Robert Lea

Ancient supernovas may have blasted Earth with powerful radiation, causing dramatic changes in our climate, and could do so again, posing a threat to life.

Read the latest news about NASA's James Webb Space Telescope.

Astronomers have discovered a "teenage vampire" dead star in the process of devouring a companion star during a short-lived, "missing link" phase of its evolution.

At least three ESA space missions are under threat as a result of Trump's budget cuts. The gravitational wave observatory LISA, Venus orbiter EnVision, and NewAthena may require "recovery actions."

Using the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have discovered the smallest brown dwarfs ever seen with the potential to form planets and surrounded by mysterious molecules.

A researcher throws cold water on a recent effort that purported to eliminate black holes' greatest and most enduring mystery — the existence of their central singularity.

In two related firsts, the James Webb Space Telescope has discovered sand-filled rains on a distant exoplanet as its "sandcastle" partner world forms from sandy matter before the eyes of astronomers.

The Solar Orbiter has captured humanity's first look at the south pole of the sun, revealing messy magnetic fields and particles being ejected at high speeds.

The CLASS telescope array has taken a fresh look at the infant universe to hunt for polarized light in the Cosmic Microwave Background that resembles light bouncing off a cosmic car hood.

A new batch of 15 Giant Radio Galaxies, the largest of which is 12.4 light-years wide, could help reveal how black holes and galactic mergers help the universe's largest single objects grow so large.

Supermassive black holes could act as natural particle accelerators, helping humanity investigate dark matter.

A newly designed, AI-powered program could solve the puzzle of binary stars in mere seconds using a common laptop, a process that currently takes supercomputer clusters weeks.

A collision between the Milky Way and neighboring galaxy Andromeda is far from a sure thing; in fact, it could hinge on the flip of a cosmic coin.

NASA's X-ray space telescope IXPE has made the first observation of polarized light emerging from an outbursting magnetar, neutron stars that possess the universe's strongest magnetic fields.

The James Webb Space Telescope has done it again, discovering the "mother of all early galaxies," a record-breaking distant object that existed just 280 billion years after the Big Bang.

Astronomers have spotted a supermassive black hole ripping apart and devouring a star in colliding galaxies. It is only the second time a tidal disruption event has been seen in interacting galaxies.

The mystery surrounding a strange cosmic object, or 'long-period transient,' has deepened. This object is bursting with X-rays, and astronomers describe it as unlike anything seen before.

Using the Dark Energy Camera astronomers have found a packed stellar nursery of infant stars in the dark nebula in the 180-light-year-wide Circinus West molecular cloud.

Using the Hubble Space Telescope and an array of other instruments, astronomers have probed supernova wreckage in the Large Magellanic Cloud, the galaxy next door.

Super-Earths can exist in wider orbits around their parent stars than was previously believed, suggesting these Earth-like exoplanets could be more common than we thought.

Using the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have peered into galaxies that existed at cosmic noon to hunt ravenously feeding black holes and bursts of starbirth.

On Thursday, April 24, 2025, the Hubble Space Telescope will celebrate 35 years in space. Can it still hold its own and prove useful when compared to instruments like the James Webb Space Telescope?

A massive clump of dark matter in the Perseus galaxy cluster is linked to its core by a bridge of dark matter, evidence of a history of mergers.

Using the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have discovered "smoking gun" evidence of a hidden feeding supermassive black hole in a distant spiral galaxy.