Robert Lea

As the skies darken during the total solar eclipse on Monday (April 8), onlookers in the path of totality will experience a wave of strange phenomena that could confuse and delight them.

The CHEOPS mission has seen tantalizing hints of the rainbow-like glory effect over WASP-76b, an extreme world where iron rains heavily on one side of the planet.

For many years, binary star research has been as neglected as an old Tamagotchi. But now, the Gaia space telescope is leading a resurgence in interest in binary star systems.

To remain youthful in a cosmic demolition derby around supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*, some cannibalistic stars gruesomely bathe in outer layers of their stellar victims.

The new BREAD experiment, which was designed to search the cosmos for mysterious dark matter, has returned its first results.

The James Webb Space Telescope has dived into the smoking heart of the "Cigar Galaxy" to create an image of the starburst galaxy alight with intense star birth.

The 3,200-megapixel LSST camera, build for the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, is completed. It will create "the greatest movie of all time" to crack the mystery of dark energy.

Using the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have spotted hints of a third planet in the disk of gas and dust that surrounds an infant star, as well as signs of moon formation.

The James Webb Space Telescope has joined the hunt for infant exoplanets, spotting a newly forming world — but not the one we had expected to see.

Observations for the ULLYSES program, the Hubble Telescope's largest operation yet, are now completed. Scientists are now diving into some cosmic Easter treats.

New observations provide an intriguing window into what happens when a slumbering black hole awakens to devour a star.

An asteroid that slammed into Mars around 2.3 million years ago left one nine-mile wide crater and created 2 billion smaller craters.

A tiny grain of dust sealed within an ancient meteorite weaves together the story of the solar system's creation and reveals a much older tale of a rare star's explosive supernova death.

A black hole may be punching through the disk of gas and dust surrounding a supermassive black hole, causing its giant neighbor to "hiccup."

Scientists have measured for the first time the speed of jets launched by neutron star "vampires" as they feast on victim stars. The breakthrough connects these jets to thermonuclear blasts.

Humanity's activities and climate change are impacting the polar ice sheets, causing excessive melting, and this is slowing Earth's rotation, challenging official timekeeping standards.

Using the MeerKat radio telescope, astronomers discovered a "gold rush" of galaxies in just three hours, including three joined by their gas content.

Astronomers have for the first time imaged the powerful magnetic fields that dwell around the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way, Sagittarius A*.

Scientists have discovered that the hottest and brightest stars in the cosmos, blue supergiants, are created when two smaller stars spiral together and merge, new research suggests.

The Hubble Space Telescope has imaged a powerful jet erupting from an envelope of gas and dust that represents a newly born star announcing itself to the cosmos.

The Worm Moon underwent a slightly undramatic lunar eclipse on Sunday, March 24, two weeks before the main event: April's total solar eclipse.

Scientists created a giant vortex made of tiny quantum pieces to bring black hole physics down to Earth.

The Gaia space telescope has discovered two ancient stellar streams woven through the heart of the Milky Way, which were present 12 billion years ago.

NASA has shut down its Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, but don't panic; this is only a temporary pause for the space telescope that has served the space agency since 2004.

Impact craters in Europa's icy crust have been used to measure the thickness of the world's shell, leading scientists closer to learning if this frozen moon could host life as we know it.