Astronomy news, features and articles

NASA's Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) telescope has detected unexpected X-ray polarization from the "heartbeat black hole," formally known as IGR J17091-3624.

Nicknamed 'Punctum,' this puzzling phenomenon is highly energetic, but is only seen in millimeter-wavelength light and cannot be explained by any known object.

The solar system has many more moons than the one we can see in the sky. But how many do we actually know about? And how many more are waiting to be discovered?

Astronomers using the James Webb telescope alongside Canada's CHIME telescope have pinpointed the origin of one of the brightest blasts of radio energy ever detected in Earth's skies.

There's a giant solar tornado raging on the sun's surface, and a researcher captured it — plus a massive plasma eruption — in one spectacular image.

Uranus' 29th moon was hidden inside the planet's dark inner rings, new observations from the James Webb Space Telescope reveal.

Chinese astronomers have spotted a hidden supermassive black hole in the background of a peculiar gravitational wave event from a black hole merger, hinting that all three singularities were locked in a never-before-seen triple system.

Saturday's new moon is a seasonal "black moon" — a rare phenomenon that occurs once every 33 months. Here's what that means and why it's a great night for stargazing.

Astronomers used the James Webb Space Telescope to investigate whether the most distant star identified in the universe is, in fact, a star cluster.