Astronomy News

Astronomers Detect Gamma-Ray Burst’s Magnetic Fingerprint

This illustration depicts Faraday rotation in the afterglow of a gamma-ray burst. A powerful jet (upper left) sends polarized radio waves outward through the thin wall of a surrounding bubble of magnetized gas called an HII region. As the light passes through this material, its polarization angle is twisted by the magnetic field. Because the effect is stronger at longer wavelengths, the red and blue waves, which represent different radio wavelengths, exit the bubble oscillating in different directions. By measuring this difference, astronomers were able to map the magnetic environment surrounding GRB 260310A for the first time. Image credit: NSF / AUI / NRAO / M. Weiss
Jul 15, 2026 by News Staff

Using NSF’s Very Large Array (VLA), astronomers made the first radio detection of polarized light and Faraday rotation from a gamma-ray burst afterglow, offering an unprecedented glimpse of the magnetic fields surrounding one of the Universe’s most powerful explosions. This illustration depicts Faraday rotation in the afterglow of a gamma-ray burst. A powerful jet (upper left) sends polarized radio waves outward through the thin wall of a surrounding...

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This artist’s concept shows the Beta Pictoris system with the discovered giant exoplanet Beta Pictoris d at the right. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI / Ralf Crawford, STScI.

Astronomers Discover and Directly Image Third Planet in Beta Pictoris System

Jul 15, 2026 by News Staff

Named Beta Pictoris d, the newly-discovered world is 100 times fainter than Beta Pictoris b — the first planet discovered around the A5-type star...

This Hubble image shows the elliptical galaxy NGC 4696. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / A. Fabian.

Webb Catches Supermassive Black Hole Feeding from Cosmic Gas Streams

Jul 14, 2026 by News Staff

New images of the giant elliptical galaxy NGC 4696 from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope reveal gas filaments funneling material into a spinning...

An artist’s impression of a red dwarf with a white dwarf binary companion peeking out from behind. Image credit: Mark A. Garlick / University of Warwick.

Astronomers Discover Four New White Dwarfs in Solar Neighborhood

Jul 14, 2026 by News Staff

Using near-UV spectroscopic data from the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) on the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers discovered four...

This composite image of the Milky Way’s central region shows the location of the molecular cloud G+0.693-0.027. Image credit: Ashley Barnes / Izaskun Jiménez-Serra / Juan García de la Concepción.

Astronomers Detect Sugar in Interstellar Space for First Time

Jul 13, 2026 by Natali Anderson

Using the Yebes 40-m and IRAM 30-m radio telescopes, astronomers have discovered erythrulose, a four-carbon sugar commonly found in raspberries and sunless...

Extended Orion nebula shell sampled by HI emission from the combined VLA and FAST observations (shown in red), Hα emission from the European Southern Observatory Digitized Sky Survey (shown in green), and 3.4-μm emission registered by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) satellite (shown in blue). Image credit: Juan D. Soler, University of Vienna / NRAO / VLA / NASA / WISE.

Astronomers Uncover Hidden Structures Surrounding Orion Nebula

Jul 10, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Using the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) s and the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST), astronomers have created the sharpest-ever...

This artist’s impression shows how the gas giant exoplanet inside the disc of Beta Pictoris may look. Image credit: L. Calçada / ESO.

Astronomers Probe Chemistry of Giant Exoplanet Beta Pictoris b

Jul 9, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Using the upgraded GRAVITY+ instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI), astronomers have measured the ratio of carbon isotopes in...

This collage shows 15 of the 31 newly discovered quasars by ESA’s Euclid space telescope. EUCL J172902.75+641018.1 and EUCL J125308.55+705432.3 are visible on the first row, the first and second from the left, respectively. Image credit: ESA / Euclid / Euclid Consortium / NASA / Euclid Science Ground Segment / Antoine Basset, CNES.

Euclid Discovers Earliest Quasars Ever Seen

Jul 8, 2026 by News Staff

Astronomers using ESA’s Euclid space telescope have discovered 31 ancient quasars from a time when the Universe was just 670 to 800 million years old....

The ground-based image of Centaurus A from ESO (top left) puts the near-infrared and mid-infrared views from Webb into context. Image credit: ESO / NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI / A. Pagan, STScI.

Webb Reveals Hidden Heart of Centaurus A

Jul 8, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Celebrating four years of science, the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has pierced the thick dust of the giant galaxy Centaurus A to reveal its...

This image shows part of the spectrum of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, captured in December 2025 with the UVES instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope. Image credit: ESO / C. Opitom / Manfroid et al. / O. Hainaut.

Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Likely Originated in Outskirts of Ancient Planetary System

Jul 6, 2026 by Natali Anderson

Astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) have measured carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios in 3I/ATLAS, the third known interstellar visitor...

This Hubble image shows NGC 6426, a globular cluster some 67,000 light-years away in the constellation of Ophiuchus. Image credit: NASA / ESA / A. Dotter, Dartmouth College / Gladys Kober, NASA & Catholic University of America.

Hubble Peers into 13-Billion-Year-Old Globular Cluster

Jul 6, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have captured this vivid image of NGC 6426, an ancient globular cluster in the Milky Way’s outer...

WD 1856b is a gas giant that orbits its star at a distance 50 times closer than Earth orbits the Sun. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Ralf Crawford, STScI.

Giant Exoplanet around White Dwarf May Reveal Jupiter’s Fate Billions of Years from Now

Jul 6, 2026 by News Staff

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have analyzed the atmosphere of a massive exoplanet orbiting the white dwarf WD 1856+534....

An artist’s conception of the view from the surface of Gliese 3378b. Image credit: Nikolai Berman / UC Irvine.

Astronomers Find Potentially Habitable Super-Earth Just 25 Light-Years Away

Jul 1, 2026 by News Staff

Astronomers have discovered a rocky exoplanet about twice Earth’s size just 25 light-years away, orbiting in the habitable zone of its parent star, Gliese...

This illustration portrays galaxy MXDFz4.4 when it existed 1.4 billion years after the Big Bang. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Leah Hustak, STScI.

Hubble Detects Ultraviolet Light from Tiny Starburst Galaxy in Early Universe

Jul 1, 2026 by News Staff

Just 1.4 billion years after the Big Bang, MXDFz4.4 — a galaxy 100 times smaller than the Milky Way — was blasting ionizing light through the...

This Webb image shows the edge-on spiral galaxy Messier 82. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Adam Smercina, STScI, Tufts / Thomas Williams, University of Manchester / Alyssa Pagan, STScI.

Webb Maps Millions of Stars in Messier 82

Jun 29, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has resolved roughly 16.5 million stars in the edge-on spiral galaxy Messier 82 (M82, NGC 3034 or the Cigar...

This photo of the Milky Way Galaxy’s center was taken on March 23, 2025 by ESA’s Euclid space telescope. Image credit: ESA / Euclid / Euclid Consortium / NASA / CFHT / J.-C. Cuillandre & E. Bertin, CEA Paris-Saclay.

Euclid Captures Most Detailed Visible-Light Image Ever Taken of Milky Way’s Core

Jun 26, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

ESA’s Euclid space telescope mapped more than 60 million stars in the Milky Way’s central bulge, producing the largest high-resolution visible-light...

This illustration depicts TOI-791b and TOI-791c planets and their parent star. Image credit: NASA / Daniel Rutter.

TESS Spots Puffiest Exoplanets Ever Found

Jun 25, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Two newly discovered exoplanets, TOI-791b and TOI-791c, are as large as Jupiter but have densities lower than cotton candy, giving astronomers a rare glimpse...

Hubble captured this image of 3I/ATLAS on July 21, 2025, when the comet was 446 million km (277 million miles) from Earth. Image credit: NASA / ESA / David Jewitt, UCLA / Joseph DePasquale, STScI.

Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Formed Up To 12 Billion Years Ago, New Observations Suggest

Jun 22, 2026 by News Staff

The interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS carries a chemical fingerprint unlike anything in our Solar System, and it may have formed 10 to 12 billion years ago,...

An artist’s impression of the hot-Jupiter exoplanet HD 80606b. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Joseph Olmsted, STScI.

Webb Sees Jupiter-Size Exoplanet Being Roasted by Its Star

Jun 22, 2026 by News Staff

HD 80606b has one of the most extreme orbits of any known exoplanet and the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope just caught it getting flash-fried...

This Webb/NIRCam image shows the star cluster Terzan 5. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Webb.

Astronomers Find Four Separate Generations of Stars in ‘Globular Cluster’ Terzan 5

Jun 17, 2026 by News Staff

A globular cluster typically has only one ancient star population. New data from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space...

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