Adi Foord, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Now out in space for more than two years, the James Webb Space Telescope is a stunningly sophisticated instrument.
A light, cheap space telescope design would make it possible to put many individual units in space at once.
Katie Yung, Daniel Apai /University of Arizona and AllThingsSpace /SketchFab
Space telescopes are limited in size due to the difficulties and cost of getting into orbit. By revamping an old optical technology, researchers are working on a lightweight and thin telescope design.
Euclid is set to launch this year on a rocket built by SpaceX.
Work performed by ATG under contract for ESA
A year on since the historic launch of the most powerful infrared telescope in human history, we admire and explore some of the best images it delivered in 2022.
Through direct comparison with images from Hubble, you can start to see the exquisite detail and clarity Webb provides.
The mirror on the James Webb Space Telescope is fully aligned and producing incredibly sharp images, like this test image of a star.
NASA/STScI via Flickr
It has taken eight months to test and calibrate all of the instruments and modes of the James Webb Space Telescope. A scientist on the team explains what it took to get Webb up and running.
The Milky Way above a single MeerKAT antenna in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa. Inset: EHT image of the Milky Way black hole.
SARAO, EHT
Cape astronomers were responsible for, among other things, the first measurement of the distance to a star; the first photographic sky survey and the accurate measurement of the distance to the sun.
There’s an extensive range of telescopes, mounts and accessories on the market, and trying to pick from it might have you seeing stars. Here’s what the experts suggest.
Two defunct satellites passed within metres of one another, prompting renewed focus on the dangers of space debris. But with many satellites treated as military secrets, how do we track the hazards?
Today we hear about some of the fascinating space research underway at Siding Spring Observatory – and how, despite gruelling hours and endless paperwork, astronomers retain their sense of wonder for the night sky.
Shutterstock
Sunanda Creagh, The Conversation e Cameron Furlong, The Conversation
‘The size, the grandeur, the peacefulness of being in the dark’: what it’s like to study space at Siding Spring Observatory
The Conversation, CC BY54,3 MB(download)
Three hours north-east of Parkes lies a remote astronomical research facility, unpolluted by city lights, where researchers are trying to unlock some of the biggest questions about our Universe.
Finally dragged out of the shadows.
Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration /
Scientists turned Earth into one giant telescope to capture the uncapturable.
Technicians prepare Swift’s UVOT for vibration testing on Aug. 1, 2002, more than two years before launch, in the High Bay Clean Room at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
The Swift Observatory passed a milestone: 1 million snapshots of the universe. These exquisite and revealing pictures have captured the births and deaths of stars, gravitational waves and comets.
Science and art meet on the ‘big screen’ – turning data into visuals at the Lovell Telescope, Jodrell Bank.
Artist conception of a tidal disruption event (TDE) that happens when a star passes fatally close to a supermassive black hole.
Sophia Dagnello, NRAO/AUI/NSF.
When NASA first started planning the Kepler mission, no one knew if the universe held any planets outside our solar system. Thousands of exoplanets later, the search enters a new phase as Kepler retires.
An artist’s concept of select planetary discoveries made to date by NASA’s Kepler space telescope.
NASA/W. Stenzel
The number of known exoplanets doubled this week to more than 3,200. But why have only a handful of these those new planets caught people’s imagination?
ARC Laureate Fellow and Winthrop Research Professor at the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, UWA., The University of Western Australia