Often described as cosmic lighthouses, quasars are luminous beacons that can be observed at the outskirts of the Universe, providing a rich topic of study for astronomers and cosmologists. Now scientists have announced the discovery of the second-most distant quasar ever found, at more than 13 billion lightyears from Earth.

Life on Earth would likely not be possible without the Moon; it keeps our planet's axis of rotation stable, which controls seasons and regulates our climate. However, there has been considerable debate over how the Moon was formed. The popular hypothesis contends that the Moon was formed by a Mars-sized body colliding with Earth's upper crust which is poor in metals. But new research suggests the Moon's subsurface is more metal-rich than previously thought, providing new insights that could challenge our understanding of that process.

The surviving core of a gas giant has been discovered orbiting a distant star, offering an unprecedented glimpse into the interior of a planet.

Scientists have identified the binary star Eta Carinae as a new kind of source for very high-energy (VHE) cosmic gamma-radiation. Eta Carinae is located 7500 lightyears away in the constellation Carina in the Southern Sky and, based on the data collected, emits gamma rays with energies up to 400 gigaelectronvolts (GeV), some 100 billion times more than the energy of visible light.

A new model points to the coronoe of supermassive black holes at the cores of active galaxies to help explain the excess neutrinos observed by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory.

KELT-9 b is one of the hottest planets known. New measurements from NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) have enabled astronomers to greatly improve their understanding of this bizarre world.

On a quest to find the Universe's largest black holes, researchers identify the center of the solar system within 100 meters.

Astronomers have discovered the absence of an unstable massive star in a dwarf galaxy. Scientists think this could indicate that the star became less bright and partially obscured by dust. An alternative explanation is that the star collapsed into a black hole without producing a supernova.

Scientists have increased the speed and accuracy of a laboratory-scale instrument for determining the age of planetary specimens onsite. The team is progressively miniaturizing the Chemistry, Organics and Dating Experiment (CODEX) instrument to reach a size suitable for spaceflight and lander missions.

The history of our planet has been written, among other things, in the periodic reversal of its magnetic poles. Scientists propose a new means of reading this historic record: in ice. Their findings could lead to a refined probing ice cores and, in the future, might be applied to understanding the magnetic history of other bodies in our solar system, including Mars and Jupiter's moon Europa.

Astronomers have made the first measurement of spin-orbit alignment for a distant 'super-Jupiter' planet, demonstrating a technique that could enable breakthroughs in the quest to understand how exoplanetary systems form and evolved.

In a new study of axion motion, researchers propose a scenario known as ''kinetic misalignment'' that greatly strengthens the case for axion/dark matter equivalence. The novel concept answers key questions related to the origins of dark matter and provides new avenues for ongoing detection efforts.

The sun's convection zone plays a key role in the generation and evolution of the Sun's magnetic field. Analyzing data sets spanning more than 20 years, researchers have obtained the most comprehensive picture of the north-south flow of plasma in the convection zone ever. The flow goes around the convection zone in each hemisphere in about 22 years.

The nearest exoplanets to us provide the best opportunities for study, including searching for evidence of life outside the Solar System. Astronomers have now detected a system of super-Earth planets orbiting the nearby star Gliese 887, the brightest red dwarf star in the sky. The newly discovered super-Earths lie close to the red dwarf's habitable zone, where water can exist in liquid form.

Astronomers have discovered the second-most distant quasar ever found. It is the first quasar to receive an indigenous Hawaiian name, Poniua'ena. Data show the supermassive black hole powering Poniua'ena is surprisingly massive, challenging current theories of how supermassive black holes formed and grew in the young universe.

The young star HBC 672 is known by its nickname of Bat Shadow because of its wing-like shadow feature. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has now observed a curious ''flapping'' motion in the shadow of the star's disc for the first time. The star resides in a stellar nursery called the Serpens Nebula, about 1300 light-years away.

In a critical step toward creating a global quantum communications network, researchers have generated and detected quantum entanglement onboard a CubeSat nanosatellite weighing less than 2.6 kilograms and orbiting the Earth.

Astronomers have seen what appears to the first light ever detected from a black hole merger.

The Gemini Planet Imager on the Gemini South telescope looked at 104 young, nearby stars, 10-100 million years old, in search of debris disks. It found 26, 25 of which had inner holes indicating a planet. These debris rings, similar to the Kuiper Belt in our solar system, display amazing diversity in size and distance from the star. Such studies help astronomers understand the formation of planets and shed light on our system's early history.

The discovery could help astronomers understand how planets like Earth form and evolve.

An international research team has now presented a new, very precise method of evaluating the behavior of mixtures of different elements under high pressure with the help of X-ray scattering. The results reinforce the premise that the matter in planets like Neptune and Uranus can alter dramatically: the hot hydrocarbon mixture in the interior of the ice giants can produce a kind of diamond rain.

Researchers have discovered what is either the heaviest known neutron star, or the lightest black hole.

A new study suggests that Pluto and other large Kuiper belt objects started out with liquid oceans which have been slowly freezing over time.

The Earth-Moon system's history remains mysterious. Scientists believe the two formed when a Mars-sized body collided with the proto-Earth. Earth ended up being the larger daughter of this collision and retained enough heat to become tectonically active. The Moon, being smaller, likely cooled down faster and geologically 'froze'. The apparent dynamism of the Moon challenges this idea. New data suggest this is because radioactive elements were distributed uniquely after the catastrophic Moon-forming collision.

Astronomers have identified periodic gamma-ray emissions from 11 active galaxies, paving the way for future studies of unconventional galaxies that might harbor two supermassive black holes at their centers.