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telescopes

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A graphical illustration showing a number of well-known stars in the present-day universe, along with the edge of a far bigger star.
astronomy

Astronomers Say They Have Spotted the Universe’s First Stars

By Jonathan O'Callaghan
January 30, 2023
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Theory has it that “Population III” stars brought light to the cosmos. The James Webb Space Telescope may have just glimpsed them.

A panoramic image of the cosmos shows hundreds of galaxies, including four blobs of light that are magnified and labeled with their corresponding redshifts.
astrophysics

Standard Model of Cosmology Survives a Telescope’s Findings

By Rebecca Boyle
January 20, 2023
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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.

Lisa Kaltenegger, a woman with red hair, peers through the eyepiece of an antique telescope.
astrobiology

A Dream of Discovering Alien Life Finds New Hope

By Joshua Sokol
November 3, 2022
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For Lisa Kaltenegger and her generation of exoplanet astronomers, decades of planning have set the stage for an epochal detection.

astrophysics

Black Hole Image Reveals the Beast Inside the Milky Way’s Heart

By Jonathan O'Callaghan
May 12, 2022
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In 2019, the Event Horizon Telescope released a historic image of a supermassive black hole in another galaxy. The follow-up — an image of Sagittarius A* — shows it shimmering at the center of our own.

atmospheric science

Detailed Footage Finally Reveals What Triggers Lightning

By Thomas Lewton
December 20, 2021
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Scientists have never been able to adequately explain where lightning comes from. Now the first detailed observations of its emergence inside a cloud have exposed how electric fields grow strong enough to let bolts fly.

Collage illustration of the JWST
astrophysics

The Webb Space Telescope Will Rewrite Cosmic History. If It Works.

By Natalie Wolchover
December 3, 2021
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The James Webb Space Telescope has the potential to rewrite the history of the cosmos and reshape humanity’s position within it. But first, a lot of things have to work just right.

Photo of radio telescopes at the Allen Telescope Array with a starry sky featuring the Milky Way in the background.
Quantized Columns

How Radio Astronomy Reveals the Universe

By Emily Levesque
April 13, 2021
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Radio waves, longer and less energetic than visible light, give astronomers access to some of the most obscure physics in the cosmos.

Photo of a sign reading “To Telescope” near Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles.
Quantized Columns

Social Distancing From the Stars

By Emily Levesque
August 11, 2020
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Professional astronomers may not point their telescopes by hand anymore, but COVID-19 has still closed observatories and impeded research.

A magnetar.
astrophysics

A Surprise Discovery Points to the Source of Fast Radio Bursts

By Shannon Hall
June 11, 2020
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After a burst lit up their telescope “like a Christmas tree,” astronomers were able to finally track down the source of these cosmic oddities.


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