Astrophysics News

December 20, 2024

Top Headlines

Clever Trick to Cook Stars Like Christmas Pudding Detected for First Time

Dec. 19, 2024 — Researchers have found evidence of magnetic fields associated with a disc of gas and dust a few hundred light-years across deep inside a system of two merging galaxies known as Arp220. They say these regions could be the key to making the centres of ...

Dark Energy 'Doesn't Exist' So Can't Be Pushing 'Lumpy' Universe Apart

Dec. 20, 2024 — One of the biggest mysteries in science -- dark energy -- doesn't actually exist, according to researchers looking to solve the riddle of how the Universe is expanding. For the past 100 years, physicists have generally assumed that the cosmos is ...

Uncovering a Centaur's Tracks: Scientists Examine Unique Asteroid-Comet Hybrid

Dec. 18, 2024 — Scientists recently led a team that found, for the first time, that Chiron has surface chemistry unlike other centaurs. Its surface it has both carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide ice along with ...

Young Exoplanet's Atmosphere Unexpectedly Differs from Its Birthplace

Dec. 18, 2024 — Conventional wisdom assumes the ratio of gases in a planet's atmosphere should match the ratio of gases in the natal disk that birthed it. For the first time, researchers compared gases in a still-forming planet's atmosphere to its natal disk. The ...

Latest Headlines

updated 11:04pm EST

Supermassive Black Holes Halt Rapid Construction in an Ancient Celestial City

Dec. 18, 2024 — Galaxy clusters -- the big cities of the universe -- are home to many giant elliptical galaxies that have completed their growth and are not forming ...

Survey of 26,000 Dead Stars Confirms Key Details of Extreme Stellar Behavior

Dec. 18, 2024 — A study of more than 26,000 white dwarf stars has confirmed a long-predicted but elusive effect in these ultra-dense, dying stars: Hotter white ...

Massive Black Hole in the Early Universe Spotted Taking a 'Nap' After Overeating

Dec. 18, 2024 — Scientists have spotted a massive black hole in the early universe that is 'napping' after stuffing itself with too much food. Like a bear gorging ...

Event Horizon Telescope: Moving Towards a Close-Up of a Black Hole and Its Jets

Dec. 17, 2024 — After taking the first images of black holes, the groundbreaking Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is poised to reveal how black holes launch powerful ...

Binary Star Found Near Our Galaxy's Supermassive Black Hole

Dec. 17, 2024 — An international team of researchers has detected a binary star orbiting close to Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy. It is the first time a stellar pair has been ...

Does the Exoplanet Trappist-1 B Have an Atmosphere After All?

Dec. 16, 2024 — Recent measurements with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) cast doubt on the current understanding of the exoplanet Trappist-1 b's nature. Until now, it was assumed to be a dark rocky planet ...

Astrophysicists Capture Astonishing Images of Gamma-Ray Flare from Supermassive Black Hole M87

Dec. 13, 2024 — The galaxy M87, located in the Virgo constellation, provided the first-ever photo of a black hole in 2019, when the Event Horizon Telescope captured ...

A New Galaxy, Much Like Our Own

Dec. 11, 2024 — Stunning new photographs by a team of astronomers have revealed a newly forming galaxy that looks remarkably similar to a young Milky Way. The extraordinary images give us an unprecedented picture of ...

A New Discovery About the Source of the Vast Energy in Cosmic Rays

Dec. 10, 2024 — New research suggests that these ultra-high energy rays derive their energy from magnetic ...

NASA's Hubble Celebrates Decade of Tracking Outer Planets

Dec. 9, 2024 — A NASA Hubble Space Telescope observation program called OPAL (Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy) obtains long-term baseline observations of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune in order to understand ...

Black Hole Debate Settled? Stellar-Mass Black Holes Found at the Heart of the Milky Way's Largest Star Cluster

Dec. 9, 2024 — Could a decades-long debate about the mysterious movements of stars in Omega Centauri, the largest star cluster in the Milky Way, finally be ...

Universe Expansion Study Confirms Challenge to Cosmic Theory

Dec. 9, 2024 — New observations from the James Webb Space Telescope suggest that a new feature in the universe -- not a flaw in telescope measurements -- may be behind the decade-long mystery of why the universe is ...

Particle Research Gets Closer to Answering Why We're Here

Dec. 5, 2024 — Physicists have outlined the next 10 years of global research into the behavior of neutrinos, particles so tiny that they pass through virtually everything by the trillions every second at nearly the ...

Astronomers Witness the in Situ Spheroid Formation in Distant Submillimetre-Bright Galaxies

Dec. 5, 2024 — Researchers have used the ALMA telescope and found old elliptical galaxies in the universe can form from intense star formation within early galaxy ...

Astronomers Close to Solving Mystery of How Universe's Giant Galaxies Formed

Dec. 4, 2024 — Astrophysicists find the birth sites of gigantic elliptical galaxies which they say gives new clues about how they were formed. The galaxies look like bulging footballs and how they were created ...

New Planet in Kepler-51 System Discovered Using James Webb Space Telescope

Dec. 3, 2024 — An unusual planetary system with three known ultra-low density 'super-puff' planets has at least one more planet, according to new ...

Evidence of Primordial Black Holes May Be Hiding in Planets, or Even Everyday Objects Here on Earth

Dec. 2, 2024 — A theoretical study suggests that small black holes born in the early universe may have left behind hollow planetoids and microscopic tunnels, and that we should start looking within rocks and old ...

Researchers Deal a Blow to Theory That Venus Once Had Liquid Water on Its Surface

Dec. 2, 2024 — A team of astronomers has found that Venus has never been habitable, despite decades of speculation that our closest planetary neighbor was once much more like Earth than it is ...

Team Unlocks New Insights on Pulsar Signals

Nov. 26, 2024 — Results showed that in almost all cases, measured bandwidths were higher than predictions by widely used models of the galaxy, highlighting a need for updates to current ISM density ...

Astronomers May Have Discovered the Answer to a Mysterious Stellar Event

Nov. 26, 2024 — Researchers have made a record-breaking astrophysical discovery while simultaneously uncovering a possible explanation for the rare and extreme astrophysical event known as long-period radio ...

Magnetic Tornado Is Stirring Up the Haze at Jupiter's Poles

Nov. 26, 2024 — Dark ovals in Jupiter's polar haze, visible only at UV wavelengths, were first noticed 25 years ago, then ignored. A new study shows that these dark UV ovals are common, appearing at the south ...

A Clue to What Lies Beneath the Bland Surfaces of Uranus and Neptune

Nov. 25, 2024 — When Voyager 2 flew by Uranus and Neptune 40 years ago, astronomers were surprised that it detected no global dipole magnetic fields, like Earth's. The explanation: the ice giants are layered ...

Novel Supernova Observations Grant Astronomers a Peek Into the Cosmic Past

Nov. 25, 2024 — An international team of researchers has made new observations of an unusual supernova, finding the most metal-poor stellar explosion ever ...

3.2 Million Km/h Galaxy Smash-Up

Nov. 22, 2024 — A massive collision of galaxies sparked by one travelling at a scarcely-believable 2 million mph (3.2 million km/h) has been seen in unprecedented detail by one of Earth's most powerful ...

A Nearby Supernova Could End the Search for Dark Matter

Nov. 21, 2024 — Axions are the most likely candidate for enigmatic dark matter that dominates the universe. Astrophysicists are searching for evidence of high-mass axions produced during supernovae. Scientists ...

Astronomers Take the First Close-Up Picture of a Star Outside Our Galaxy

Nov. 21, 2024 — While astronomers have taken about two dozen zoomed-in images of stars in our galaxy, unveiling their properties, countless other stars dwell within other galaxies, so far away that observing even ...

Research on Gravity in Line With Einstein's Theory of General Relativity

Nov. 20, 2024 — Researchers used the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument to map how nearly 6 million galaxies cluster across 11 billion years of cosmic history. Their observations line up with what Einstein's ...

Astronomers Discover First Pairs of White Dwarf and Main Sequence Stars in Clusters, Shining New Light on Stellar Evolution

Nov. 19, 2024 — Astronomers have discovered the first pairs of white dwarf and main sequence stars -- 'dead' remnants and 'living' stars -- in young star clusters. This breakthrough offers new ...

Possible Origins of Dark Matter in 'Dark Big Bang' Scenario

Nov. 18, 2024 — Recent research unlocks new clues that could radically change the world's understanding of the origin of dark ...

New Idea May Crack Enigma of the Crab Nebula's 'Zebra' Pattern

Nov. 18, 2024 — A theoretical astrophysicist may have solved a nearly two-decade-old mystery over the origins of an unusual 'zebra' pattern seen in high-frequency radio pulses from the Crab ...