Keck observatory

On the largest scales possible, the universe resembles a web of light spun by an inconceivably large spider. Now, astronomers have detected very faint light from these cosmic web filaments in the deep, dark, distant universe.

Astronomers have discovered a bizarre star system containing two ultra-cool dwarf stars that are so close together they orbit each other in less than a day. Oh, and they’re invisible to the human eye.

Astronomers may have discovered a monster black hole that’s one of the closest to Earth known. With a mass equivalent to 12 Suns, the black hole was found to be quietly lurking “practically in our backyard,” according to the team.

The universe is full of explosions, and now astronomers have described a brand new class of space signals. Named fast blue optical transients (FBOTs), these events are very bright and throw off incredible amounts of energy in a short amount of time.

If it was in our solar system, the orbit of exoplanet HR 5183 b would swing from the asteroid belt to way out beyond Neptune.

White dwarf stars are thought to follow very specific “rules” – if they’re over a certain mass limit, they’ll explode in a supernova with a very predictable brightness and time. But now Caltech astronomers have found a strange twist: white dwarfs used to explode at lower masses than they do today.

Scientists have been unable to figure out what fast radio bursts are or where they’re even coming from. Now, a team of astronomers has finally managed to trace one of the signals back to its home galaxy billions of light-years away, meaning we’re closing in on the culprit.

A new study by Caltech and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California indicate that the subterranean world ocean on Jupiter's moon Europa may be more Earthlike than scientists believed, with the waters containing common salt.

Galaxies smash into each other on a pretty regular basis, usually merging together. Using data and observations from Hubble and the Keck Observatory, astronomers have now imaged the late stages of this incredibly slow process for the first time.

​Scientists may have discovered large amounts of water hidden deep beneath the surface of Jupiter’s famous Great Red Spot. The discovery, which was made using ground-based telescopes, opens up the possibility that extremophile lifeforms could exist in the atmosphere of the enigmatic gas giant.

Astronomers have detected some strange objects at the center of the Milky Way. They look like ordinary clouds of gas, but seem to have a solid core that keeps them together. The truth may lie somewhere in-between. These G-objects, as they’re known, seem to be stars hiding under puffy shrouds of dust

Now there’s a new wrinkle to the story of dark matter, as scientists at Yale University have for the first time discovered a galaxy that appears to have no dark matter at all. Ironically, the find may just turn out to be the exception that proves the rule.