Sky & Telescope May 2025 Magazine

Starburst Galaxies, Cecilia Payne, and EROSITA

In the May 2025 issue of Sky & Telescope, follow along as we traverse a series of star-forming regions in distant galaxies. If you would like to photograph such star factories, this issue also offers a guide to high-resolution imaging. Then extend your vision to other wavelengths as we explore new results from the Extended Roentgen Survey with an Imaging Telescope Array (EROSITA), which briefly surveyed the X-ray sky. (We’ll explain why it’s now paused in its mission, perhaps indefinitely.) Go even deeper as we learn how astronomers combine radio telescopes across the globe through interferometry, creating a telescope that is essentially the size of Earth. Faraway, newly formed stars, not to mention many other astrophysical phenomena, won’t be able to hide from us for long.