It is the colours of a sunset that inspire Joseph Anderson, an astronomer at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in the high Atacama desert, in northern Chile. “They start off very blue and ...

The largest ground-based optical telescopes in use today use mirrors that are 10 m (33 ft) across. But the prospects for future Extremely Large Telescopes (ELTs) are looking up. According to recent ...

On a high desert plateau in Chile, a massive structure is taking shape. The dome of the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) is ...

What strikes the eye in this seemingly ordinary image of an astronomical observatory are the laser beams piercing the ...

A mysterious bow shock around the white dwarf RXJ0528+2838 is challenging astronomers’ understanding of how dead stars ...

NASA’s flagship orbiting mega-observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope, launched billions of dollars over budget and over a decade late. The space agency’s next prize, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory ...

We're all basking in the success of the James Webb Space Telescope. It's fulfilling its promise as our most powerful telescope, making all kinds of discoveries that we've been anticipating and hoping ...

For many decades, the USA has been at the forefront of astronomy, whether with ground-based telescopes or space-based observatories like Hubble and the JWST. Yet this is now at risk as US astronomers ...

Consider this: astronomers think of the Hubble Space Telescope as small. That might surprise you because after three decades' worth of images from Hubble with depth and detail most ground-based ...

After a string of dramatic failures, the huge Starship rocket from SpaceX had a fully successful test on Oct. 13, 2025. A couple more test flights, and SpaceX plans to launch it into orbit. A month ...

HILO (AP) — An independent review of the state of astronomy and astrophysics in the U.S. has recommended federal funding of a giant telescope in Hawaii. The Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal Survey ...