Where the science happens

ALMA is a 66-antenna observatory at 5,000 m on Chile's Chajnantor Plateau that maps cold gas and dust. It passed 5,000 refereed papers in July 2026.

Stars, Exoplanets, Galaxies, Astrobiology, Black holes

CTAO is building the next-generation gamma-ray observatory on La Palma and in Chile. Its four Large-Sized Telescopes open on October 15, 2026.

Black holes, Galaxies, Stars, Dark matter, Telescopes and missions

ESO's Extremely Large Telescope is a 39 m telescope being built on Cerro Armazones, Chile. First light is due in 2029, science in December 2030.

Exoplanets, Astrobiology, Galaxies, Black holes, Cosmology, Telescopes and missions

The Very Large Telescope is ESO's flagship observatory on Cerro Paranal, Chile: four 8.2 m telescopes. In 2026 it found the fastest known star.

Exoplanets, Black holes, Galaxies, Stars, Telescopes and missions

FAST is the world's largest single-dish radio telescope, a 500 m dish in Guizhou, China. It has found more than 1,300 pulsars in its first decade.

Stars, Gravitational waves, Galaxies, Telescopes and missions

The Giant Magellan Telescope is a 25.4 m telescope under construction at Las Campanas, Chile. In 2025 NSF advanced it to final design over TMT.

Exoplanets, Astrobiology, Galaxies, Cosmology, Telescopes and missions

IceCube turns a cubic kilometer of Antarctic ice into a neutrino telescope. Its principal investigator, Francis Halzen, won the 2026 Nobel in Physics.

Black holes, Galaxies, Stars, Dark matter, Telescopes and missions

The Gemini Observatory runs twin 8.1 m telescopes in Hawaii and Chile. In 2026 Gemini North showed knots in the remnant of the supernova of 1181.

Exoplanets, Stars, Galaxies, Telescopes and missions

The NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile began its 10-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time in mid-2026, filming the southern sky every few nights.

Dark energy, Dark matter, Solar System, Stars, Galaxies, Telescopes and missions

The SKA Observatory is building two giant radio telescopes in Australia and South Africa. France became its 14th member state in June 2026.

Cosmology, Galaxies, Gravitational waves, Astrobiology, Stars, Telescopes and missions

The Subaru Telescope is Japan's 8.2 m telescope on Maunakea, Hawaii. Its Prime Focus Spectrograph began a 360-night, five-year survey in 2025.

Galaxies, Cosmology, Dark matter, Dark energy, Stars

The Thirty Meter Telescope is a proposed 30 m telescope for Maunakea, Hawaii. In 2025 NSF chose to advance GMT instead, leaving TMT without federal funds.

Exoplanets, Galaxies, Cosmology, Black holes, Telescopes and missions

The W. M. Keck Observatory runs twin 10 m telescopes on Maunakea, Hawaii. In 2026 it helped find the youngest exoplanet and a galaxy lacking dark matter.

Exoplanets, Black holes, Galaxies, Cosmology, Telescopes and missions

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has studied the hot universe since 1999. It survives FY2026 at a reduced $63 million, $11 million below full-mission cost.

Black holes, Galaxies, Stars, Dark matter, Telescopes and missions

ESA's Euclid maps the dark universe from Sun-Earth L2. In 2026 it doubled the known quasars beyond redshift 7; its DR1 data start in November.

Dark energy, Dark matter, Cosmology, Galaxies, Telescopes and missions

ESA's Gaia measured positions, distances and motions of about 1 billion objects before retiring in 2025. Its DR4 data release opens December 2, 2026.

Stars, Galaxies, Dark matter, Exoplanets, Telescopes and missions

The Hubble Space Telescope has observed from low Earth orbit since 1990. In 2026 it found the Milky Way's earliest known merger, 11.8 billion years ago.

Cosmology, Galaxies, Stars, Solar System, Exoplanets, Telescopes and missions

JWST is a 6.5 m infrared observatory at Sun-Earth L2. It holds the galaxy distance record: MoM-z14, seen 280 million years after the Big Bang.

Galaxies, Exoplanets, Cosmology, Stars, Black holes, Telescopes and missions

LISA is ESA's planned space gravitational-wave observatory: three spacecraft 2.5 million km apart. Adopted in 2024, it should launch in the mid-2030s.

Gravitational waves, Black holes, Cosmology, Telescopes and missions

NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launched on August 30, 2026, on a Falcon Heavy. It is commissioning en route to Sun-Earth L2.

Dark energy, Dark matter, Exoplanets, Galaxies, Cosmology, Telescopes and missions

NASA's SPHEREx maps the whole sky in 102 infrared colors. It finished its first all-sky map in December 2025, and three more passes follow.

Cosmology, Galaxies, Astrobiology, Stars, Telescopes and missions

NASA's TESS has searched about 85% of the sky for planets crossing bright nearby stars. By May 2026 it had 7,931 candidate planets, 885 confirmed.

Exoplanets, Stars, Astrobiology, Telescopes and missions

XRISM is a JAXA-led X-ray observatory with NASA and ESA. In August 2026 JAXA extended its operations by about 3.5 years, through March 2030.

Black holes, Galaxies, Stars, Dark matter, Telescopes and missions

Carnegie Science Observatories, founded in 1904 as Mount Wilson Observatory, run Las Campanas in Chile, future home of the Giant Magellan Telescope.

Cosmology, Galaxies, Stars, Exoplanets, Telescopes and missions

The Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian in Cambridge, Massachusetts, runs NASA's Chandra X-ray Center and ADS, astronomy's literature database.

Black holes, Exoplanets, Galaxies, Stars, Cosmology, Telescopes and missions

The Flatiron Institute's Center for Computational Astrophysics in New York builds simulations and open tools. In 2026 its team saw a star vanish.

Cosmology, Galaxies, Exoplanets, Gravitational waves, Stars, Black holes

KIPAC is the Stanford and SLAC institute for particle astrophysics and cosmology. Its scientists led construction of Rubin Observatory's giant camera.

Dark energy, Dark matter, Cosmology, Black holes, Telescopes and missions

Kavli IPMU at the University of Tokyo blends physics, astronomy and math to study the universe. It led development of Subaru's Prime Focus Spectrograph.

Cosmology, Dark matter, Dark energy, Galaxies, Telescopes and missions

The Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg builds instruments for the VLT, ELT, JWST, Euclid and Roman. It will supply hardware for NASA's PRIMA.

Exoplanets, Stars, Galaxies, Cosmology, Astrobiology, Telescopes and missions

The Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching, Germany, leads in theoretical astrophysics. Its 2026 work models how the first black holes formed.

Cosmology, Galaxies, Black holes, Stars, Dark matter

The Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching leads Germany's eROSITA survey, whose 2026 release lists nearly 2 million X-ray sources.

Black holes, Galaxies, Cosmology, Stars, Telescopes and missions

The Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Canada, works on cosmology, strong gravity and quantum gravity. Marcela Carena was named its director in 2024.

Cosmology, Black holes, Gravitational waves, Dark matter

Caltech astronomy runs Palomar, co-operates LIGO and leads NASA's SPHEREx. It is building the 1,650-dish Deep Synoptic Array, due in 2029.

Stars, Black holes, Gravitational waves, Exoplanets, Cosmology, Telescopes and missions

The Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge studies exoplanets, stars, galaxies and cosmology. It was formed in 1972 from three institutions.

Exoplanets, Stars, Galaxies, Cosmology, Gravitational waves, Black holes

DESI is a 5,000-fiber spectrograph on the Mayall Telescope in Arizona that maps the universe in 3D. Its data hint that dark energy may be weakening.

Dark energy, Cosmology, Galaxies, Future of the universe

The Event Horizon Telescope links radio dishes worldwide into an Earth-sized telescope. It imaged black holes M87* (2019) and Sagittarius A* (2022).

Black holes, Galaxies, Telescopes and missions

The LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA network detects gravitational waves from colliding black holes and neutron stars. Its 2026 catalog lists 390 events.

Gravitational waves, Black holes, Stars, Cosmology

NANOGrav times millisecond pulsars to detect gravitational waves with periods of years. In 2023 it reported evidence for a gravitational-wave background.

Gravitational waves, Black holes, Stars, Cosmology