Such a mission could be developed soon, allowing astrophysicists to take selfies of the solar system and use the Sun’s gravity as a lens to peer deep into space.
Hubble took pictures of the oldest galaxies it could – seen here – but the James Webb Space Telescope can go back much farther in time.
NASA
The James Webb Space Telescope is set to launch into orbit in December 2021. Its mission is to search for the first light to ever shine in the universe.
Astronomers have found a way to estimate the number of stars in the universe.
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Fast radio bursts are the focus of a young and fascinating field of astronomy. Researchers just released data on more than 500 new bursts, quadrupling the total number of detected events.
Astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson on the International Space Station with a view many more are likely to see soon.
NASA/Tracy Caldwell Dyson/WIkimediaCommons
The first space tourist left Earth 20 years ago aboard a Russian rocket. Now, private companies like Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin are offering trips to the stars for those who can pay.
Proxima Centauri is the closest star to the solar system and is home to a potentially habitable planet.
Hubble/European Space Agency/WikimediaCommons
Astronomers just measured the largest flare ever from Proxima Centauri, humanity’s closest neighboring star. These flares could be bad news for life trying to develop on a planet orbiting the star.
Space tourism has been slow to get off the ground.
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The first space tourist left Earth 20 years ago aboard a Russian rocket. Now, private companies are on the cusp of offering trips off Earth for those who can pay.
Thanks to the discovery of five twinkling galaxies in a rare alignment, astronomers have been able to calculate — for the first time — the properties and geometry of an invisible gas cloud in space.
Elliptical galaxies are filled with extremely old stars.
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Cape astronomers were responsible for, among other things, the first measurement of the distance to a star; the first photographic sky survey and the accurate measurement of the distance to the sun.
Falling into a black hole is easily the worst way to die.
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Surprising findings on an exquisite and huge star system in our Milky Way suggest future potential for an extremely rare gamma-ray burst. This event has never been observed in our galaxy.
With the proper equipment, you can enjoy the beauty of the night sky.
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COVID-19 may have messed up school and shut down a lot of entertainment venues. But you can still brighten things up by doing a little stargazing at night, an astronomer says.