Astronomy News

August 26, 2025

Top Headlines

A Star Torn Apart by a Black Hole Lit Up the Universe Twice

Aug. 22, 2025 — Astronomers using AI have captured a once-in-a-lifetime cosmic event: a massive star’s violent death triggered by its black hole companion. The explosion, known as SN 2023zkd, not only produced a brilliant supernova but also shocked scientists by ...

A Record-breaking Antenna Just Deployed in Space. Here’s What It Will See

Aug. 18, 2025 — NASA and ISRO s NISAR satellite has just reached a major milestone: the successful deployment of its enormous 39-foot antenna reflector in orbit. Folded up like an umbrella during launch, the reflector is now fully extended and ready to support ...

NASA’s PREFIRE Satellites Reveal a Secret Glow Escaping from Our Planet

Aug. 18, 2025 — With its two tiny CubeSats, NASA’s PREFIRE mission is capturing invisible heat escaping from Earth, offering clues to how ice, clouds, and storms influence the climate system. The insights could lead to better weather forecasts and a deeper ...

NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover Just Learned How to Multitask

Aug. 14, 2025 — Thirteen years after landing on Mars, NASA’s Curiosity rover is running smarter and more efficiently than ever. With new autonomy and multitasking capabilities, it’s maximizing the output from its long-lasting nuclear power source while ...

Trapped by Moon Dust: The Physics Error That Fooled NASA for Years

July 27, 2025 — Engineers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison uncovered a critical flaw in how lunar and Martian rovers are tested on Earth. Simulations revealed that test results have been misleading for decades because researchers only adjusted rover weight to ...

UF Students Are Bending Metal with Lasers to Build Massive Structures in Orbit

July 2, 2025 — UF engineers, backed by DARPA and NASA, are perfecting laser-forming techniques that let metal sheets fold themselves into giant solar arrays, antennas, and even space-station parts right in ...

World’s Largest Camera Just Snapped the Universe in 3,200 Megapixels

June 27, 2025 — The LSST camera at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory has released its jaw-dropping first images, each capturing 45 times the area of the full moon in one shot. Over the next ten years, this cosmic giant will scan the southern sky in ultra-HD, helping ...

Martian Dust to Dream Homes: How Microbes Can Build on the Red Planet

June 25, 2025 — Imagine printing your Martian home from dust, sunlight, and a bit of biology. A new synthetic lichen system uses fungi and bacteria to grow building materials directly from Martian soil, completely autonomously and without human ...

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 ...

Latest Headlines

updated 12:14pm EDT

How Did a Planet This Big Form Around a Star This Small?

Aug. 26, 2025 — Astronomers have discovered a giant Saturn-sized planet orbiting TOI-6894, the smallest star ever known to host such a world. The finding overturns long-held theories suggesting that tiny, low-mass ...

Stunning New Images: The Sun’s Smallest Loops Ever Seen

Aug. 26, 2025 — Astronomers using the Inouye Solar Telescope have captured the sharpest-ever images of a solar flare, revealing coronal loops as thin as 21 km wide. These threadlike plasma structures, imaged during ...

Jupiter’s Core Isn’t What We Thought

Aug. 24, 2025 — For years, scientists thought Jupiter’s strange interior was the result of a massive collision in its youth. But new research suggests that the planet’s diffuse, “fuzzy” core wasn’t born ...

Strange Ripples Frozen in Mars’ Sands Could Hold Keys to Human Survival

Aug. 24, 2025 — Perseverance is exploring Mars’ sandy ripples, strange frozen waves that could reveal how wind still shapes the planet. Along the way it uncovered unusual helmet-shaped rocks, sparking new ...

Closest and Brightest Fast Radio Burst Ever Detected by Astronomers

Aug. 24, 2025 — Astronomers have detected the closest and brightest fast radio burst ever recorded, a dazzling signal from a galaxy just 130 million light-years away. The extraordinary flash, nicknamed RBFLOAT, ...

These Asteroids Share a Strange Fingerprint from Billions of Years Ago

Aug. 23, 2025 — Scientists studying asteroids found that two seemingly unrelated types share a strange dusty coating of troilite. By using polarization of light instead of traditional spectra, they uncovered ...

Are We Accidentally Broadcasting Our Location to Alien Civilizations?

Aug. 23, 2025 — Earth may already be broadcasting its presence to alien civilizations without realizing it. A new study shows that our deep-space transmissions, especially those aimed at Mars and interplanetary ...

Mysterious “little Red Dots” Could Reveal How the First Black Holes Formed

Aug. 22, 2025 — Astronomers may have uncovered the origins of the mysterious “little red dots,” some of the strangest galaxies seen in the early universe. These ...

What Came Before the Big Bang? Supercomputers May Hold the Answer

Aug. 22, 2025 — Scientists are rethinking the universe’s deepest mysteries using numerical relativity, complex computer simulations of Einstein’s equations in extreme conditions. This method could help explore ...

Astronomers Uncover Enormous Bubble Bigger Than Our Solar System

Aug. 21, 2025 — A giant bubble of gas and dust surrounds the red supergiant DFK 52, likely created in a powerful outburst 4,000 years ago. Astronomers are baffled at how the star survived without going supernova, ...

Astronomers Stunned by the Strangest Supernova Ever Seen

Aug. 21, 2025 — Scientists have identified a never-before-seen supernova, SN2021yfj, which exploded after losing nearly all of its outer layers. Instead of light elements, it revealed silicon and sulfur from deep ...

How Hidden Cosmic Highways Feed the Universe’s Biggest Stars

Aug. 21, 2025 — Massive stars have always puzzled scientists—how do they grow so quickly despite fierce radiation pushing material away? New high-resolution ALMA observations suggest that instead of relying solely ...

Voyager Missed It, but James Webb Just Found Uranus’ Hidden Moon

Aug. 21, 2025 — Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have uncovered a tiny new moon orbiting Uranus, increasing the planet’s moon tally to 29. The object, only about six miles wide, escaped Voyager ...

Ancient Solar System Crash May Explain Bennu and Ryugu’s Origin

Aug. 21, 2025 — Scientists from the Southwest Research Institute have found strong evidence that near-Earth asteroids Bennu and Ryugu share a common origin with Polana, a much larger asteroid in the main belt. By ...

After 70 Years, the Sun’s Explosive Mystery Is Finally Solved

Aug. 20, 2025 — NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has directly observed magnetic reconnection in the Sun’s atmosphere for the first time, confirming decades-old theories about solar explosions. This discovery bridges ...

Hubble Spots a Nearly Invisible Galaxy Hiding in Plain Sight

Aug. 15, 2025 — Hubble has captured the faint beauty of NGC 45, a spiral galaxy in Cetus whose glowing pink star-forming clouds reveal hidden activity. It belongs to the rare class of low surface brightness ...

The Disappearing Planet Next Door Has Astronomers Intrigued

Aug. 14, 2025 — NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has detected strong evidence for a giant planet orbiting Alpha Centauri A, the nearest Sun-like star to Earth. Located just 4 light-years away, this possible ...

Strange Spotted Rock on Mars Could Reveal Signs of Ancient Life

Aug. 15, 2025 — A curious red Martian rock nicknamed Sapphire Canyon has scientists excited, as its spotted appearance hints at possible organic origins. On Earth, researchers tested a powerful laser technique, ...

Hubble Captures a Wild Star-Birthing Storm 160,000 Light-Years Away

Aug. 11, 2025 — Hubble’s latest portrait of the Tarantula Nebula reveals a turbulent star-making region far beyond the Milky Way. Located 160,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud, this cosmic expanse ...

How NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer Was Lost Before Reaching the Moon

Aug. 11, 2025 — NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer, a mission designed to create high-resolution maps of water on the Moon, ended after losing contact with the spacecraft just one day after its February 26 launch. Despite ...

This Tiny Spacecraft Could Race to a Black Hole and Rewrite Physics

Aug. 10, 2025 — A visionary plan proposes sending a paperclip-sized spacecraft, powered by Earth-based lasers, to a nearby black hole within a century. Led by astrophysicist Cosimo Bambi, the mission would test the ...

Giant Einstein Ring Reveals One of the Universe’s Biggest Black Holes

Aug. 10, 2025 — Astronomers have uncovered what may be the most massive black hole ever found, 36 billion times the mass of our Sun, hidden at the heart of the Cosmic Horseshoe galaxy. Located 5 billion light-years ...

Hubble Just Exposed a Rare and Violent Star Collision

Aug. 7, 2025 — Hubble has helped uncover a white dwarf that’s likely the result of two stars crashing together. Carbon traces in its atmosphere tell a story of a cosmic merger, a rare phenomenon previously ...

‘Bridge’ of Stray Stars Reveals Two Massive Galaxies Tearing Each Other Apart

Aug. 6, 2025 — Astronomers have discovered a ghostly, million-light-year-long bridge of stars connecting two massive galaxies within the Abell 3667 cluster, 700 million light-years away. This glowing thread of ...

This Star Survived Its Own Supernova and Shined Even Brighter

Aug. 4, 2025 — In a spectacular image captured by the Hubble Space Telescope, the spiral galaxy NGC 1309 glows with cosmic elegance and hides a strange ...

NASA’s Most Advanced Radar Ever Will Track Earthquakes, Landslides, and Ice Loss from Space

Aug. 4, 2025 — NASA and ISRO have launched NISAR, a groundbreaking radar satellite that will monitor natural disasters and environmental changes across Earth. It can scan land and ice surfaces every 12 days, ...

Voyager Missed It, but Now We Know Uranus Has a Fiery Secret

Aug. 13, 2025 — For decades, scientists puzzled over why Uranus seemed colder than expected. Now, an international research team led by the University of Houston has solved the mystery: Uranus emits more heat than ...

What If Dark Matter Came from a Mirror Universe?

Aug. 13, 2025 — UC Santa Cruz physicist Stefano Profumo has put forward two imaginative but scientifically grounded theories that may help solve one of the biggest mysteries in physics: the origin of dark matter. In ...

Black Holes Don’t Just Swallow Light, They Sing. And We Just Learned the Tune

Aug. 1, 2025 — Using a powerful mathematical tool, scientists have unveiled the intricate "ringing" of black holes, unlocking patterns missed for decades and laying the groundwork for sharper ...

Radar That Could Find Life on Europa Just Nailed Its First Big Test

Aug. 3, 2025 — NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft just aced a key radar test while flying past Mars, proving its ability to detect structures beneath planetary surfaces—something that couldn’t be tested on ...