Articles on astronomy, research and studying science
Explanations, background and advice for curious students.
What you can do with an astronomy or astrophysics degree
Most astronomy graduates do not become astronomers, and the data show they do well. The research path, jobs outside academia and how to keep options open.
Ten equations every astronomy student should know
Ten short formulas that give distances, temperatures, masses and the expansion of the universe, each worked through with real numbers.
The Hubble tension explained for students
Two precise ways of measuring the expansion rate of the universe give 73 and 67 km/s per megaparsec. What each method does and where things stand in 2026.
How to read an astronomy paper as a beginner
Where to find astronomy papers for free, how they are built, and a three pass method for reading them, with a worked example and a jargon table.
What a black hole is and what it is not
Black holes do not suck in everything around them, and the biggest ones are less dense than air. Five common myths checked against the physics.
The life cycle of a star and what it leaves behind
How stars form in cold clouds, why massive ones die young, and how a star ends as a white dwarf, a neutron star or a black hole.
Why is the night sky dark? Olbers' paradox explained
In an infinite, eternal universe the whole sky would glow like the surface of the Sun. The reason it is dark tells us the universe has a finite age.
How to start learning astrophysics in high school
Which mathematics and physics to learn first, which books to use, and how to work with real Gaia and exoplanet data before you reach university.
What the James Webb Space Telescope has found so far
Four years of Webb results in one place: record galaxies, little red dots, exoplanet atmospheres, a neutron star in Supernova 1987A and what is still open.
How astronomers measure the distance to the stars
Parallax, Cepheid stars and exploding white dwarfs form a chain of methods that reaches galaxies billions of light years away. Here is how each step works.