Robert Lea

Departing on Monday (Nov. 25), Earth's recent "mini-moon" asteroid 2024 PT5 didn't stick around for Thanksgiving, but don't be sad. It will be back... but will it ever be a second moon again?

In a "rite of passage," the JAXA/NASA X-ray telescope XRISM has mapped in detail Cygnus X-3, a curious binary system with a potential black hole feasting stellar winds blowing from a massive star.

The James Webb Space Telescope may have broken another of its own records, finding potentially five of the earliest and most distant galaxies ever seen.

Was alien life in "hot water" on Mars billions of years ago? New evidence from the Martian meteorite "Black Beauty" suggests so.

Astronomers have observed a galaxy ripping through galactic debris left by multiple collisions at a dangerous "cosmic crossroads" called Stephan's Quintet.

The asteroid 2024 PT5 will leave Earth on Nov. 25 after visiting, but new analysis shows this temporary "second moon" may come from our original moon and, thus, from Earth itself.

The James Webb Space Telescope has identified the first-ever "Einstein zig-zag," a distant quasar lensed six times by two precisely aligned galaxies that could help tackle a cosmological crisis.

Astronomers have captured the first zoomed-in image of a star beyond the Milky Way. The historic image reveals a dying behemoth star wrapped in a death shroud of gas about to explode.

Scientists may have cracked one of the biggest mysteries in space science, determining that supermassive black holes bent the laws of physics to grow to their huge sizes.

The first year of data from the 5,000 robotic eyes of DESI shows Einstein's theory of general relativity is the right recipe for gravity despite the challenges of dark energy and dark matter.

Five new portraits of galaxies located between 4 million to 30 million light-years from Earth could help astronomers unlock the secrets of cosmic evolution.

Researchers have discovered the first evidence that the brightest accretion disks around supermassive black holes "wobble" as their monstrous occupants drag them around.

A 3D map of our cosmic neighborhood has revealed hot and cold regions as well as an "escape tunnel" from our local bubble.

Using NASA's Chandra spacecraft, astronomers have found "danger zones" for worlds where planet-birthing disks are blasted with high-energy radiation from massive young stars and rapidly disintegrate.

The neutron star 4U 1820-30 is one of the fastest spinning bodies in the universe, spinning at 716 times a second and erupting like an atomic bomb, NASA's NICER telescope has found.

Black hole formation could be a little Big Bang in reverse, coupling the matter of a dying star with dark energy, the mysterious force driving the accelerating expansion of the universe.

Astronomers have used a range of telescopes, including Hubble, to watch as particles dance around a neutron star collision that created the smallest black hole ever seen.

Halloween is here, and there is no better way to celebrate than with a blood-curdling image of the Dark Wolf Nebula looking like a cosmic werewolf poised to grab an unwitting victim.

The extreme qualities of neutron stars could mean these dead stellar remnants gather dense clouds of hypothetical particles called "axions" around them, potentially shedding light on dark matter.

Dark matter makes up 85% of the stuff in the cosmos, but scientists have no idea what it is. Can you solve the case?

In time for Halloween, we present seven terrifying cosmic monsters — and to meet your thirst for scares, we've added must-watch horror movies to this witches brew.

The James Webb Space Telescope has discovered brown dwarfs at the heart of planet-forming disks in the Orion nebula. The discovery could help reveal if these "failed stars" can have planets.

A 6-mile-thick shell of methane ice on Saturn's moon Titan could assist in the hunt for life signs arising from this moon's vast subsurface ocean.

The NASA mission to Europa has some stops to make on the way.

Using the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have potentially discovered the first brown dwarfs beyond the borders of the Milky Way galaxy.