Cosmic Background Radiation

New measurements of the diffuse ionized hydrogen surrounding galaxies account for missing mass.

Learn more about the Atacama Cosmology Telescope and the images of the infant universe it captured.

We are all very familiar with the concept of the Earth's magnetic field. It turns out that most objects in space have magnetic fields but it's quite tricky to measure them. Astronomers have developed an ingenious way to measure the magnetic field of the Milky Way using polarized light from interstellar dust grains that align themselves to the magnetic field lines. A new survey has begun this mapping process and has…

Amaterasu—the most powerful cosmic ray seen in three decades—seems to come from an empty point of the sky. New telescopes may solve the mystery of its origins

AI algorithms are perfectly suited for picking out the patterns of galaxies. That spells good news for astronomers.

Still can't see it. But this is huge.

Dark matter—an invisible form of matter that scientists only know exists due to its gravitational pull—makes up an estimated 80 percent of our universe.

Astronomers use the James Webb Space Telescope to discover four galaxies dating back to just 400 million years after the Big Bang.

The new record happened by accident.

Sneak a peek at the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the early universe ever taken — all in a day's work for the James Webb Space Telescope. (Literally! Webb was able to capture this image in less than one day, while similar deep field images from Hubble can take multiple weeks.) This is Webb's first image released as we begin to #UnfoldTheUniverse: nasa.gov/webbfirstimages/ If you held a grain of sand up to…

A new map of cosmic expansion suggests that dark energy evolves over time, hinting that the universe doesn't work the way we thought it did

Einstein's theory of general relativity suggests that the "memory" of ancient events, such as black hole mergers, may be etched into the fabric of space-time by gravitational waves. New research shows how this theory of gravitational memory could finally be proven.

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you'd like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com. What is space made of – what does gravity actually bend? – Phil, age 12, Birmingham What comes to mind when you think of space? Imagine ...

The shape of the cosmos could be much more complex than anyone had ever imagined

The CLASS telescope has mapped how microwave energy "wiggles" over Earth to learn more about the cosmic fossil that could help reveal the story of the...

Astronomers can use supercomputers to simulate the formation of galaxies from the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago to the present day. But there are a number of sources of error. An international research team, led by researchers in Lund, has spent a hundred million computer hours over eight years trying to correct these.

University of Chicago astronomer Wendy Freedman tells us how she's searching for an answer to the Hubble tension — a discrepancy between measurements of our universe's expansion that could threaten the dominant model of how the universe has grown since the Big Bang.

This groundbreaking discovery follows the famed Oh-My-God particle detected in 1991.

Early universe observations by the James Webb Space Telescope cannot be explained by current cosmological models.