This article (originally published Aug. 13, 2025) has been updated to include new text and illustrations featured in the Jan.

The universe is a chaotic place filled with exploding stars, material falling into black holes, and rogue planets wandering off on their own. All that chaos makes astronomers suspicious when they ...

A new discovery about what happens when a supernova – an exploding star – and a black hole collide could change the way scientists understand the lives and deaths of stars. The finding was the first ...

Primordial nucleosynthesis during the early universe generated hydrogen, helium, and minor lithium-7 before the cosmos cooled, halting further fusion. Stellar interiors synthesize elements up to iron ...