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This artist’s impression shows a field of Population III stars as they would have appeared a mere 100 million years after the Big Bang. Image credit: NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / J. da Silva / Spaceengine.

Rocky Planets May Have Started Forming Just 100 Million Years after Big Bang

Aug 12, 2026 by News Staff

New simulations suggest supernova explosions of the Universe’s first stars scattered the ingredients for rocky planets only 100 million years after the...

This image shows the Copeland Septet, a group of galaxies located in the constellation of Leo. Image credit: DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys / LBNL / DOE / KPNO / CTIO / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA.

5.6-Trillion-Pixel Map of Universe is Biggest Ever Made

Aug 11, 2026 by News Staff

Astronomers have released the largest-ever 2D map of our Universe, charting nearly 4 billion stars, galaxies and other objects across roughly 75% of the...

This Webb/NIRCam/MIRI image shows the Eskimo Nebula, a bipolar planetary nebula some 4,200 light-years away in the constellation of Gemini. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Webb / STScI / Alyssa Pagan, STScI.

Webb Captures Stunning Infrared View of Eskimo Nebula

Aug 10, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

New infrared observations of the Eskimo Nebula, a bipolar double-shell planetary nebula in the constellation of Gemini, reveal clumps of dust, ionized...

This Webb image shows the Treasure Chest, a cometary globule located within the famous Carina Nebula. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Webb / M. Reiter / M.H. Özsaraç.

Webb Finds Stellar ‘Treasure Chest’ in Carina Nebula

Aug 10, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

A stunning new image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope reveals a comet-shaped cloud in the Carina Nebula hiding a cluster of about 70 young...

The highest-resolution image of the Sun’s surface (photosphere) ever captured, taken at 416 nm by the Inouye Solar Telescope; it reveals deformed boundaries of magnetic elements and ultra-fine scale stripes, both associated with Kelvin-Helmholtz instability. Image credit: NSF / NSO / AURA / MPS.

Inouye Solar Telescope Discovers Hidden Plasma Vortices on Sun

Aug 7, 2026 by News Staff

Astronomers using the 4-m Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii have detected tiny plasma vortices on the Sun’s surface (photosphere) for the first...

This image of the Nysa system was captured on February 15, 2026. Image credit: Minker et al., arXiv: 2607.25786.

Astronomers Discover First-Ever Three-Lobed Asteroid

Aug 4, 2026 by News Staff

High-resolution images from ESO’s Very Large Telescope and the Large Binocular Telescope reveal that the E-type asteroid (44) Nysa may be unlike any...

According to NASA scientists, complex chemical compounds called tholins give Pluto a distinctive blue haze. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.

Pluto’s Thin Atmosphere May Be Starting to Shrink

Aug 4, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Pluto’s tenuous atmosphere appears to have begun contracting after years of holding steady, according to a new study published in the Planetary Science...

TDE 2025abcr. Image credit: Stein et al., doi: 10.3847/2041-8213/ae77f3.

Astronomers Spot Wandering Supermassive Black Hole Far From Its Galaxy’s Heart

Jul 29, 2026 by News Staff

Astronomers have discovered a dormant supermassive black hole 30,000 light-years from the center of WISEA J014656.04-152214.7 — a massive galaxy...

This VLT/SPHERE image shows the clearest image ever of what likely is Betelgeuse B. Image credit: ESO / Montargès et al.

Astronomers Directly Image Betelgeuse’s Long-Suspected Stellar Companion

Jul 28, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

After a century of speculation, astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) have captured the clearest evidence yet that the red supergiant Betelgeuse...

This Hubble image shows NGC 4654, an intermediate spiral galaxy some 55 million light-years away in the constellation of Virgo. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / D. Thilker / J. Lee / PHANGS-HST Team.

Hubble Spots Spiral Galaxy Warped by Cosmic Forces

Jul 27, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

A stunning new image captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows the lopsided intermediate spiral galaxy NGC 4654, whose unusual shape was sculpted...

This illustration shows the stellar system CD-35 2722, with the newly found exomoon at the center; the star has about half the mass of our Sun, and it is orbited by a brown dwarf, the reddish-brown object seen here in the foreground (right). Image credit: ESO / M. Kornmesser.

Planetary-Mass Exomoon Found Circling Brown Dwarf

Jul 26, 2026 by Natali Anderson

Astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) have discovered a gas giant around a brown dwarf in the stellar system CD-35 2722. The discovery blurs...

Using supercomputer simulations of galaxies like the Milky Way, Batrakov et al. found that galaxies with slowly rotating stellar haloes are more likely to have experienced a major ‘disk flip,’ where our Galaxy’s disk changed its orientation by more than 90 degrees. Image credit: Batrakov et al.

Our Milky Way Galaxy Likely Underwent Disk Flip after Ancient Galactic Collision: Study

Jul 22, 2026 by News Staff

A head-on collision with another galaxy billions of years ago may have dramatically reoriented the Milky Way’s disk, according to new supercomputer simulations...

This artist’s concept depicts a near-Earth asteroid with an elongated orbit; a few objects such as these can exhibit significant perturbations in their motion around the Sun and, like 1998 SH2, could turn out to be regular comets with a weak tail and coma. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Puzzling Near-Earth Asteroid Turns Out to Be Comet with Weak Tail

Jul 21, 2026 by News Staff

The near-Earth object (875163) 1998 SH2, which is currently classified as an asteroid, has revealed a hidden identity: it’s actually a comet in disguise,...

Whitaker et al. found Omega Centauri’s first stellar-mass black hole, which has a visible star companion that is shown in greater detail. Image credit: ESA / NASA / Maximilian Häberle, MPIA / Joseph DePasquale, STScI.

Astronomers Find Omega Centauri’s First Stellar-Mass Black Hole

Jul 20, 2026 by News Staff

After decades of searching, astronomers have pinpointed the first of an estimated 10,000 stellar-mass black holes thought to lurk in Omega Centauri, the...

An artist’s concept of rocky planets LHS 1140b and LHS 1140c. Image credit: Melissa Weiss / Harvard & Smithsonian’s Center for Astrophysics.

Potential Atmosphere Detected on Habitable-Zone Exoplanet LHS 1140b

Jul 16, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Using spectral data from the Magellan Clay telescope at Las Campanas Observatory, astronomers detected helium escaping from LHS 1140b, a rocky exoplanet...

An artist’s illustration of exoplanets orbiting Barnard’s star. Image credit: International Gemini Observatory / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / P. Marenfeld.

Barnard’s Star Planetary System May Be Filled with Water-Poor Rocky Worlds

Jul 16, 2026 by News Staff

A new analysis suggests the four sub-Earth exoplanets orbiting Barnard’s star — the Sun’s nearest single-star neighbor — are likely packed...

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

Astronomers Detect Gamma-Ray Burst’s Magnetic Fingerprint

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,...

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...