Astronomy News

Astronomers Find Elusive Cloud-Forming Chemical on 10-Billion-Year-Old Brown Dwarf

This artist’s illustration shows a brown dwarf that hosts an atmosphere filled with gas and dust clouds. Image credit: NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / R. Proctor.
Sep 9, 2025 by News Staff

Using data gathered by NSF’s Gemini South telescope and the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have detected signatures of methane (CH4), water (H2O) and silane (SiH4) gas on the cold brown dwarf WISEA J153429.75-104303.3 (W1534 for short). Although silane is expected to serve as a key reservoir for the cloud-forming element silicon in gas giant worlds, it has remained undetected until now because it is removed from observable...

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Protopapa et al. used Webb observations (white) to detect methane gas on Makemake; sharp emission peaks near 3.3 microns reveal methane in the gas phase above Makemake’s surface; a continuum model (cyan) is overlaid for comparison; the gas emission peaks are identified where the observed spectrum rises above the continuum. Image credit: S. Protopapa / I. Wong / SwRI / STScI / NASA / ESA / CSA / Webb.

Webb Detects Methane Gas on Dwarf Planet Makemake

Sep 9, 2025 by News Staff

Using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have found evidence for gaseous methane on the distant dwarf planet Makemake. Reported in...

The Earth-size exoplanet TRAPPIST-1e, depicted at the lower right, is silhouetted as it passes in front of its flaring host star in this artist’s concept of the TRAPPIST-1 system. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI / Joseph Olmsted, STScI.

Webb Searches for Atmosphere on Habitable-Zone Exoplanet TRAPPIST-1e

Sep 9, 2025 by News Staff

Astronomers are working their way through the TRAPPIST-1 system with the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, demonstrating its unprecedented ability...

This Hubble image shows the star cluster N11. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / C. Murray / J. Maíz Apellániz.

Hubble Finds Cloudy Star Cluster in Large Magellanic Cloud

Sep 8, 2025 by Enrico de Lazaro

A striking new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows a star cluster called N11, which is part of the Large Magellanic Cloud. This Hubble...

This image of 3I/ATLAS was taken by the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) on the Gemini South telescope on August 27, 2025. Image credit: International Gemini Observatory / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / Shadow the Scientist / J. Miller Array / M. Rodriguez, International Gemini Observatory & NSF’s NOIRLab / T.A. Rector, University of Alaska Anchorage & NSF’s NOIRLab / M. Zamani, NSF’s NOIRLab.

Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Displays Broad Coma and Growing Tail

Sep 4, 2025 by News Staff

Using the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS) on the Gemini South telescope at NSF’s International Gemini Observatory in the Chilean Andes, astronomers...

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.

Planetary Scientists Propose Mission to Explore Next Interstellar Comets

Sep 4, 2025 by News Staff

Planetary researchers at Southwest Research Institute has completed a study detailing how a proposed spacecraft could fly by an interstellar comet, providing...

This Webb image shows Pismis 24, a young star cluster some 5,500 light-years in the constellation of Scorpius. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI / A. Pagan, STScI.

Webb Spots Cluster of Young Massive Stars in Lobster Nebula

Sep 4, 2025 by News Staff

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have taken a beautiful new image of the star cluster Pismis 24, which resides in the core...

This Hubble image shows NGC 7456, a spiral galaxy located 51 million light-years away in the constellation of Grus. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / D. Thilker.

Hubble Observes Active Spiral Galaxy: NGC 7456

Sep 1, 2025 by Enrico de Lazaro

Using the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) instrument aboard the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have captured a stunning new image of the spiral...

Hubble and Webb/ALMA images of the Butterfly Nebula. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Webb / Hubble / ALMA / Matsuura et al., doi: 10.1093/mnras/staf1194.

Webb Spots Torus of Cosmic Dust and Organics in Butterfly Nebula

Aug 29, 2025 by News Staff

With the help of the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have made a big leap forward in the understanding of how the raw material of...

This image, taken with ESO’s Very Large Telescope, is the first clear detection of a protoplanet in a disk with multiple rings. Image credit: ESO / van Capelleveen et al.

Astronomers Spot Growing Protoplanet in Disk Gap around Young Solar Analog

Aug 27, 2025 by Natali Anderson

Using the SPHERE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), astronomers have directly imaged a 4.9-Jupiter-mass protoplanet in a cleared gap of...

This image of the asteroid Ryugu was captured by the Optical Navigation Camera - Telescopic (ONC-T) on JAXA’s Hayabusa-2 spacecraft on June 26, 2018, from a distance of 13.7 miles (22 km). Image credit: JAXA / University of Tokyo / Kochi University / Rikkyo University / Nagoya University / Chiba Institute of Technology / Meiji University / Aizu University / AIST.

Asteroids Bennu and Ryugu are Part of Polana Collisional Family, Webb Observations Suggest

Aug 26, 2025 by News Staff

The new Polana collisional family in the Solar System’s main asteroid belt is the hypothesized origin of the near-Earth asteroids (101955) Bennu, which...

A high-resolution image of the flare from the Inouye Solar Telescope, taken on August 8, 2024, at 20:12 UT. The image is about 4 Earth-diameters on each side. Labels of the different relevant regions of the image are added for clarity: flare ribbons (bright areas of energy release in the dense lower solar atmosphere) and an arcade of coronal loops (arcs of plasma outlining magnetic field lines that transport energy from the corona to the flare ribbons). Image credit: NSF / NSO / AURA.

Inouye Solar Telescope Sees Unprecedented Fine Details in Coronal Flare Loops

Aug 25, 2025 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Visible Broadband Imager at NSF’s Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope captured dark coronal loop strands with unprecedented clarity...

This Hubble image shows Messier 96, a spiral galaxy some 34 million light-years away in the constellation of Leo. Image credit: NASA / ESA /Hubble / F. Belfiore / D. Calzetti.

Hubble Space Telescope Revisits Messier 96

Aug 25, 2025 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have produced a spectacularly detailed image of the asymmetric spiral galaxy Messier 96. This Hubble...

An infrared Webb image of the galaxy NGC 4141 containing the fast radio burst FRB 20250316A. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / CfA / Blanchard et al. / P. Edmonds.

Astronomers Discover One of Brightest Fast Radio Bursts Ever Detected

Aug 22, 2025 by News Staff

Labeled FRB 20250316A and nicknamed RBFLOAT (Radio Brightest FLash Of All Time), the event occurred in the outer regions of the nearby spiral galaxy NGC...

Ramiro Saide et al. explored how hidden electromagnetic leakage might look to extraterrestrials up to 200 light-years from Earth, if they had state-of-the-art radio telescopes like our own. Image credit: Gemini AI.

Astronomers Explore How to Improve Our Search for Alien Technosignatures

Aug 21, 2025 by News Staff

In a new study, a team of astronomers from Penn State and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory analyzed when and where human deep space transmissions would...

This Webb/ NIRCam image shows S/2025 U1 as well as 13 of the 28 other known moons orbiting Uranus. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI / M. El Moutamid, SwRI / M. Hedman, University of Idaho.

Webb Discovers New Moon around Uranus

Aug 19, 2025 by News Staff

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have detected a previously unknown tiny moon — provisionally designated S/2025 U 1...

An artist’s impression of the UPM J1040-3551 system against the backdrop of the Milky Way as observed by ESA’s Gaia satellite; on the left, UPM J1040-3551 Aa & Ab appears as a distant bright orange dot, with an inset revealing these two M-type stars in orbit; on the right, in the foreground, a pair of cold brown dwarfs -- UPM J1040-3551 Ba & Bb -- orbit each other for a period of decades while collectively circling UPM J1040-3551 Aab in a vast orbit that takes over 100,000 years to complete. Image credit: Jiaxin Zhong / Zenghua Zhang.

Astronomers Discover Extremely Rare Hierarchical Quadruple System

Aug 19, 2025 by News Staff

Named UPM J1040-3551 AabBab, the newly-discovered quadruple star system consists of a pair of cold brown dwarfs and a pair of young red dwarfs. An artist’s...

This Hubble image shows NGC 2835, a spiral galaxy some 35 million light-years away in the constellation of Hydra. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / R. Chandar / J. Lee / PHANGS-HST Team.

Hubble Space Telescope Captures New Image of NGC 2835

Aug 18, 2025 by Enrico de Lazaro

NASA has released a new image snapped by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope of the nearby spiral galaxy NGC 2835. This Hubble image shows NGC 2835, a...

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.

Supermassive Black Holes are Remnants of Universe’s Very First Stars, New Theory Says

Aug 15, 2025 by News Staff

In his new paper, Professor Jonathan Tan, an astrophysicist at the University of Virginia and the Chalmers University of Technology, proposes that Population...

This artist’s concept depicts TRAPPIST-1d passing in front of its turbulent star, with other members of the closely packed system shown in the background. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Joseph Olmsted, STScI.

Could Exoplanets around TRAPPIST-1 and Other Red Dwarfs Be Habitable?

Aug 13, 2025 by News Staff

A protective atmosphere, a friendly Sun, and lots of liquid water — Earth is a special place. Using the unprecedented capabilities of the NASA/ESA/CSA...

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