This once normal star, having exhausted its internal supply of hydrogen, has expanded, growing into a gargantuan caricature of its former self called a red giant. It is dozens or hundreds of times its original size. Any nearby planets will be engulfe...

Stages in the history of the Universe after the Big Bang. At 300,000 years, matter and radiation decouple, and the Universe becomes transparent for the first time. The first galaxies form at around 300 million years after the Big Bang, but the exact ...

Stages in the history of the Universe after the Big Bang. At 300,000 years, matter and radiation decouple, and the Universe becomes transparent for the first time. The first galaxies form at around 300 million years after the Big Bang, but the exact ...

Stages in the history of the Universe after the Big Bang. At 300,000 years, matter and radiation decouple, and the Universe becomes transparent for the first time. The first galaxies form at around 300 million years after the Big Bang, but the exact ...

Warp drive spacecraft, illustration. This warp drive is a theoretical concept where a spacecraft travels faster than light by contracting the space in front of it (red) and expanding the space behind it (blue). This expansion and contraction is shown...

Artwork conceptualising the expanding and accelerating Universe. Since the 1990s, astronomers have known that the Universe is not only expanding, but that the rate of expansion itself is accelerating. This is postulated to occur due to a mysterious d...

Astronomers at NOIRLab (Tucson, Arizona, USA) have detected what they believe is the first sighting of the destruction of a gas giant planet caused by the expansion of its ageing red giant star. All sun-like stars expand as their nuclear fuel runs ou...