When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Image of the galaxy NGC 6505: the Einstein ring created by this gravitational lens can be seen in ...

The universe has a habit of surprising us, revealing its deepest secrets in the most unexpected ways. One such revelation arrived in the form of an astonishing discovery around the elliptical galaxy ...

Let's turn the sun into a telescope. In fact, we don't have to do any work—we just have to be in the right spot. But how can the sun be a telescope? The sun is not a mirror, but it is a lens. And we ...

Using a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing, it might be possible to use the sun as a gigantic telescope to peer deep into space. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an ...

For much of the twentieth century, scientists expected the expanding universe to slow over time. The opposite turned out to be true. Space is stretching faster today than in the past, and the precise ...

Turbulent processes take place close to supermassive black holes, which lurk in the centres of nearly all galaxies. They swallow up matter flowing in from the outside while at the same time producing ...

Gravitational lenses bend and focus light from the more distant cosmos, offering astronomers a cheat code for chronicling the history of the universe. Reading time 2 minutes The universe is a big ...

In the center of this image, taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, is the galaxy cluster SDSS J1038+4849 and it seems to be smiling You can make out its two orange eyes and white button nose ...

Tania Barone receives funding from the Australian Research Council for research with gravitational lenses. Astronomers are living in a golden age of bigger and better telescopes. But even our most ...