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Twelve big questions

Each topic collects a long-form guide, the landmark papers, recent news, videos and the places where the work happens.

  1. The Hubble Ultra Deep Field: thousands of galaxies of every shape and color in a tiny patch of dark sky.CosmologyThe origin, shape and expansion of the universe as a whole.Complete guide, 16 entries
  2. Webb's First Deep Field: thousands of galaxies around the cluster SMACS 0723, some stretched into arcs by gravitational lensing.Future of the universeWhat happens after the last stars burn out, from white dwarfs to black hole evaporation.Complete guide, 10 entries
  3. The first image of a black hole: a glowing orange ring of hot gas around the dark shadow of M87*.Black holesRegions where gravity wins completely, from stellar remnants to galactic giants.Complete guide, 13 entries
  4. Webb's First Deep Field: thousands of galaxies around the cluster SMACS 0723, some stretched into arcs by gravitational lensing.Gravitational wavesRipples in spacetime from colliding black holes and neutron stars.Complete guide, 9 entries
  5. The Cartwheel Galaxy imaged by Webb: a bright core and a pink, spoked outer ring left by a galactic collision.Dark matterThe unseen mass that holds galaxies and clusters together.Complete guide, 10 entries
  6. The Hubble Ultra Deep Field: thousands of galaxies of every shape and color in a tiny patch of dark sky.Dark energyWhatever is making the expansion of the universe speed up.Complete guide, 9 entries
  7. Neptune and its thin rings seen by Webb, with the moon Triton shining as a bright diffraction-spiked point.ExoplanetsWorlds around other stars, and how we find and study them.Complete guide, 15 entries
  8. Earth setting behind the cratered far side of the Moon, photographed by the Artemis II crew from the Orion spacecraft.AstrobiologyThe search for life and the conditions that allow it.Complete guide, 11 entries
  9. The Cartwheel Galaxy imaged by Webb: a bright core and a pink, spoked outer ring left by a galactic collision.GalaxiesHow galaxies form, collide, grow and die.Complete guide, 14 entries
  10. The Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula seen by Webb in near-infrared light: towering columns of gas dotted with newborn stars.StarsThe birth, life and death of stars, the engines of the Stelliferous Era.Complete guide, 14 entries
  11. Neptune and its thin rings seen by Webb, with the moon Triton shining as a bright diffraction-spiked point.Solar SystemOur own planets, moons, comets and the Sun.Complete guide, 14 entries
  12. The Cosmic Cliffs in the Carina Nebula imaged by the James Webb Space Telescope: a glowing ridge of gas and dust under a star-filled blue sky.Telescopes and missionsThe instruments that turn photons into knowledge.Complete guide, 14 entries