A water vapour plume from Saturn’s moon Enceladus spanning more than 9600 kilometres — long enough to stretch across the Eurasian continent from Ireland to Japan — has been detected by researchers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. Not only is this the first time such water ejection has been seen over such an expansive distance, but Webb is also giving scientists a direct look, for the first time, at how this emission feeds the water supply for the entire system of Saturn and its rings.

Is the sun an only child? Or was it born into a (very, very) big family? The answer tells us more than just how awkward holiday family reunions can be (if you think yours are bad, imagine how much worse it would be with a few thousand sibling rivals). After all, the sun’s origin story is, ultimately, our own. We’ve seen huge leaps in our understanding of how stars form, but, ironically, we still have some pretty fundamental questions left about our nearest, dearest one.=

Observations by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope are upending the understanding of the early universe, indicating the presence of large and mature but remarkably compact galaxies teeming with stars far sooner than scientists had considered possible.

A supermassive black hole discovered at the heart of an ancient galaxy is five times larger than expected for the number of stars it contains, astronomers say. Researchers spotted the immense black hole in a galaxy known as GS-9209 that lies 25bn light-years from Earth, making it one of the most distant to have been observed and recorded.

A huge sunspot is darkening the sun's face and you can easily spot it through solar glasses. Here's where the sunspot is and how to view it safely.

At first glance, LP 791-18 d seems like a lively place. If new findings from NASA researchers hold up, the Earth-sized exoplanet orbiting a star 90 light-years away from us is teeming with active volcanoes all over its surface. Interesting, sure—but clearly no place for life to thrive, right?

Even if you don’t know it by name, the red supergiant star Betelgeuse is one of the most familiar sights in the heavens above—a gleaming ruddy dot at the shoulder of the constellation Orion. Although already quite difficult to overlook, Betelgeuse has become even more eye-catching across the past few years because of major changes in its appearance—unexpected fluctuations in its brightness that remain poorly understood. In recent weeks, the star has at times shone more than 50 percent brighter than normal, drawing renewed attention from amateur sky watchers and professional astronomers alike.

The blast, which is 2 trillion times brighter than the sun, may have been caused by a supermassive black hole sending shock waves through a cloud of cosmic gas.

The James Webb Space Telescope may have just given the world another monumental scientific breakthrough. On Monday, NASA announced that astronomers detected water vapor around a distant rocky planet with the help of JWST.

The number of known exoplanets has veritably exploded in recent years, with more than 5,000 worlds beyond our solar system now known. But there’s a catch: The worlds we’ve found are typically those easiest to detect. It’s only as techniques and technology improve that astronomers are able to discover planets that are harder to see.

A new challenge invites Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning experts to join astronomers in the quest to discover and understand planets outside the solar system, also known as extrasolar planets or "exoplanets."

The James Webb Space Telescope has discovered the four most distant galaxies ever observed, one of which formed just 320 million years after the Big Bang when the universe was still in its infancy, new research said on Tuesday.

The atmospheres of gas giant planets across the Milky Way galaxy can be very different from those in our solar system, the James Webb Space Telescope has found. Observations of the distant exoplanet HD149026b, also known as Smertrios, revealed that the planet's atmosphere is rich in what scientists call heavy elements, essentially anything other than hydrogen and helium. In Smertrios' atmosphere, the James Webb Space Telescope detected high concentrations of carbon and oxygen.

This week, you have an opportunity to acquaint yourself with some of our solar system neighbors and reduce some of your screen time.

Don't miss the planet parade taking place at the end of March. Jupiter, Mercury, Venus, Uranus, and Mars are set to align in an arc formation on the nights of March 25 through 30, alongside the moon. Jupiter may sink into the sunset and get lost in sunlight after the 28th, though, so aim to see this relatively rare cosmic event by then. If you want to spot all five planets in one night, timing, dark skies, and a clear view of the horizon are key.

The quirky comet 'Oumuamua, the first interstellar object found visiting our solar system, has been the subject of fascination since being spotted in 2017, including its curious acceleration as it hurtled away from the sun.

Though we all have differences, there’s one commonality that has prevailed for all of humanity: we are all floating on a rock, flying through outer space at over a million miles an hour. Thanks to the rapid advancement of technology in the past century, we can observe more of the Universe than ever before.

NASA's prolific James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has made yet another stunning discovery. The pioneering observatory just peered directly into the atmosphere of a giant exoplanet with two suns (like Tatooine from "Star Wars") known as VHS 1256 b(opens in new tab) — and found a roiling world with turbulent clouds made of silicates, similar to sand here on Earth, as announced in a recently published article in Astrophysical Journal Letters

Astronomers on Monday warned that the light pollution created by the soaring number of satellites orbiting Earth poses an "unprecedented global threat to nature".

Comet C/2023 A3 last visited Earth about 80,000 years ago. When it visits us in 2024, it could be about 100 times brighter than the green comet.