Era · 2000 CE – present
Contemporary Astronomy
History of Astronomy
Overview
Twenty-first-century astronomy works in many messengers at once — light, gravitational waves, and particles. Thousands of exoplanets, the first images of black holes, and observatories like JWST are reshaping our picture of the universe and the search for life.
Astronomers
Discoveries
Publications
Knowledge connections
- ContainsStephen Hawking
- ContainsMichel Mayor
- ContainsDidier Queloz
- ContainsJane Luu
- ContainsReinhard Genzel
- ContainsAndrea Ghez
- ContainsSaul Perlmutter
- ContainsBrian Schmidt
- ContainsAdam Riess
- ContainsNeil deGrasse Tyson
- ContainsThe First Kuiper Belt Object
- ContainsThe First Exoplanet Around a Sun-like Star
- ContainsThe Accelerating Universe
- ContainsThe First Detection of Gravitational Waves
- ContainsThe Milky Way's Central Black Hole
- ContainsThe First Image of a Black Hole
- ContainsJWST's First Science Images
- ContainsA Brief History of Time
- ContainsGaia Catalogue
- Associated withBig Science
- Associated withThe Data & AI Revolution
Sources & references
The primary and reference sources this topic draws on.
- NASANational Aeronautics and Space Administration
Mission data, planetary science, space telescopes, and public-domain imagery.
Most NASA-produced imagery is in the public domain; individual items are checked for usage terms before publication.
- ESAEuropean Space Agency
European missions, observatories, and space science imagery.
- ESOEuropean Southern Observatory
Southern-hemisphere observatory data and imagery (VLT, ALMA partner).