Let’s try a demonstration that we all enjoyed in elementary school. Close one eye, hold out your thumb at arm’s length, and align it with an object on the other side of the room. Without moving your ...

One common misconception of beginner sky watchers is that we can tell the distances of the stars by just looking at them. In fact, you might be surprised to learn that the opposite is often true.

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft flew by Earth on Sept. 24, 2023, dropping off its sample of dust and pebbles gathered from the surface of near-Earth asteroid Bennu. Analysis of this sample will help ...

Most planets spend their lives orbiting a star, but some are destined for exile. According to a study published in Science on Jan. 1, 2026, astronomers have successfully measured the mass and distance ...

We live in a world defined by inches, feet and miles (or centimeters, meters and kilometers, if you prefer), and it’s not difficult for most of us to comprehend sizes and distances given in these ...

While most planets that we are familiar with stick relatively close to their host star in a predictable orbit, some planets seem to have been knocked out of their orbits, floating through space free ...

Pasadena, CA — Ohio State University researchers have found a way to measure distances to objects three times farther away in outer space than previously possible, by extending a common measurement ...

Some of JWST’s coolest discoveries so far have happened thanks to gravitational lensing, and now a massive galaxy cluster is about to shed some light on the phenomenon itself. Galaxy cluster RX J2129 ...