Tag: galaxies

If there’s one rule that’s practically universal in astronomy, it’s this: you can only observe the parts of the Universe that your instruments are sensitive to. As a result, when most of us think about the objects that are out there in the cosmos, we think about the components that...

Whenever you look out beyond the Milky Way today, as far as anyone’s ever been able to see, there’s no place you can look where you won’t eventually find a galaxy. There are galaxies absolutely everywhere, in all directions and locations, even at the greatest cosmic distances ever ...

The sheer enormity of the universe, with its billions of galaxies and even more countless stars, suggests that the conditions for life, similar to those on Earth, could be replicated elsewhere. The discovery of exoplanets in the habitable zone, where conditions might be suitable for liquid water, fu...

From its very first glimpse of the distant Universe, JWST has shocked astronomers. This almost-perfectly-aligned image composite shows the first JWST deep field’s view of the core of cluster SMACS 0723 and contrasts it with the older Hubble view. The JWST image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0...

We know, instinctively, that when we see something that appears small in our field of vision, there are multiple possibilities. It could be an intrinsically small object that’s close by, a medium-sized object that’s an intermediate distance away, or a very large object that’s a lar...

If there’s one rule that’s practically universal in astronomy, it’s this: you can only observe the parts of the Universe that your instruments are sensitive to. As a result, when most of us think about the objects that are out there in the cosmos, we think about the components that...