Johns Hopkins researchers may have identified a compelling clue in the ongoing hunt to prove the existence of dark matter. A mysterious diffuse glow of gamma rays near the center of the Milky Way has stumped researchers for decades, as...
Ryugu’s samples reveal that water activity on asteroids lasted far longer than scientists thought, possibly reshaping theories of how Earth gained its oceans. A billion-year-old impact may have melted ancient ice, keeping asteroids wet...
CO₂ ice blocks on Mars may dig gullies as they slide and sublimate in the thin atmosphere. In lab experiments, scientists recreated these eerie, worm-like movements under Martian conditions. The findings help explain unusual dune...
Why is the universe expanding at an ever-increasing rate? This is one of the most exciting yet unresolved questions in modern physics. Because it cannot be fully answered using our current physical worldview, researchers assume the...
A research team from the Yunnan Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has conducted a study on the binary fraction of blue horizontal-branch (BHB) stars. Their findings, recently published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, provide...
An international team of astronomers has discovered the first tidal disruption event (TDE) producing bright radio emission outside the center of a galaxy. The findings are published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Using ESA's Gaia satellite and NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), astronomers from the Ege University in Turkey and elsewhere have observed a galactic open cluster known as NGC 2506. Results of the observational...
Scientists at the University of Hawaiʻi have discovered why it rains on the Sun. Solar rain, made of cooling plasma, forms rapidly during solar flares, a mystery now solved by modeling time-varying elements like iron. The finding upends...
Astronomers are investigating a strange class of exoplanets known as eccentric warm Jupiters — massive gas giants that orbit their stars in unexpected, elongated paths. Unlike their close-orbiting “hot Jupiter” cousins, these planets...
Researchers analyzing pulsar data have found tantalizing hints of ultra-slow gravitational waves. A team from Hirosaki University suggests these signals might carry “beats” — patterns formed by overlapping waves from supermassive black...
By analyzing the available data from various space observatories and ground-based telescopes, Indian astronomers have conducted a long-term multiwavelength study of a changing-look active galactic nucleus (AGN) known as NGC 3822. Results...
On July 2, 2025, NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (Fermi-GBM) captured around three hours' worth of signals that appeared to come from the same source. When scientists compiled this data with signals picked up by multiple other...
Pulsars suggest that ultra–low-frequency gravitational waves are rippling through the cosmos. The signal seen by international pulsar timing array collaborations in 2023 could come from a stochastic gravitational-wave background—the sum...
It's great to see old astronomical observations come to light. Not only can these confirm or refute what's known about historic astronomical events, but they can describe what early observers actually saw.
White dwarfs are the compact remnants of stars that have stopped nuclear burning, a fate that will eventually befall our sun. These extremely dense objects are degenerate stars because their structure is counterintuitive: the heavier...
A pair of Sydney Ph.D. students helped sharpen the view of humanity's most powerful space observatory—without leaving Earth. As an indelible reminder of this thrilling result, Louis Desdoigts, now a postdoctoral researcher at Leiden in...
Radio astronomy opens a window onto the invisible universe. While our eyes can detect visible light, countless objects in space emit radiation at much longer wavelengths, in the radio portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Where...
High above the Sun’s blazing equator lie its mysterious poles, the birthplace of fast solar winds and the heart of its magnetic heartbeat. For decades, scientists have struggled to see these regions, hidden from Earth’s orbit. With the...
Scientists imaged the heart of the OJ 287 galaxy, uncovering a curved plasma jet around what appears to be two merging supermassive black holes. The structure reveals unimaginable energy levels and shockwaves in the jet. This...
New observations from the James Webb Space Telescope hint that the universe’s first stars might not have been ordinary fusion-powered suns, but enormous “supermassive dark stars” powered by dark matter annihilation. These colossal,...
Weather forecasting is a powerful tool. During hurricane season, for instance, meteorologists create computer simulations to forecast how these destructive storms form and where they might travel, which helps prevent damage to coastal...
Betelgeuse, the brilliant red star marking Orion's shoulder, has long been suspected of harboring a secret. I have to confess, Betelgeuse holds a special place in my heart as the first star I ever looked at through a telescope as a...
When galaxies collide, it's not a gentle affair, but it does take millions of years. Over this time, the two massive star systems slowly merge together, their gravitational pull drawing them closer. At the heart of each galaxy lies a...
Dark matter, the substance that makes up about 27% of the universe, could potentially be detected as a red or blue light "fingerprint," new research shows. The research is published in the journal Physics Letters B.
Using various space telescopes, an international team of astronomers have observed a newly detected very faint X-ray transient designated 4XMM J174610.7–290020. Results of the observational campaign, published October 2 on the arXiv...
Using CO (J=1–0) molecular line data obtained from the 13.7-meter millimeter-wave telescope at the Purple Mountain Observatory's Delingha Observatory, Sun Mingke, a Ph.D. student from the Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese...
The supermassive black hole at the center of the Circinus galaxy is being fed with gaseous material by two spiral arms, according to an international team of researchers led by Wout Goesaert (Leiden University, the Netherlands)....
The interstellar object 3I/ATLAS has been something of a mystery ever since it graced our solar system. From all outward appearances, the object appears to be a comet that originated in another star system and was ejected by...
A colossal northern asteroid impact billions of years ago likely shaped the Moon’s south polar region and explains its uneven terrain. Researchers found that the South Pole-Aitken Basin formed from a glancing northern strike, revealing...
ESA’s Mars orbiters have observed comet 3I/ATLAS, only the third interstellar comet ever discovered. The faint, distant object revealed a glowing coma as it was heated by the Sun. Researchers are still studying the data to understand its...
Complex, intelligent life in the galaxy appears vanishingly rare, with the nearest possible civilization perhaps 33,000 light-years distant. Yet despite the odds, scientists insist that continuing the search for extraterrestrial...
Scientists using a global array of radio telescopes have detected the universe’s lowest-mass dark object by observing how it warped light through gravitational lensing. The invisible mass, about a million times the Sun’s weight, could be...
According to a new Physical Review Letters study, black holes could help solve the dark matter mystery. The shadowy regions in black hole images captured by the Event Horizon Telescope can act as ultra-sensitive detectors for the...
Scientists at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) have uncovered the intricate magnetic heartbeat of a distant star remarkably similar to our own sun—but much younger and more active. This study, part of the "Far Beyond...
An international team of astronomers has used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to observe a well-known quasar known as the Cloverleaf. As part of the observations, they serendipitously discovered a new...
Dark matter is an enigmatic form of matter not expected to emit light, yet it is essential to understanding how the rich tapestry of stars and galaxies we see in the night sky evolved. As a fundamental building block of the universe, a...
A discovery of binary stars could be the first step in building a more complete picture of how our galaxy formed, according to astronomers from The Australian National University (ANU). The discovery is part of an ambitious 10-year...
Mars may look calm, but new research reveals it’s a world of fierce winds and swirling dust devils racing at hurricane-like speeds. Using deep learning on thousands of satellite images from European orbiters, scientists have discovered...
For the first time, astronomers have managed to capture a radio image showing two black holes orbiting each other. The observation confirmed the existence of black hole pairs. In the past, astronomers have only managed to image...
SXS—Simulating eXtreme Spacetimes—is an ongoing scientific collaboration that has been generating simulations of dramatic events in space, particularly mergers of binary black hole systems, for several decades. Recently, SXS published a...
Using ESA's XMM-Newton satellite, astronomers have conducted deep observations of a massive galaxy known as NGC 5746. As a result, they detected a hot gaseous outflow in the galaxy. The new findings, presented Oct. 1 on the arXiv...
The James Webb Space Telescope has uncovered a massive red supergiant star just before it exploded, finally solving a cosmic mystery. Hidden beneath layers of dust, the doomed star revealed itself through Webb’s infrared eyes. The...
Asteroid 2025 TF zipped past Earth above Antarctica, coming within 428 km of the surface. Roughly the size of a small car, it was detected hours after the flyby and posed no danger. ESA astronomers later confirmed its trajectory with...
Gravitational waves are energy-carrying waves produced by the acceleration or disturbance of massive objects. These waves, which were first directly observed in 2015, are known to be produced during various cosmological phenomena,...
3I/ATLAS, a mysterious interstellar object racing toward the Sun, is baffling scientists with its speed and origin. Some researchers suggest it could even be alien-made, drawing comparisons to probes humanity has sent beyond the Solar...
Astronomers have captured the clearest picture yet of how massive stars are born, revealing a dramatic interplay between gravity and magnetic fields in some of our galaxy's most dynamic star forming regions. A team led by Dr. Qizhou...
Hubble captured a breathtaking view of NGC 6000, a spiral galaxy where blue newborn stars shine beside golden, aging ones. The image also reveals traces of ancient supernovae still glowing faintly among the stars. As a bonus, an asteroid...
Scientists have simulated how M87*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy M87, powers its immense particle jet. The Frankfurt team’s FPIC code shows that magnetic reconnection, where magnetic field lines snap and...
Astronomers have found the most distant and energetic “odd radio circle” ever detected — a massive double-ringed radio structure nearly 10 billion years old. The discovery, made with the help of citizen scientists using LOFAR, challenges...
ESA has inaugurated a powerful new 35-meter deep space antenna at its New Norcia site in Western Australia, marking a major boost to Europe’s ability to communicate with spacecraft exploring the Solar System. This ultra-sensitive...