Astronomy

To get certified by the Starlight Foundation, Villa de Leyva, Colombia, plans to change its streetlights so they only point downward and use light bulbs with warmer colored temperatures.

This Colombian town is dimming its lights to attract more tourists to view the night sky

Science

Thousands of people gather every year in Villa de Leyva, Colombia, for the annual Astronomy Festival. Now, event organizers are working with the local government to implement lasting improvements for the town to draw more tourists to see the stars.

People carrying lanterns watch the sky at night during the annual Perseid meteor shower in El Escorial, outside Madrid, Aug. 13, 2015.

This Senegalese astronomer is helping NASA measure asteroids in space

Science & Technology
Curiosity Rover selfie

‘The Sirens of Mars’: A scientist’s personal journey and the rich history of Mars exploration

An illustration of a protoplanet crashing into Jupiter

Protoplanet smackdown may explain Jupiter’s core makeup

Science
The Tiangong-1 space station passes over the moon in this photo taken in September 2013. The station is scheduled to make a crash landing in Europe within the next few weeks.

Chinese space station likely to land in Europe in a few weeks

Technology
The moon is red-orange as it hangs in the sky next to the left of a high-rise building.

Rare ‘super blood blue moon’ visible on Jan. 31

Science

Moongazers in western North America, Asia, the Middle East, Russia and Australia can catch a glimpse of an “astronomical trifecta.”

The small size of the blue halite crystals found in two meteorites is shown next to a pair of tweezers.

Blue salt crystals on meteorites stoke conversation about extraterrestrial life

Technology

The blue salt crystals, which resemble blue sapphires, may have come from Ceres, a dwarf planet located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

interstellar visitor

In a first, scientists spotted an ‘interstellar visitor’ in our solar system

Science

The quarter-mile-wide hunk of space rock is affectionately being called “A/2017 U1.”

neutron star collision

In a long-ago neutron star collision, scientists find a cosmic goldmine

Technology

Around 130 million years ago, two neutron stars — those strange, compacted cores of dead stars — collided. Scientists recently detected the signals from that collision, in the form of gravitational waves and electromagnetic signals.

Brother Guy Consolmagno is a Jesuit priest and the director of the Vatican Observatory.

For this Vatican astronomer, the solar eclipse is divine coincidence

Belief

Guy Consolmagno watched his first solar eclipse on Monday. It’s a pretty big deal for this Jesuit priest who’s also the director of the Vatican Observatory.