The two spiral arms winding towards the bright centre might deceive you into thinking you are looking at a galaxy a bit like our Milky Way. But the object starring in this image is of a different ...

On Sunday November 23, 1924, 100 years ago this month, readers perusing page six of the New York Times would have found an intriguing article, amid several large adverts for fur coats. The headline ...

Hubble’s newest view of the spiral galaxy NGC 2835 adds a stunning twist to a familiar sight. By capturing light in a special wavelength called H-alpha, astronomers have revealed glowing pink nebulae ...

Early understandings of the Milky Way, from mythological interpretations to Aristotle's atmospheric explanation, lacked the technological tools for accurate observation and were superseded by the ...

The Andromeda galaxy helped Edwin Hubble settle a great debate in astronomy. Stocktrek Images via Getty Images A hundred years ago, astronomer Edwin Hubble dramatically expanded the size of the known ...

Vesto Slipher first observed that galaxies are moving away from us. Edwin Hubble later showed a relationship between galaxy distance and speed. Hubble's work relied heavily on Slipher's earlier data.

Many scientific terms are very specific, but the term nebula is, well, nebulous. In a very generic sense, it simply means a fuzzy thing. But there are a wide variety of astronomical objects that can ...

Astronomy can be a difficult topic for newcomers. Like any scientific field, it has its own jargon and buzzwords—and terms with meanings that can be not only odd but downright counterintuitive. The ...

Astronomers, maybe more than anyone, appreciate what an island of perfection our Earth is. Our orbit may put us at a perfect distance from the sun for life to flourish, but it is too small to easily ...

We're used to seeing spiral galaxies in deep space, but other types of outer-space spirals are positively spooky. Astronomers say that this whirligig, more than 3,000 light-years away in the ...