Big Bang News

May 21, 2025

Top Headlines

'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 galaxy's ability to form new ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Latest Headlines

updated 10:47pm EDT

Astrophysicist Searches for Ripples in Space and Time in New Way

May 12, 2025 — Massive ripples in the very fabric of space and time wash over Earth constantly, although you'd never notice. An astrophysicist is trying a new search for these gravitational ...

The Squid Galaxy's Neutrino Game Just Leveled Up

May 8, 2025 — In space, energetic neutrinos are usually paired with energetic gamma rays. Galaxy NGC 1068, however, emits strong neutrinos and weak gamma rays, which presents a puzzle for scientists to solve. A ...

Stellar Collapse and Explosions Distribute Gold Throughout the Universe

May 7, 2025 — Magnetar flares, colossal cosmic explosions, may be directly responsible for the creation and distribution of heavy elements across the universe, suggests a new ...

New Theory of Gravity Brings Long-Sought Theory of Everything a Crucial Step Closer

May 5, 2025 — Researchers have developed a new quantum theory of gravity which describes gravity in a way that's compatible with the Standard Model of particle ...

Astronomers Find Earth-Like Exoplanets Common Across the Cosmos

Apr. 25, 2025 — Astronomers have discovered that super-Earth exoplanets are more common across the universe than previously thought. While it can be relatively easy to locate worlds that orbit close to their star, ...

Cosmic Twist: The Universe Could Be Spinning

Apr. 16, 2025 — A new study suggests the universe may rotate -- just extremely slowly. The finding could help solve one of astronomy's biggest ...

'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 ...

The Most Distant Twin of the Milky Way Ever Observed

Apr. 16, 2025 — An international team has discovered the most distant spiral galaxy candidate known to date. This ultra-massive system existed just one billion years after the Big Bang and already shows a remarkably ...

'Cosmic Radio' Could Find Dark Matter in 15 Years

Apr. 16, 2025 — Scientists have designed a 'cosmic radio' detector which could discover dark matter in 15 ...

AI Finds New Ways to Observe the Most Extreme Events in the Universe

Apr. 15, 2025 — Extreme cosmic events such as colliding black holes or the explosions of stars can cause ripples in spacetime, so-called gravitational waves. Their discovery opened a new window into the universe. To ...

Our Closest Neighboring Galaxy May Be Being Torn Apart

Apr. 10, 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 ...

'Hidden Galaxies': Key to Unlocking Some of Universe's Secrets

Apr. 9, 2025 — Astronomers have peered back in time to find what looks like a population of 'hidden' galaxies that could hold the key to unlocking some of the universe's secrets. If their existence ...

Do 'Completely Dark' Dark Matter Halos Exist?

Apr. 8, 2025 — Every galaxy is thought to form at the center of a dark matter halo. Stars are formed when gravity within dark matter halos draws in gas, but astrophysicists don't know whether star-free dark ...

What If We Find Nothing in Our Search for Life Beyond Earth?

Apr. 7, 2025 — What if we spend decades building advanced telescopes to search for life on other planets and come up emptyhanded? A recent study exploring what we can learn about life in the universe -- even if we ...

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 ...

Oxygen Discovered in Most Distant Known Galaxy

Mar. 20, 2025 — Astronomers have detected oxygen in the most distant known galaxy, JADES-GS-z14-0. This record-breaking detection is making astronomers rethink how quickly galaxies formed in the early ...

New DESI Results Strengthen Hints That Dark Energy May Evolve

Mar. 20, 2025 — The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument used millions of galaxies and quasars to build the largest 3D map of our universe to date. Combining their data with other experiments shows signs that the ...

Treasure Trove of Galaxies, Glimpses of Deep Fields

Mar. 19, 2025 — On 19 March 2025, the European Space Agency's Euclid mission releases its first batch of survey data, including a preview of its deep fields. Here, hundreds of thousands of galaxies in different ...

Violent Supernovae 'Triggered at Least Two Earth Extinctions'

Mar. 13, 2025 — At least two mass extinction events in Earth's history were likely caused by the 'devastating' effects of nearby supernova explosions, a new study suggests. Researchers say these ...

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 ...

Four Tiny Planets Found Orbiting One of Our Nearest Stars

Mar. 11, 2025 — Astronomers have revealed new evidence that there are not just one but four tiny planets circling around Barnard's Star, the second-nearest star system to ...

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

Mar. 11, 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 -- is forcing astronomers to rethink how galaxies ...

James Webb Space Telescope Reveals Unexpected Complex Chemistry in Primordial Galaxy

Mar. 10, 2025 — Astronomers have peered back to a time when the universe was just less than 300 million years old. The research team, using JWST revealed something extraordinary in the galaxy: significant amounts of ...

Mysterious Phenomenon at Center of Galaxy Could Reveal New Kind of Dark Matter

Mar. 10, 2025 — A mysterious phenomenon at the center of our galaxy could be the result of a different type of dark ...

How Do the Universe's Highest-Energy Particles Originate? Magnetic Outflows Stemming from Star Mergers, Analysis Concludes

Feb. 28, 2025 — Physicists provide a viable and testable explanation for how UHECRs are ...

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, ...

Does Planetary Evolution Favor Human-Like Life? Study Ups Odds We're Not Alone

Feb. 14, 2025 — Humanity may not be extraordinary but rather the natural evolutionary outcome for our planet and likely others, according to a new model for how intelligent life developed on ...

'Game Changing' Release of Type Ia Supernovae Data May Hold Key to the History of the Universe

Feb. 14, 2025 — A unique dataset of Type Ia Supernovae being released today could change how cosmologists measure the expansion history of the ...