Stars News

June 25, 2025

Top Headlines

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 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 ...

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 another galaxy, or have been tossed out of the core ...

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 ...

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 (a 1 with 78 zeros) to perish. That is much ...

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

Apr. 29, 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 look ...

Scientists Discover How Stellar-Mass Black Holes Emit Powerful Plasma Jets

Apr. 21, 2025 — Scientists have discovered key conditions needed for a stellar black hole to create plasma jets. Their findings show that when superheated gas material experiences a rapid shrinkage towards the black hole, jet formation ...

Ever Wonder Why Some Meteor Showers Are So Unpredictable?

Apr. 16, 2025 — Why do comets and their meteoroid streams weave in and out of Earth's orbit and their orbits disperse over time? Researchers show that this is not due to the random pull of the planets, but rather the kick they receive from a moving ...

'Big Surprise': Astronomers Find Planet in Perpendicular Orbit Around Pair of Stars

Apr. 16, 2025 — Astronomers have found a planet that orbits at an angle of 90 degrees around a rare pair of peculiar stars. This is the first time we have strong evidence for one of these 'polar planets' orbiting a ...

Our Closest Neighboring Galaxy May Be Being Torn Apart

Apr. 14, 2025 — A team has revealed new insights into the motion of massive stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), a small galaxy neighboring the Milky Way. Their findings suggest that the gravitational pull of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), the SMC's larger ...

Astronomers Discover Doomed Pair of Spiralling Stars on Our Cosmic Doorstep

Apr. 4, 2025 — Astronomers have discovered an extremely rare, high mass, compact binary star system only ~150 light years away. These two stars are on a collision course to explode as a type 1a supernova, appearing 10 times brighter than the ...

Sound Frequencies of Stars Sing of Our Galaxy's Past and Future

Apr. 3, 2025 — Researchers interrogated the 'sounds' of a cluster of stars within the Milky Way, uncovering a new technique for astrophysicists to probe the universe and learn more about its ...

Latest Headlines

updated 12:23pm EDT

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 ...

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, ...

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 ...

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 ...

Galaxies Die Earlier Than Expected

Apr. 2, 2025 — For a long time, scientists thought that only actively star-forming galaxies should be observed in the very early Universe. The James Webb space telescope now reveals that galaxies stopped forming ...

Insight from One of Milky Way's Most Extreme Environments

Apr. 2, 2025 — In new images, scientists have gotten the closest look yet at Sagittarius C -- a 'stellar nursery' where clouds of gas and dust have collapsed to form thousands of new ...

Webb Telescope Captures Its First Direct Images of Carbon Dioxide Outside Solar System

Mar. 17, 2025 — The James Webb Space Telescope has captured its first direct images of carbon dioxide in a planet outside the solar system in HR 8799, a multiplanet ...

Small, Faint and 'Unexpected in a Lot of Different Ways': Astronomers Make Galactic Discovery

Mar. 13, 2025 — The discovery of the dwarf galaxy Andromeda XXXV --located roughly 3 million light-years away and the smallest yet found in the Andromeda system -- ...

Entwined Dwarf Stars Reveal Their Location Thanks to Repeated Radio Bursts

Mar. 13, 2025 — A white dwarf and a red dwarf star have been discovered closely orbiting each other emitting radio pulses every two hours. Their findings means we know it isn't just neutron stars that emit such ...

Black Holes: Not Endings, but Beginnings? New Research Could Revolutionize Our Understanding of the Universe

Mar. 12, 2025 — New research suggests black holes may transition into 'white holes', ejecting matter and potentially even time back into the universe, defying our current understanding of these cosmic ...

Astronomer Finds Gas Giant Exoplanets Formed Earlier Than Previously Thought

Mar. 5, 2025 — A fresh look at past data reveals that exoplanets with masses similar to Jupiter formed much sooner than previously thought, according to new ...

Ultra-Hot Nova Observed Erupting: Surprising Chemical Signature

Mar. 5, 2025 — Astronomers have for the first time observed a recurring nova outside of the Milky Way in near-infrared light. The data revealed highly unusual chemical emissions as well as one of the hottest ...

NASA's Hubble Provides Bird's-Eye View of Andromeda Galaxy's Ecosystem

Feb. 27, 2025 — Located 2.5 million light-years away, the majestic Andromeda galaxy appears to the naked eye as a faint, spindle-shaped object roughly the angular size of the full Moon. What backyard observers ...

In Ancient Stellar Nurseries, Some Stars Are Born of Fluffy Clouds

Feb. 20, 2025 — Researchers have found that stars in the early universe may have formed from 'fluffy' molecular clouds. Using the ALMA telescope to observe the Small Magellanic Cloud -- whose environment ...

300 New Intermediate-Mass Black Holes Plus 2500 New Active Black Holes in Dwarf Galaxies Discovered

Feb. 19, 2025 — Within the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument's early data, scientists have uncovered the largest samples ever of intermediate-mass black holes and dwarf galaxies hosting an active black hole, ...

Einstein Probe Catches X-Ray Odd Couple

Feb. 18, 2025 — Lobster-eye satellite Einstein Probe captured the X-ray flash from a very elusive celestial pair. The discovery opens a new way to explore how massive stars interact and evolve, confirming the unique ...

Astronomers Gauge Livability of Exoplanets Orbiting White Dwarf Stars

Feb. 13, 2025 — Astronomers used a 3D global computer model to compare the climates of exoplanets in different stellar and orbital configurations. They found that a planet orbiting a white dwarf star would offer a ...

Phoenix Galaxy Cluster in the Act of Extreme Cooling

Feb. 13, 2025 — New findings explain the Phoenix cluster's mysterious starburst. Data confirm the cluster is actively cooling and able to generate a huge amount of stellar fuel on its ...

Temperamental Stars Are Distorting Our View of Distant Planets

Feb. 7, 2025 — 'Temperamental' stars that brighten and dim over a matter of hours or days may be distorting our view of thousands of distant planets, suggests a new ...

Wobbling Stars Reveal Hidden Companions in Gaia Data

Feb. 4, 2025 — Using data from the European Space Agency's Gaia mission, scientists have found a huge exoplanet and a brown dwarf. This is the first time a planet has been uniquely discovered by Gaia's ...

New Measurements of Solar Radiative Opacity Thanks to Helioseismology

Jan. 27, 2025 — Researchers have pioneered an innovative method using helioseismology to measure the solar radiative opacity under extreme conditions. This groundbreaking work not only reveals gaps in our ...

Astronomers Thought They Understood Fast Radio Bursts: A Recent One Calls That Into Question

Jan. 21, 2025 — Fast radio bursts are mysterious and brief flashes of radio emissions that were thought to be produced by magnetars, highly magnetized rotating neutron stars. Yet magnetars appear primarily in young ...

First Fast Radio Burst Traced to Old, Dead, Elliptical Galaxy

Jan. 21, 2025 — Astronomers previously thought all FRBs were generated by magnetars formed through the explosions of very young, massive stars. But new FRB is pinpointed to the outskirts of 11.3-billion-year-old ...

Large and Small Galaxies May Grow in Ways More Similar Than Expected

Jan. 16, 2025 — Galaxies like the Milky Way grow by merging with smaller galaxies over billions of years, unlike dwarf galaxies, which have long been thought to lack the heft to attract mass and grow in the same ...

Astronomers Observe Real-Time Formation of Black Hole Jets for the First Time

Jan. 16, 2025 — In 2018, a galaxy about 270 million light-years away from Earth exhibited a major increase in activity. It quieted down again by 2020 -- only to dramatically increase its output again in 2023. At ...

Not All Hot Jupiters Orbit Solo

Jan. 15, 2025 — Hot Jupiters are giant planets initially known to orbit alone close to their star. During their migration towards their star, these planets were thought to accrete or eject any other planets present. ...

Three Tiny 'Stellar-Ghost-Town' Galaxies Discovered

Jan. 15, 2025 — By combining data from the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys and the Gemini South telescope, astronomers have investigated three ultra-faint dwarf galaxies that reside in a region of space isolated from ...

NASA's Hubble Tracks Down a 'Blue Lurker' Among Stars

Jan. 13, 2025 — The name 'blue lurker' might sound like a villainous character from a superhero movie. But it is a rare class of star that NASA's Hubble Space Telescope explored by looking deeply into ...

X-Ray Flashes from a Nearby Supermassive Black Hole Accelerate Mysteriously

Jan. 13, 2025 — Astronomers observed flashes of X-rays coming from a supermassive black hole at a steadily increasing clip. The source could be the core of a dead star that's teetering at the black hole's ...