The Boötes Void: A Hole in the Universe 330 Million Light-Years Wide
A region that should contain tens of thousands of galaxies holds barely 60. If the Milky Way sat at its center, we wouldn't have known other galaxies existed.
Cosmic Mysteries
'Oumuamua: The Interstellar Object That Accelerated on Its Way Out
The first visitor from another star system was shaped like nothing we'd seen, had no comet tail — and sped up as it left. Scientists still argue about it.
Something Invisible Is Pulling Our Entire Galaxy Toward It at 2 Million km/h
The Milky Way and thousands of neighboring galaxies are streaming toward a mysterious region called the Great Attractor — hidden behind our own galaxy's disk.
The Pillars of Creation Are So Far Away They May Already Be Gone
One of the most famous space images shows towering columns of gas birthing stars — 6,500 light-years away, so their light shows us the distant past.
That Faint Band Across a Dark Sky Is You Looking Into Our Own Galaxy
The Milky Way's glowing arch is the combined light of hundreds of billions of stars — our galaxy seen from the inside. A third of humanity can no longer see it.
Something Is Sending Millisecond Radio Blasts From Across the Universe
Fast radio bursts release more energy in a millisecond than the Sun does in days — and some of them repeat on a schedule. We still don't know why.
85% of the Universe's Matter Is Missing — and We've Never Seen It
Every star, planet, and galaxy we can see is only a sliver of what exists. The rest is dark matter, and after 90 years we still don't know what it is.
The Wow! Signal: The 72-Second Radio Burst We've Never Heard Again
In 1977, a radio telescope in Ohio caught a signal so strange the astronomer on duty circled it and wrote 'Wow!'. Nearly 50 years later, it has never repeated.