Astronomy News

June 13, 2025

Top Headlines

Black Holes Could Act as Natural Supercolliders -- And Help Uncover Dark Matter

June 3, 2025 — Supermassive black holes might naturally replicate the colossal energies of man-made particle colliders possibly even revealing dark matter offering a cosmic shortcut to discoveries that would ...

Millions of New Solar System Objects to Be Found and 'Filmed in Technicolor' -- Studies Predict

June 3, 2025 — Astronomers have revealed new research showing that millions of new solar system objects are likely to be detected by a brand-new facility, which is expected to come online later this ...

Particles Energized by Magnetic Reconnection in the Nascent Solar Wind

June 3, 2025 — Scientists have identified a new source of energetic particles near the Sun. These definitive observations were made by instruments aboard NASA's Parker Solar Probe, which detected the powerful phenomena as the spacecraft dipped in and out of the ...

Webb Reveals the Origin of the Ultra-Hot Exoplanet WASP-121b

June 2, 2025 — Tracing the origin of an ultra-hot exoplanet: The chemical composition of WASP-121b suggests that it formed in a cool zone of its natal disc, comparable to the region of gas and ice giants in our Solar System. Methane indicates unexpected ...

Scientists Discover New Evidence of Intermediate-Mass Black Holes

May 30, 2025 — A series of studies sheds light on the origins and characteristics of intermediate-mass black ...

Understanding Why Galaxy Clusters Are Warm May Explain the Origin of Giant Interstellar Structures

May 2, 2025 — Astronomers have explained how a galaxy cluster maintains its heat, despite emitting X-rays that cool the hot gas at its center. The group discovered the existence of a fast-moving, high-temperature ...

Cosmic Mystery Deepens as Astronomers Find Object Flashing in Both Radio Waves and X-Rays

May 28, 2025 — A team of international astronomers have discovered a new cosmic object emitting both radio waves and ...

ALMA Measures Evolution of Monster Barred Spiral Galaxy

May 22, 2025 — Astronomers have observed a massive and extremely active barred spiral galaxy in the early Universe and found that it has important similarities and differences with modern galaxies. This improves our understanding of how barred spiral galaxies, ...

Saturn's Moon: Mysterious Wobbling Atmosphere Like a Gyroscope

May 22, 2025 — The puzzling behavior of Titan's atmosphere has been revealed. The team has shown that the thick, hazy atmosphere of Saturn's largest moon doesn't spin in line with its surface, but instead wobbles like a gyroscope, shifting with the ...

Unveiling the Secrets of Planet Formation in Environments of High UV Radiation

May 21, 2025 — The fundamental building blocks for planet formation can exist even in environments with extreme ultraviolet radiation, according to a new ...

'Cosmic Joust': Astronomers Observe Pair of Galaxies in Deep-Space Battle

May 21, 2025 — Astronomers have witnessed for the first time a violent cosmic collision in which one galaxy pierces another with intense radiation. Their results show that this radiation dampens the wounded galaxy's ability to form new ...

Missing Link in Early Martian Water Cycle Discovered

May 20, 2025 — Astronomers have filled a large gap in knowledge about Mars' water cycle. Their research on water percolating from surface to aquifer could change the picture of what early Mars was like, suggesting that less of the planet's water may have been ...

Latest Headlines

updated 12:25pm EDT

NASA’s Webb Telescope Reveals Monster Star Clumps in Galactic Wreckage

June 12, 2025 — Surveying nearby galaxies in the process of merging with other galaxies, astronomers have identified massive, dense star factories, unlike any found in the Milky Way. The findings provide a rare ...

Sun’s Secret Storms Exposed: NASA's Codex Unveils a Turbulent Corona

June 12, 2025 — NASA s CODEX experiment aboard the International Space Station is revealing the Sun like never before. Using advanced filters and a specialized coronagraph, CODEX has captured images showing that the ...

Astronomers Just Found a Giant Planet That Shouldn’t Exist

June 11, 2025 — Scientists have discovered a giant planet orbiting a tiny red dwarf star, something they believed wasn t even possible. The planet, TOI-6894b, is about the size of Saturn but orbits a star just a ...

From the Andes to the Beginning of Time: Telescopes Detect 13-Billion-Year-Old Signal

June 11, 2025 — Astronomers have pulled off an unprecedented feat: detecting ultra-faint light from the Big Bang using ground-based telescopes. This polarized light ...

Sand Clouds and Moon Nurseries: Webb’s Dazzling Exoplanet Reveal

June 10, 2025 — Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have captured breathtakingly detailed images of two giant exoplanets orbiting a distant sun-like star. These observations revealed sand-like silicate ...

Sun Unleashes Monster Solar Storm: Rare G4 Alert Issued for Earth

June 10, 2025 — A violent solar eruption on May 31 launched a coronal mass ejection (CME) hurtling toward Earth, triggering a rare G4-level geomagnetic storm alert. Captured in real-time by U.S. Naval Research ...

Scientists May Have Spotted a Giant New Planet Forming

June 10, 2025 — A team of international astronomers has uncovered what may be a gas giant planet forming around a distant young star. Using the powerful Very Large Telescope in Chile, they captured dazzling ...

Planets May Start Forming Before Their Stars Are Even Done

June 9, 2025 — Planets may begin forming much earlier than scientists once believed during the final stages of a star s birth, not afterward. This bold new model, backed by simulations from researchers at SwRI, ...

Largest-Ever Map of the Universe Reveals 10x More Early Galaxies Than Expected

June 7, 2025 — An international team of scientists has unveiled the largest and most detailed map of the universe ever created using the James Webb Space Telescope, ...

Not One, but Two Massive Black Holes Are Eating Away at This Galaxy

May 19, 2025 — Astronomers searching for massive black holes shredding stars found one in an unusual place -- 2,600 light years from the core of a galaxy. The roque black hole may be from an earlier merger with ...

Astronomers Observe Largest Ever Sample of Galaxies Up to Over 12 Billion Light Years Away

May 19, 2025 — The largest sample of galaxy groups ever detected has been presented by a team of international astronomers using data from the James Webb Space telescope (JWST) in an area of the sky called COSMOS ...

Ultraviolet Data from NASA's Europa Clipper Mission

May 15, 2025 — The Ultraviolet Spectrograph (UVS) aboard NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft has successfully completed its initial commissioning following the October 14, 2024, launch. Scheduled to arrive in the ...

A Multitude of Protoplanetary Discs Detected in the Galactic Centre

May 15, 2025 — Using new observations with the ALMA telescope array in Chile, researchers have compiled the most precise map of three regions in the Milky Way's Central Molecular Zone to date, providing ...

What Lies Beneath: Using Rock Blasted from Craters to Probe the Martian Subsurface

May 14, 2025 — By analyzing how far material ejected from an impact crater flies, scientists can locate buried glaciers and other interesting subsurface ...

Dark Matter Formed When Fast Particles Slowed Down and Got Heavy, New Theory Says

May 14, 2025 — Researchers propose a new theory for the origin of dark matter, the invisible substance thought to give the universe its shape and structure. Their mathematical models show that dark matter could ...

Astrophysicists Explore Our Galaxy's Magnetic Turbulence in Unprecedented Detail Using a New Computer Model

May 13, 2025 — Astronomers have developed a groundbreaking computer simulation to explore, in unprecedented detail, magnetism and turbulence in the interstellar medium (ISM) -- the vast ocean of gas and charged ...

Universe Decays Faster Than Thought, but Still Takes a Long Time

May 12, 2025 — The universe is decaying much faster than thought. This is shown by calculations of scientists on the so-called Hawking radiation. They calculate that the last stellar remnants take about 10^78 years ...

Astrophysicist Searches for Ripples in Space and Time in New Way

May 12, 2025 — Massive ripples in the very fabric of space and time wash over Earth constantly, although you'd never notice. An astrophysicist is trying a new search for these gravitational ...

The Squid Galaxy's Neutrino Game Just Leveled Up

May 8, 2025 — In space, energetic neutrinos are usually paired with energetic gamma rays. Galaxy NGC 1068, however, emits strong neutrinos and weak gamma rays, which presents a puzzle for scientists to solve. A ...

Stellar Collapse and Explosions Distribute Gold Throughout the Universe

May 7, 2025 — Magnetar flares, colossal cosmic explosions, may be directly responsible for the creation and distribution of heavy elements across the universe, suggests a new ...

NASA's NICER Maps Debris from Recurring Cosmic Crashes

May 6, 2025 — Astronomers have probed the physical environment of repeating X-ray outbursts near monster black holes thanks to data from NASA's NICER (Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer) and other ...

Gaia Spots Odd Family of Stars Desperate to Leave Home

May 1, 2025 — The European Space Agency's Gaia mission has spotted an unusual family of stars all strangely eager to leave home -- a family we couldn't have discovered without the star-surveying ...

A Vast Molecular Cloud, Long Invisible, Is Discovered Near Solar System

Apr. 28, 2025 — Astrophysicists have discovered a potentially star-forming cloud that is one of the largest single structures in the sky and among the closest to the sun and Earth ever to be detected. The scientists ...

New Look at Galactic Region Surrounding Our Solar System: Lyman-Alpha Emissions

Apr. 28, 2025 — The NASA New Horizons spacecraft's extensive observations of Lyman-alpha emissions have resulted in the first-ever map from the galaxy at this important ultraviolet wavelength, providing a new ...

New Research Shatters Long-Held Beliefs About Asteroid Vesta

Apr. 28, 2025 — For decades, scientists believed Vesta, one of the largest objects in our solar system's asteroid belt, wasn't just an asteroid and eventually concluded it was more like a planet with a ...

Astronomers Find Earth-Like Exoplanets Common Across the Cosmos

Apr. 25, 2025 — Astronomers have discovered that super-Earth exoplanets are more common across the universe than previously thought. While it can be relatively easy to locate worlds that orbit close to their star, ...

The Heart of World's Largest Solar Telescope Begins to Beat

Apr. 24, 2025 — The world's largest solar telescope has reached an important milestone. The data published now were obtained during the technical commissioning of the ...

Innovative Approaches Advance Search for Ice on the Moon

Apr. 23, 2025 — Scientists and space explorers have been on the hunt to determine where and how much ice is present on the Moon. Water ice would be an important resource at a future lunar base, as it could be used ...

Astronomers Discover a Planet That's Rapidly Disintegrating, Producing a Comet-Like Tail

Apr. 22, 2025 — A planet 140 light-years from Earth is rapidly coming apart due to its close proximity to its star. The roasting planet is effectively evaporating away: It sheds an enormous amount of surface ...

Turning Down Starlight to Spot New Exoplanets

Apr. 18, 2025 — Researchers have developed a new coronagraph that could make it possible to see distant exoplanets obscured by light from their parent ...