News from Astronomy

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Latest Astronomy News

Astrophotography

Astronomy magazine launches 2026 astrophotography contest presented by Celestron

Stellar nursery N159 appears in many colors in this image from the Hubble Space Telescope

N159: A star-forming nebula in the spider’s shadow

A dense cluster of silver and gray spacecraft components, rocket parts, and satellite fragments floats against a black starfield, packed tightly on the left side of the frame and thinning into scattered individual pieces toward the right. The objects range from large cylindrical rocket stages and solar panel arrays to small bolts and twisted metal fragments.

Solar activity determines how fast space junk falls to Earth

A crescent moon glowing brightly against a deep dark blue night sky, flanked by two planets, Jupiter and Venus, visible as small bright points — one to the upper left and one to the lower right.

Sky This Week, The Sky This Week

The Sky This Week from May 15 to 22: The Moon greets Jupiter and Venus

Human Spaceflight

NASA shares new details on Artemis 3 pre-lunar landing mission

An illustration of a satellite breaking apart as it plunges toward Earth's atmosphere, shown against a dark starfield with the white cloud layer of Earth visible at the lower right. The spacecraft's orange and tan body is engulfed in orange flame and brown smoke, with blue solar panels, a silver dish antenna, and other fragments flying outward in all directions.

Falling space debris poses an escalating risk as spacecraft get stronger and more heat-resistant

10 great spring binocular sights

Did time move slower right after the Big Bang?

Starmus unveils the design of the Jane Goodall Earth Medal

3I/ATLAS came from a strange, cold world

Sky This Week, The Sky This Week

The Sky This Week from May 8 to 15: The Moon meets Mars

Telescopes and Equipment

May we present this month’s new astronomy products

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This artist’s conception illustrates one of the most primitive supermassive black holes known (central black dot) at the core of a young, star-rich galaxy. Astronomers using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope have uncovered two of these early objects, dating back to about 13 billion years ago. The monstrous black holes are among the most distant known, and appear to be in the very earliest stages of formation, earlier than any observed so far. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

Science

Explore the science of space, from the astrophysics of stars to the ultimate fate of the universe.

Credit: Tim Doucette.

Observing

Learn about upcoming observing events such as eclipses, meteor showers, comets, conjunctions, and more.

This 2016 Curiosity rover selfie shows the vehicle at the “Okoruso” drilling site on Mount Sharp’s Naukluft Plateau. The Martian scene is a mosaic of images taken with the arm-mounted Mars Hands Lens Imager (MAHLI). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS.

Space Exploration

Human and robotic missions are helping humanity explore our solar system and beyond.

Sky This Week

A crescent moon glowing brightly against a deep dark blue night sky, flanked by two planets, Jupiter and Venus, visible as small bright points — one to the upper left and one to the lower right.

Sky This Week, The Sky This Week

The Sky This Week from May 15 to 22: The Moon greets Jupiter and Venus

Sky This Month

May 2026: What’s in the sky this month? Venus and Jupiter shine bright, Comet Tempel 2 is improving

Picture of the Day

A long, edge-on galaxy stretches diagonally across a dark, star-filled sky, with a bright yellow-white center crossed by thin dark dust lanes. Bright red plumes of gas shoot out above and below the middle of the galaxy. The background is scattered with sharp stars of different colors and faint distant galaxies, with a few wispy grey clouds of dust on the right side.

Bursting with stars

Arnaud Malleval

M82, also known as the Cigar Galaxy, lies about 12 million light-years away in Ursa Major. It is a classic example of a starburst galaxy — one producing newborn stars at a prodigious rate. Their explosive deaths drive filaments of hydrogen gas above and below its disk, forming the reddish filaments in Hα seen above. The imager collected 56.8 hours of data in HαLRGB filters with a 12-inch f/3.3 scope.

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