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Humanity has studied space since antiquity, when people first looked up and observed the wonders of the cosmos. Today, we send rockets, astronauts and probes into the solar system and beyond. Our expert coverage includes the latest updates on NASA, the James Webb Space Telescope, and firms like SpaceX, making it the ultimate resource for space enthusiasts.
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Space

A star has been eating an orbiting planet for 85 years

A distant star called FU Orionis has been shining extraordinarily bright for the last 85 years, and it may be because it is incinerating a young, nearby planet that could be fully consumed in another 300 years

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How to see five planets align in the sky this weekend

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The JWST is already delivering on its promise to transform cosmology

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What looks much like craggy mountains on a moonlit evening is actually the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula. Captured in infrared light by the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) on NASA???s James Webb Space Telescope, this image reveals previously obscured areas of star birth. Called the Cosmic Cliffs, the region is actually the edge of a gigantic, gaseous cavity within NGC 3324, roughly 7,600 light-years away. The cavernous area has been carved from the nebula by the intense ultraviolet radiation and stellar winds from extremely massive, hot, young stars located in the center of the bubble, above the area shown in this image. The high-energy radiation from these stars is sculpting the nebula???s wall by slowly eroding it away. NIRCam ??? with its crisp resolution and unparalleled sensitivity ??? unveils hundreds of previously hidden stars, and even numerous background galaxies. Several prominent features in this image are described below. ??? The ???steam??? that appears to rise from the celestial ???mountains??? is actually hot, ionized gas and hot dust streaming away from the nebula due to intense, ultraviolet radiation. ??? Dramatic pillars rise above the glowing wall of gas, resisting the blistering ultraviolet radiation from the young stars. ??? Bubbles and cavities are being blown by the intense radiation and stellar winds of newborn stars. ??? Protostellar jets and outflows, which appear in gold, shoot from dust-enshrouded, nascent stars. ??? A ???blow-out??? erupts at the top-center of the ridge, spewing gas and dust into the interstellar medium. ??? An unusual ???arch??? appears, looking like a bent-over cylinder. This period of very early star formation is difficult to capture because, for an individual star, it lasts only about 50,000 to 100,000 years ??? but Webb???s extreme sensitivity and exquisite spatial resolution have chronicled this rare event. Located roughly 7,600 light-years away, NGC 3324 was first cat
NASA Videograb: Type Ia Supernova.This animation shows the explosion of a white dwarf, an extremely dense remnant of a star that can no longer burn nuclear fuel at its core. In this "type Ia" supernova, white dwarf's gravity steals material away from a nearby stellar companion. When the white dwarf reaches an estimated 1.4 times the current mass of the Sun, it can no longer sustain its own weight, and blows up. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/resources/2172/type-ia-supernova/

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Fastest star in the galaxy clocked at 2285 kilometres per second

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What the huge young galaxies seen by JWST tell us about the universe

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What the huge young galaxies seen by JWST tell us about the universe

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Fast-growing galaxy seen by JWST offers window on the early universe

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Astronomers are using a new supernova to search for alien signals

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Has anyone really seen evidence of aliens visiting Earth?

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Watch Mars ‘livestream’ by the European Space Agency – latest updates

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Hundreds of weird filaments of gas are hiding in our galaxy’s centre

Astronomers have found strange strings of hot gas near the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way, and they may be hurtling towards Earth

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Planned moon landings could pelt orbiting spacecraft with dusty debris

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How to spot Ophiuchus, the thirteenth zodiacal constellation

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JWST has spotted an enormous plume of water coming out of Enceladus

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NASA’s UFO team discusses its findings publicly for the first time

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