Astrophysics News

June 25, 2025

Top Headlines

Mojave Lichen Defies Death Rays—could Life Thrive on Distant Exoplanets?

June 24, 2025 — Lichen from the Mojave Desert has stunned scientists by surviving months of lethal UVC radiation, suggesting life could exist on distant planets orbiting volatile stars. The secret? A microscopic “sunscreen” layer that protects their vital ...

AI Reveals Milky Way’s Black Hole Spins Near Top Speed

June 15, 2025 — AI has helped astronomers crack open some of the universe s best-kept secrets by analyzing massive datasets about black holes. Using over 12 million simulations powered by high-throughput computing, scientists discovered that the Milky Way's central ...

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

June 5, 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 ...

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 ...

Could 'Pausing' Cell Death Be the Final Frontier in Medicine on Earth and Beyond?

May 30, 2025 — The process of necrosis, a form of cell death, may represent one of the most promising ways to change the course of human aging, disease and even space travel, according to a new ...

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

May 29, 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 ...

'Raindrops in the Sun's Corona': New Adaptive Optics Shows Stunning Details of Our Star's Atmosphere

May 27, 2025 — Scientists have produced the finest images of the Sun's corona to date. To make these high-resolution images and movies, the team developed a new 'coronal adaptive optics' system that removes blur ...

Why Are Some Rocks on the Moon Highly Magnetic?

May 23, 2025 — Scientists may have solved the mystery of why the moon shows ancient signs of magnetism although it has no magnetic field today. An impact, such as from a large asteroid, could have generated a cloud of ionized particles that briefly enveloped the ...

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, ...

Latest Headlines

updated 12:24pm EDT

What the Universe Tried to Hide: The 21-Centimeter Signal Explained

June 22, 2025 — Scientists are peering into the universe's mysterious Cosmic Dawn using the faint whispers of hydrogen radio waves emitted over 13 billion years ago. These signals, particularly the elusive ...

Sharpest-Ever Solar View Shows Tiny Stripes Driving Big Space Storms

June 22, 2025 — A stunning breakthrough in solar physics reveals ultra-fine magnetic structures on the Sun's surface, thanks to the NSF's Inouye Solar Telescope. Researchers captured never-before-seen bright and ...

Massive Thread of Hot Gas Found Linking Galaxies — and It’s 10 Times the Mass of the Milky Way

June 19, 2025 — Astronomers have uncovered a colossal, searing-hot filament of gas linking four galaxy clusters in the Shapley Supercluster a discovery that could ...

A Thousand Colors, One Galaxy: Astronomers Reveal a Cosmic Masterpiece

June 18, 2025 — Astronomers have produced the most detailed map yet of the Sculptor Galaxy, revealing hundreds of previously unseen celestial features in stunning color and resolution. By combining over 50 hours of ...

Biggest Boom Since the Big Bang? Astronomers Record 25x Supernova Brightness

June 18, 2025 — Astronomers have identified a new kind of cosmic explosion extreme nuclear transients so powerful they outshine typical supernovae by orders of ...

Tiny Orange Beads Found by Apollo Astronauts Reveal Moon’s Explosive Past

June 16, 2025 — When Apollo astronauts stumbled across shimmering orange beads on the moon, they had no idea they were gazing at ancient relics of violent volcanic activity. These glass spheres, tiny yet ...

Magnetic Mayhem at the Sun’s Poles: First Images Reveal a Fiery Mystery

June 16, 2025 — For the first time in history, we re seeing the Sun from an angle no one ever has: from above and below its poles. Thanks to the European Space Agency s Solar Orbiter and its tilted orbit, scientists ...

Impossible Signal from Deep Beneath Antarctic Ice Baffles Physicists

June 16, 2025 — A cosmic particle detector in Antarctica has emitted a series of bizarre signals that defy the current understanding of particle physics, according to an international research group that includes ...

Galactic Mystery: Why Massive Stars Struggle to Form in the Milky Way's Center

June 15, 2025 — At the heart of our galaxy lies a cosmic puzzle: although the Galactic Center is packed with star-making material, massive stars form there ...

Why Giant Planets Might Form Faster Than We Thought

June 14, 2025 — Astronomers using ALMA have uncovered how gas and dust in planet-forming disks evolve separately an insight that reshapes our understanding of how different types of planets form. While dust lingers, ...

Webb Space Telescope Reveals Starburst Galaxies That Lit Up the Early Universe

June 13, 2025 — Data from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has revealed dozens of small galaxies that played a starring role in a cosmic makeover that transformed the early universe into the one we know ...

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 ...

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 scattered by the universe's very first stars ...

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, revealing nearly 800,000 galaxies stretching back ...

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 ...

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 ...

Gas Location Drives Star Formation in Distant Galaxies

May 20, 2025 — In the intriguing realm of star-forming galaxies, the key factor isn't the total amount of gas but rather its strategic distribution within the ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Stretched in a Cross Pattern: Our Neighboring Galaxy Is Pulled in Two Axes

May 15, 2025 — Researchers have discovered that Cepheid variable stars in our neighboring galaxy, the Small Magellanic Cloud, are moving in opposing directions along two distinct axes. They found that stars closer ...

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 ...

Astronomers Take a Second Look at Twin Star Systems

May 14, 2025 — Apples-to-apples comparisons in the distant universe are hard to come by. Whether the subject is dwarf galaxies, supermassive black holes, or 'hot Jupiters,' astronomers can spend months or ...

New Insights Into Black Hole Scattering and Gravitational Waves Unveiled

May 14, 2025 — A new study achieves unprecedented accuracy in modelling extreme cosmic events like black hole and neutron star collisions by calculating the fifth post-Minkowskian (5PM) order, crucial for ...