Measuring the distance to far away objects in space can be tricky. We don't even know the precise distance to even our closest neighbors in the universe—the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds. But, ...

Cepheid variables are a type of star that undergo regular pulsations. The length of a Cepheid’s pulsations is always related to its intrinsic, or absolute, brightness in a simple way: The longer its ...

Cepheid variables are pulsating supergiant stars whose regular brightness variations are tightly correlated with their intrinsic luminosities. This period–luminosity relation, often termed the Leavitt ...

Occasionally, the calendar aligns so that I get to complain about daylight saving time in this column on the same weekend it goes into effect. I need to take the chance to do that whenever I can. Just ...

In commemoration of Edwin Hubble's discovery of a Cepheid variable class star, called V1, in the neighboring Andromeda galaxy 100 years ago, astronomers partnered with the American Association of ...

Ninety years ago, Harvard astronomer Henrietta Leavitt spent years painstakingly examining thousands of sky photographs to search for and study variable stars. Her laborious hunt led to the discovery ...

This image of NGC 5468, a galaxy located about 130 million light-years from Earth, combines data from the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes. This is the farthest galaxy in which Hubble has ...