Cosmology

An artist’s impression shows how the Universe’s first, massive, blue stars are embedded in gaseous filaments. Credit: N.R.Fuller/National Science Foundation

How did the first stars affect the evolution of the Universe?

Katie Mack hosts BBC Sky at Night Magazine's webinar The Whole History of the Universe

Online Lecture Katie Mack: The Whole History of the Universe

Archive images from the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC; Ultraviolet: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSC; Optical: NASA/STScI(M. Meixner)/ESA/NRAO(T.A. Rector); Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech/K. Su

Eye On The Sky Chandra X-ray images reveal the beauty of the cosmos

The Planck satellite's view of the Cosmic Microwave Background. Credit: ESA/Planck Collaboration

What is the Cosmic Microwave Background?

Astrophysicist Dr Katie Mack

The End of Everything: an interview with astrophysicist Dr Katie Mack

Nobel Prize winner James Peebles. Credit: Mark Makela/Getty Images

Cosmology’s Century: interview with Nobel physicist PJE Peebles

The Milky Way arches over Llyn y Dywarchen lake, Snowdonia National Park. Credit: Matt Gibson / Getty Images

How the Milky Way got its name: a guide to astronomical misnomers

A closeup of the Tarantula Nebula, as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope. Credit: NASA, ESA

9 of the most mind-blowing facts about the Universe

Hubble Space Telescope sporting new solar arrays during SM3B Credit: NASA/ESA

How the Hubble Space Telescope changed our view of the Universe

Galaxy clusters are ideal objects to study in the search for dark energy. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, RELICS

What is dark energy, and how are astronomers trying to find it?

Massive galaxy cluster MACS J0717.5+3745, as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope. Credit: NASA, ESA, Harald Ebeling (University of Hawaii at Manoa) & Jean-Paul Kneib (LAM)

What are the biggest objects in the Universe?

The Hubble eXtreme Deep Field (XDF) was created by using 10 years of Hubble Space Telescope images and reveals galaxies spanning 13.2 billion years in time: about 0.6 years after the birth of the Universe. The deep field captures such distant light, most of the galaxies are seen as they existed in their infancy. Credit: NASA, ESA, G. Illingworth, D. Magee, and P. Oesch (University of California, Santa Cruz), R. Bouwens (Leiden University), and the HUDF09 Team

Interview What happened during the first seconds of the Universe?

Chris Lintott during filming for The Sky at Night. Credit: BBC/The Sky at Night

Interview Chris Lintott talks citizen science

The picture shows Abell 2218, a rich galaxy cluster composed of thousands of individual galaxies. It sits about 2.1 billion light-years from the Earth (redshift 0.17) in the northern constellation of Draco. When used by astronomers as a powerful gravitational lens to magnify distant galaxies, the cluster allows them to peer far into the Universe. However, it not only magnifies the images of hidden galaxies, but also distorts them into long, thin arcs. Several arcs in the image can be studied in detail thanks to Hubble's sharp vision. Multiple distorted images of the same galaxies can be identified by comparing the shape of the galaxies and their colour. In addition to the giant arcs, many smaller arclets have been identified.

A guide to gravitational lensing

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CERN tests show early Universe was fluid