hoax. Every August, the Internet goes a little… Read More
For the first time in a decade, we Earthlings can watch the planet Mercury’s black speck pass across the sun today – even in Seattle, where the skies are partly… Read More
It’s been 26 years since the Hubble Space Telescope was launched into orbit, but the Bubble Nebula picture unveiled to mark its birthday would make the great observatory feel like… Read More
Unicorns are real! Scientists propose cloaking device to protect Earth from aliens! Glow-in-the-dark skin grown in lab! Those may sound like April Fool’s headlines, but they’re actually amped-up twists on… Read More
This week’s total solar eclipse is a bad-news, good-news, even-better-news situation for skywatchers in the United States. Solar eclipses are must-see astronomical events that occur when the moon is positioned… Read More
Like the rockers in “This Is Spinal Tap,” astronomers cranked the dials on the Hubble Space Telescope up to 11 to identify what they say is the farthest-out galaxy ever detected,… Read More
NASA has put the 18th and final piece of the puzzle into place for the $8.8 billion James Webb Space Telescope’s primary mirror – marking a major milestone on the way… Read More
For decades, astronomers have gone back and forth over whether a “Planet X” exists on the edge of our solar system – and now two researchers have laid out new evidence… Read More
He’s not saying it’s aliens – but an astronomer has raised new questions about KIC 8462852, the strange star that stirred up a debate about “alien megastructures” months ago. In a paper… Read More
The hashtag #astroSH is being used on Twitter this week to highlight stories from women who say they have been sexually harassed during their studies or work in astronomy. Mashable, The… Read More
Leave it to the scientists behind the Hubble Space Telescope to capitalize on the craziness over “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.” Their latest cosmic snapshot shows what looks like a double-bladed… Read More
Astronomers traced one of the weirder twists in relativity to determine when they’d see an “instant replay” of a distant supernova, and now the Hubble Space Telescope has shown that their prediction was… Read More
The most reliable meteor shower of the year reaches its peak tonight – but to catch the Geminids, you’ll have to find a patch of clear, dark sky. That’s difficult to do… Read More
An array of radio telescopes in Chile has picked up weird readings that appear to be coming from far-out objects – and that’s sparked a debate over whether they’re previously… Read More
Scientists flying on an instrument-laden jet captured great video views of a mysterious space object known as WT1190F as it streaked through the air and burned up over the Indian… Read More
Astronomers say they’ve identified the most distant celestial object in our solar system – a speck of light more than three times farther out than Pluto, called V774104. The object is smaller… Read More
One of the premier telescope arrays in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI, is focusing its antennas on an anomalously blinking star, thanks in part to speculation that the… Read More
Sunday’s super-sized total lunar eclipse is special for a couple of reasons, but it’s extra-special for places like Seattle, where the timing is perfect for family viewing. “I love it… Read More
The Perseids are traditionally among the most popular meteor showers of the year, and Seattle is traditionally one of the worst places to watch for meteors. Fortunately, the weather and the stars… Read More
Russian high-tech billionaire Yuri Milner teamed up with the world’s most famous scientist, British physicist Stephen Hawking, to announce a new $100 million effort to detect signals from alien civilizations. The Breakthrough Listen… Read More
Interstellar‘s bad boy (and central plot device) has got nothing on this astronomical discovery. A mammoth black hole — and that’s “mammoth” in terms of tonnage — has been found… Read More