After a seven-year gap, a total solar eclipse is once again due to make a coast-to-coast run across North America, boosting popular interest (and airfares) to astronomical proportions. The track… Read More
An analysis of more than 100,000 images from the Hubble Space Telescope, conducted with the aid of artificial intelligence and hundreds of human volunteers, confirms that satellites including SpaceX’s Starlink… Read More
It’s cool to see a fireball — but even cooler to capture it on video. At least that’s the way Seattle engineer/photographer Corey Clarke sees it. Clarke’s webcam happened to… Read More
It’s not yet clear whether the Seahawks will be in the Super Bowl, but Seattle is in the spotlight this week for the “Super Bowl of Astronomy” — and there’s… Read More
If you’re on the West Coast, watching tonight’s total lunar eclipse will require a willingness to stay awake in the middle of the night — plus a lucky break on… Read More
A day after NASA showed how far the James Webb Space Telescope could dive into the cosmic frontier, scientists released additional pictures demonstrating the observatory’s scientific breadth. Today’s data release… Read More
President Joe Biden got in on today’s celebration of the first full-color image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, a $10 billion observatory that’s been decades in the making. But… Read More
The International Astronomical Union is heading up the creation of a new center to deal with the complications created by broadband satellite constellations like SpaceX’s Starlink and Amazon’s Project Kuiper.… Read More
The $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope successfully fired its thrusters today to put it in position at the destination where it’s expected to probe the mysteries of the universe… Read More
Two weeks after its Christmas launch, the James Webb Space Telescope finished unwrapping itself today, delighting astronomers in the process. The deployment of JWST’s 18-segment, 21.3-foot-wide primary mirror marked the… Read More
The most expensive telescope in the known universe has begun its journey to a vantage point a million miles from Earth with its launch from French Guiana. Today’s liftoff of… Read More
The launch of NASA’s $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope from French Guiana could mark a triumph in a tale that thousands of astronomers have been following for a generation.… Read More
When Emily Levesque was 2 years old, Halley’s Comet made its most recent close pass to Earth. Her older brother was observing the phenomenon for a school project and the… Read More
— Not many people can say they’ve traveled to space. Not many can say they were also the original developer of software so prevalent today that most people wouldn’t be… Read More
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Scientists today shared the first picture to show the immediate surroundings of a galaxy’s supermassive black hole, captured by a network of radio telescopes that adds up… Read More
A state-of-the-art astronomical camera system in California known as the Zwicky Transient Facility is rolling out an early batch of greatest hits with an assist from the University of Washington.… Read More
Where’s the nearest exoplanet with conditions that are right for life? Over the past couple of years, astrobiologists have talked up Proxima Centauri b, which is sitting just 4.2 light-years… Read More
In what sounds like a cosmic episode of “CSI,” sleuthing astronomers have figured out what touched off a stellar explosion 545 million light-years away, based on evidence left behind at… Read More
Red dwarf stars have been seen as the biggest potential frontier for alien life, in part because they’re the most common stars in our galaxy. But observations made using the… Read More
Spectral readings from the Orion Nebula have charted the cosmic weather patterns for powerful stellar winds that have created a bubble of material that’s 12 light-years wide, as well as… Read More
The cigar-shaped object known as ‘Oumuamua may be the first interstellar interloper to be discovered, but it’s not likely to be the last. Statistics suggest that there are lots more… Read More
It’s been called the “Super Bowl of Astronomy,” but when the American Astronomical Society’s winter meeting plays out in Seattle this week, some of the stars won’t be taking the… Read More
News Brief: A 26-year-long observational campaign provides clear evidence of the effect that general relativity has on the motion of a star known as S2 as it boomerangs around the… Read More
Luke Skywalker was always looking to the stars. Stuck on a Tatooine farm with a dream of becoming a pilot, the Star Wars hero wanted to make a name for… Read More
An array of detectors buried under a half-mile-wide stretch of Antarctic ice has traced the path of a single neutrino back to a supermassive black hole in a faraway galaxy,… Read More
NASA is delaying the scheduled launch of its next flagship observatory, the $8.8 billion James Webb Space Telescope, by a year — which may hike its cost so high that Congress… Read More
Astronomers have detected radio waves from a time within 180 million years of the Big Bang, and they say they see signs of what may be the first stars to… Read More
A sky survey that draws upon the data-crunching skills of researchers at the University of Washington has reached a milestone known as “first light” — and the view is awesome. The… Read More
Tonight marks the summer solstice, which means Seattleites and the rest of the Northern Hemisphere are saying farewell to spring and ringing in the first day of the summer as… Read More
A new data analysis center for what’s expected to be torrents of astronomical imagery is taking shape at the University of Washington. Thanks to contributions from software billionaire Charles Simonyi and… Read More
