News from Astronomy

Your source for the latest news on planets, stars, galaxies, cosmology, observing events, space missions, and more.

Latest Astronomy News

$Photograph of two interacting galaxies merging into a single large, glowing white-gray, wing-shaped structure at center, with tidal arcs sweeping to the left and a bright knot of overlapping material at right. Thin orange-brown dust lanes and pink-red star-forming regions trace through the brighter parts. Many white, blue, and orange stars, some with long vertical blue diffraction streaks, and numerous small background galaxies are scattered across the dark field.$

Galaxies, Science

What is the physical size of a 1-billion-solar-mass black hole compared to the Sun?

Photograph of a twilight sky fading from deep blue at the top to a pale blue and a faint orange glow along the horizon. Three bright points of light, one white and two orange-tinted, form a short, slightly curved line at upper right of center, with scattered fainter stars across the sky. In the foreground, bare trees and fence posts stand silhouetted over a snow-dusted, grassy field, with a partial wagon wheel at lower right and distant low hills along the horizon.

Observing

November 2026: What’s in the sky this month?

Simulated view of a dark predawn sky, dated November 2, 2026, 5 A.M., looking southeast. A thin crescent Moon and Mars are labeled close together at top center, with Jupiter labeled below them and Regulus just below Jupiter. Scattered fainter stars fill the rest of the frame.

Sky This Week, The Sky This Week

The Sky This Week from October 30 to November 6: The Moon jockeys with Jupiter and Mars

Solar System

The weird science behind Mars’ weirdest cloud

Astrophotography

Announcing the winners of Astronomy Magazine’s 2026 Astrophotography Contest

Photograph of a full Moon against a black sky, tinted golden-tan. Dark gray lunar maria cover much of the upper and left areas, and bright rayed craters stand out, including a prominent one at lower right.

Sky This Week, The Sky This Week

The Sky This Week from October 23 to 30: Gaze at the Full Hunter’s Moon

$Illustration of a reddish, cratered Mars with white patches of frost, seen as a crescent-lit globe. A fractured, rocky moon breaks apart in the foreground, scattering boulders and fragments that stretch into a tan, dusty ring band across the planet against a starry black sky.$

Solar System

Mars’ moon Phobos is destined to become a ring

Observing Basics

Understanding celestial coordinates

Stars

JWST tours Orion’s hidden stellar nursery

Browse by category

This artist’s conception illustrates one of the most primitive supermassive black holes known (central black dot) at the core of a young, star-rich galaxy. Astronomers using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope have uncovered two of these early objects, dating back to about 13 billion years ago. The monstrous black holes are among the most distant known, and appear to be in the very earliest stages of formation, earlier than any observed so far. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

Science

Explore the science of space, from the astrophysics of stars to the ultimate fate of the universe.

Explore Topic

Observing

Learn about upcoming observing events such as eclipses, meteor showers, comets, conjunctions, and more.

Explore Topic

This 2016 Curiosity rover selfie shows the vehicle at the “Okoruso” drilling site on Mount Sharp’s Naukluft Plateau. The Martian scene is a mosaic of images taken with the arm-mounted Mars Hands Lens Imager (MAHLI). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS.

Space Exploration

Human and robotic missions are helping humanity explore our solar system and beyond.

Explore Topic

November 2026

Space junk’s threat in our skies
How falling satellites pollute the atmosphere
Can robots save Earth orbit?
Imaging star clusters in other galaxies

Subscribe

Read on Zinio

Sky This Week

View All

Sky This Week, The Sky This Week

The Sky This Week from November 6 to 13: Venus in the spotlight

Sky This Month

View All

Observing

November 2026: What’s in the sky this month?

Picture of the Day

See All Photos

A tight view of the Moon's bright, cratered edge curving across the frame, with one large crater showing bright rays. Just below the dark edge of the Moon, a small pale striped sphere — Jupiter — sits in the black sky, nearly touching the limb.

Jupiter occulted

Katelyn Beecroft from London, Ontario, Canada

On the morning of Oct. 6, 2026, the waning crescent Moon — then about 20 percent lit — occulted Jupiter as seen from much of eastern North America. This imager, tracking by hand with an 8-inch Dobsonian reflector, stacked the sharpest frames from video shot with a ZWO ASI224MC planetary camera.