Astronomy

Picture perfect: Mission managers say the telescope's mirror segments have been aligned and have focused on single stars, a critical milestone, and the telescope is working flawlessly.

The James Webb Space Telescope has seen its first starlight, but its 18 mirror segments aren't yet perfectly aligned. As a result, the pictures it's sending back now aren't exactly cosmic eye candy.

The comet was discovered less than a year ago near the orbit of Jupiter. Now, observers in North America can see it in the northeastern sky around sunrise.

NASA should work toward a new space telescope that could view small planets around distant stars with the potential to host life, expert panel says

While researchers have found more than 4,000 planets in our own galaxy, this is the first time anyone has found what could be a planet that exists outside the Milky Way.

Potentially, observers in plenty of star systems could have detected Earth sometime in the last 5,000 years. More stars will soon move into positions that would let them see our planet.

Early risers across the Northern Hemisphere will be able to see an eclipse Thursday morning when the moon passes between the Earth and the sun.

For a long time, the Catholic Church rejected scientific findings that conflicted with its doctrine, even persecuting Galileo. Now the Vatican looks to promote its observatory as a bridge to science.