Although the Spitzer space telescope’s infrared views could reveal many features, such as the warped disk, within the Sombrero galaxy, the superior size, resolution, and wavelength capabilities of JWST show a large set of features that Spitzer simply couldn’t resolve....
This illustration shows a coronavirus molecule with a string of RNA inside. Although a SARS-CoV-2 virus might have a genome that’s only 30,000 base pairs long, about 1000 of those base pairs are different from its closest naturally-found relatives. Meanwhile,...
This image shows a laser guide star being created towards the galactic center of the Milky Way. While the Milky Way’s plane shines prominently overhead in this photo, optical observatories find very few spiral and elliptical galaxies close to the...
This moving, zipping star field appears to depict an ultra-relativistic motion through space, extremely close to the speed of light. Under the laws of relativity, you neither reach nor exceed the speed of light if you’re made of matter. You...
In July of 1969, humanity took our first steps on the surface of another world: the Moon. This was the crowning achievement of NASA and the space program in the 1960s, representing a global victory for science and human achievement....
In the very early Universe, there were tremendous numbers of quarks, leptons, antiquarks, and antileptons of all species. After only a tiny fraction-of-a-second has elapsed since the hot Big Bang, most of these matter-antimatter pairs annihilate away, leaving a very...
The SphereX (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) mission, slated for launch on February 28. 2025, is designed to map out hundreds of millions of galaxies over the entire sky in an attempt...
This selection of the Andromeda galaxy comes courtesy of the largest photomosaic ever assembled with Hubble Space Telescope data. There’s an enormous wealth of astronomical data found within the image: far more than is readily visible to the human eye....
The full-field image of MACS J0717.5+3745 shows many thousands of galaxies in four separate sub-clusters within the large cluster. The blue contours show the inferred mass distribution from the gravitational lensing effects on background objects. Not shown in this diagram...
In February of 2025, noted anti-vaccine, anti-fluoride, and anti-GMO crusader Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., despite the objection of qualified scientists and medical professionals, was sworn in as the director of Health and Human Services in the United States. (Credit: Associated...
