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Gravity is one of the universe's great mysteries. We decided to find out why.

Think you know what gravity is? Think again. New research is revealing how little we know about this most mysterious of forces.

Black holes are the most powerful gravitational force in the Universe. So what could cause them to be kicked out of their host galaxies? Cambridge researchers have developed a method for detecting elusive ‘black hole kicks.’

Three Earth-sized planets have been discovered orbiting a dim and cool star, and may be the best place to search for life beyond the Solar System.

Astronomers have observed two black holes in nearby galaxies devouring their companion stars at an extremely high rate, and spitting out matter at a quarter the speed of light.

̽»¨Ö±²¥most detailed map of a small, rocky ‘super Earth’ to date reveals a planet almost completely covered by lava, with a molten ‘hot’ side and solid ‘cool’ side.

An international team of astronomers led by the ̽»¨Ö±²¥ of Cambridge have detected the most distant clouds of star-forming gas yet found in normal galaxies in the early Universe – less than one billion years after the Big Bang. ̽»¨Ö±²¥new observations will allow astronomers to start to see how the first galaxies were built up and how they cleared the cosmic fog during the era of reionisation. This is the first time that such galaxies have been seen as more than just faint blobs.

On a blazing-hot exoplanet known as WASP-33b, a team of astronomers including researchers from the ̽»¨Ö±²¥ of Cambridge has detected a stratosphere, one of the primary layers of Earth’s atmosphere.

New maps from the Planck satellite uncover the ‘polarised’ light from the early Universe across the entire sky, revealing that the first stars formed much later than previously thought.

Astronomers have been able to peer back to the young Universe to determine how quasars – powered by supermassive black holes with the mass of a billion suns – form and shape the evolution of galaxies.

A new building on the Institute of Astronomy site off Madingley Road will complete the consolidation of astronomy, astrophysics and cosmology on a single site in Cambridge.