James Webb Space Telescope

A long-awaited study of the cosmic expansion rate suggests that when it comes to the Hubble tension, cosmologists are still missing something.

Recent controversies bode ill for the effort to detect life on other planets by analyzing the gases in their atmospheres.

From the smallest scales to the largest, the physical world provided no shortage of surprises this year.

Astronomers thought they had solved the mystery of gamma-ray bursts. A few recent events suggest otherwise.

Scientists have recently discovered scores of free-floating worlds that defy classification. The new observations have forced them to rethink their theories of star and planet formation.

Astronomers are scouring the cosmos for fingerprints of the invisible — tiny clumps of pure dark matter that might solve a long-standing cosmic mystery.

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.

Theory has it that “Population III” stars brought light to the cosmos. The James Webb Space Telescope may have just glimpsed them.

Reports that the James Webb Space Telescope killed the reigning cosmological model turn out to have been exaggerated. But astronomers still have much to learn from distant galaxies glimpsed by Webb.