Astrophysics

Giant black holes were supposed to be bit players in the early cosmic story. But recent James Webb Space Telescope observations are finding an unexpected abundance of the beasts.

New observations of a faraway rocky world that might have its own magnetic field could help astronomers understand the seemingly haphazard magnetic fields swaddling our solar system’s planets.

By measuring the universe’s emptiest spaces, scientists can study how matter clumps together and how fast it flies apart.

Astronomers have found a background din of exceptionally long-wavelength gravitational waves pervading the cosmos.

A new theory describes how particle interactions fuel fast magnetic reconnection, the process behind solar flares and other astrophysical jets.

A new analysis argues that ubiquitous eruptions in the sun’s corona explain the vast flow of charged particles seen streaming out through the solar system.

There once was a cosmic seed that sprouted the Milky Way galaxy. Astronomers have discovered its last surviving remnants.

Cosmologists are using secondary signatures from the cosmic microwave background to map the universe’s hidden matter.

There appear to be too many gamma rays coming from the sun. New higher-energy measurements reveal that this excess continues for a bit, then disappears — a cutoff that could help clarify what’s going on.