From the 1st landing on the moon's far side to the 1st actual image of a black hole, here’s a quick roundup of 9 of the stories our readers enjoyed most in 2019.

The well-known bright star Betelgeuse - a red giant star, famous for its name and for the fact that it'll explode someday - has become noticeably dimmer since late October. Here's what astronomers think is happening.

Thirty-two years ago, Supernova 1987A erupted in the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud. Astronomers using the ALMA radio telescope now say they've found the small, compact neutron star created in this mighty star explosion.

The Juno spacecraft's last perijove - or closest point to Jupiter - resulted in a treasure trove of images. Its next perijove is coming up on December 26. Get updated here, and view Juno's latest amazing images.

The European Space Agency has successfully launched its CHEOPS space telescope, the 1st of 3 planned missions to study distant exoplanets in greater detail than ever before.

A new kind of magnetic explosion, called forced magnetic reconnection, was seen for the first time in images from NASA’s SDO spacecraft. Learn more in this beautiful video.

Hundreds of thousands of people from 112 countries helped select names for distant exoplanets and their stars. So, for example, the exoplanet formerly known as HAT-P-36b - about 1,000 light-years away - now also carries the name Bran, from an Irish legend.

Using a revolutionary X-ray telescope aboard the International Space Station, scientists have finally created the 1st pulsar surface "map." It shows odd hot spots and suggests that pulsar magnetic fields are more complicated than anyone had assumed.

A new study of the atmospheres of known giant exoplanets suggests that water - an essential ingredient for life - may be common on other worlds in our Milky Way galaxy. At the same, there may be less of it than astronomers once expected.

The 1st interstellar object - 1I/'Oumuamua - had already passed closest to our sun when astronomers first spotted it. So catching this 2nd one - 2I/Borisov - prior to perihelion was a big plus for astronomers! Before and after images here.