Cosmology News

February 3, 2026

Top Headlines

Inside the Mysterious Collapse of Dark Matter Halos

Jan. 19, 2026 Physicists have unveiled a new way to simulate a mysterious form of dark matter that can collide with itself but not with normal matter. This self-interacting dark matter may trigger a dramatic collapse inside dark matter halos, heating and ...

Scientists Are Closing in on the Universe’s Biggest Mystery

Jan. 8, 2026 Nearly everything in the universe is made of mysterious dark matter and dark energy, yet we can’t see either of them directly. Scientists are developing detectors so sensitive they can spot particle interactions that might occur once in years or ...

Scientists Are Turning Earth Into a Giant Detector for Hidden Forces Shaping Our Universe

Dec. 6, 2025 SQUIRE aims to detect exotic spin-dependent interactions using quantum sensors deployed in space, where speed and environmental conditions vastly improve sensitivity. Orbiting sensors tap into ...

Dark Matter Acts Surprisingly Normal in a New Cosmic Test

Nov. 16, 2025 Dark matter may be invisible, but scientists are getting closer to understanding whether it follows the same rules as everything we can see. By comparing how galaxies move through cosmic gravity wells to the depth of those wells, researchers found ...

Space Dust Reveals How Fast the Arctic Is Changing

Nov. 13, 2025 Arctic sea ice is disappearing fast, and scientists have turned to an unexpected cosmic clue—space dust—to uncover how ice has changed over tens of thousands of years. By tracking helium-3–bearing dust trapped (or blocked) by ancient ice, ...

Physicists Prove the Universe Isn’t a Simulation After All

Nov. 10, 2025 New research from UBC Okanagan mathematically demonstrates that the universe cannot be simulated. Using Gödel’s incompleteness theorem, scientists found that reality requires “non-algorithmic understanding,” something no computation can ...

JWST Captures Stunning 3D View of a Planet’s Scorching Atmosphere

Nov. 2, 2025 A team of astronomers used the James Webb Space Telescope to create the first 3D atmospheric map of an exoplanet. The fiery WASP-18b, a massive “ultra-hot Jupiter,” revealed striking temperature contrasts, including regions so hot they destroy ...

Scientists Discover a Way Simulate the Universe on a Laptop

Oct. 30, 2025 Scientists have developed a groundbreaking tool called Effort.jl that lets them simulate the structure of the universe using just a laptop. The team created a system that dramatically speeds up how researchers study cosmic data, turning what once ...

Astronomers Just Captured the Sharpest View of a Distant Star Ever Seen

Oct. 25, 2025 A UCLA-led team has achieved the sharpest-ever view of a distant star’s disk using a groundbreaking photonic lantern device on a single telescope—no multi-telescope array required. This technology splits incoming starlight into multiple ...

The Universe’s First Radio Waves Could Reveal Dark Matter

Oct. 25, 2025 Researchers propose that hydrogen gas from the early Universe emitted detectable radio waves influenced by dark matter. Studying these signals, especially from the Moon’s radio-quiet environment, could reveal how dark matter clumped together ...

Harvard Astrophysicist Suggests Mysterious Interstellar Object May Be an Alien Probe

Oct. 15, 2025 3I/ATLAS, a mysterious interstellar object racing toward the Sun, is baffling scientists with its speed and origin. Some researchers suggest it could even be alien-made, drawing comparisons to probes ...

The Moon’s South Pole Hides a 4-billion-year-old Secret

Oct. 12, 2025 A colossal northern asteroid impact billions of years ago likely shaped the Moon’s south polar region and explains its uneven terrain. Researchers found that the South Pole-Aitken Basin formed from a glancing northern strike, revealing deep ...

Latest Headlines

updated 4:27am EST

Scientists Just Mapped the Hidden Structure Holding the Universe Together

Feb. 3, 2026 Astronomers have produced the most detailed map yet of dark matter, revealing the invisible framework that shaped the Universe long before stars and galaxies formed. Using powerful new observations ...

A Record Breaking Gravitational Wave Is Helping Test Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity

Feb. 3, 2026 A newly detected gravitational wave, GW250114, is giving scientists their clearest look yet at a black hole collision—and a powerful way to test ...

Jupiter’s Clouds Are Hiding Something Big

Jan. 31, 2026 Jupiter’s swirling storms have concealed its true makeup for centuries, but a new model is finally peeling back the clouds. Researchers found the planet likely holds significantly more oxygen than ...

Dark Stars Could Solve Three Major Mysteries of the Early Universe

Jan. 28, 2026 JWST has revealed a strange early universe filled with ultra-bright “blue monster” galaxies, mysterious “little red dots,” and black holes that seem far too massive for their age. A new study ...

The Early Universe Supercharged Black Hole Growth

Jan. 26, 2026 Astronomers may have finally cracked one of the universe’s biggest mysteries: how black holes grew so enormous so fast after the Big Bang. New simulations show that early, chaotic galaxies created ...

A Dying Star’s Final Breath Glows in a New Webb Image of the Helix Nebula

Jan. 26, 2026 Webb’s latest image of the Helix Nebula reveals a dramatic close-up of a dying star shedding its outer layers. The detailed view highlights glowing knots of gas shaped by fast-moving stellar winds ...

“Stars Like the Sun Don’t Just Stop Shining,” but This One Did

Jan. 24, 2026 A distant Sun-like star suddenly went dark for months, stunning astronomers who quickly realized something massive was passing in front of it. Observations revealed a gigantic disk of gas and dust ...

Astronomers Found a Black Hole Growing Way Too Fast

Jan. 24, 2026 Astronomers have spotted a rare, rule-breaking quasar in the early Universe that appears to be growing its central black hole at an astonishing pace. Observations show the black hole is devouring ...

Life’s Chemistry May Begin in the Cold Darkness of Space

Jan. 21, 2026 New experiments reveal that protein precursors can form naturally in deep space under extreme cold and radiation. Scientists found that simple amino acids bond into peptides on interstellar dust, ...

A Faint Signal from the Universe’s Dark Ages Could Reveal Dark Matter

Jan. 20, 2026 After the Big Bang, the Universe entered a long, dark period before the first stars formed. During this era, hydrogen emitted a faint radio signal that still echoes today. New simulations show this ...

Those Strange Red Dots in James Webb Images Finally Have an Explanation

Jan. 16, 2026 For years, strange red dots in James Webb images left scientists puzzled. New research shows they are young black holes hidden inside dense clouds of gas, glowing as they devour their surroundings. ...

New Research Challenges the Cold Dark Matter Assumption

Jan. 15, 2026 Dark matter, one of the Universe’s greatest mysteries, may have been born blazing hot instead of cold and sluggish as scientists long believed. New research shows that dark matter particles could ...

A Wobbling Black Hole Jet Is Stripping a Galaxy of Star-Forming Gas

Jan. 19, 2026 A nearby active galaxy called VV 340a offers a dramatic look at how a supermassive black hole can reshape its entire host. Astronomers observed a relatively weak but restless jet blasting outward ...

10 Quintillion Hydrogen Bombs Every Second: Webb Detects Massive Galactic Eruption

Jan. 10, 2026 Scientists have discovered an enormous stream of super-hot gas erupting from a nearby galaxy, driven by a powerful black hole at its center. The jets stretch farther than the galaxy itself and spiral ...

Astronomers Find a Ghost Galaxy Made of Dark Matter

Jan. 9, 2026 Hubble has revealed a strange cosmic object called Cloud-9, a dark matter–dominated cloud with no stars at all. Scientists believe it is a “failed galaxy,” a leftover building block from the ...

Astronomers Discover Stars Don’t Spread Life’s Ingredients the Way We Thought

Jan. 12, 2026 Scientists observing the red giant star R Doradus have found that starlight isn’t strong enough to drive its stellar winds, overturning a long-standing theory. The dust grains around the star are ...

Most Distant Supernova: James Webb Sees a Star Explode at Cosmic Dawn

Dec. 28, 2025 Scientists have detected the most distant supernova ever seen, exploding when the universe was less than a billion years old. The event was first signaled by a gamma-ray burst and later confirmed ...

Something Fundamental About Black Holes May Be Changing

Dec. 27, 2025 New observations reveal that the relationship between ultraviolet and X-ray light in quasars has changed over billions of years. This unexpected shift suggests the structure around supermassive black ...

James Webb Catches an Exoplanet Losing Its Atmosphere in Real Time

Jan. 20, 2026 Astronomers have captured the most dramatic view yet of a planet losing its atmosphere, watching the ultra-hot gas giant WASP-121b for an entire orbit with the James Webb Space Telescope. Instead of ...

Astronomers Just Watched a Black Hole Twist Spacetime

Dec. 18, 2025 Astronomers have detected spacetime itself being dragged and twisted by a spinning black hole for the first time. The discovery, seen during a star’s violent destruction, confirms a prediction made ...

Betelgeuse Has a Hidden Companion and Hubble Just Caught Its Wake

Jan. 10, 2026 Astronomers have uncovered the long-hidden cause behind Betelgeuse’s strange behavior: a small companion star carving a visible wake through the giant’s vast atmosphere. Using nearly eight years ...

This Surprising Discovery Rewrites the Milky Way’s Origin Story

Dec. 9, 2025 New simulations of Milky Way-like galaxies reveal that the strange split between two chemically distinct groups of stars may arise from several very different evolutionary events. Bursts of star ...

Astrophysicists Map the Invisible Universe Using Warped Galaxies

Dec. 21, 2025 By studying tiny distortions in the shapes of distant galaxies, scientists mapped dark matter and dark energy across one of the largest sky surveys ever assembled. Their results back the standard ...

New Cosmic Lens Measurements Deepen the Hubble Tension Mystery

Dec. 9, 2025 Scientists are testing a novel way to measure cosmic expansion using time delays in gravitationally lensed quasars. Their results match “local” measurements but clash with early-universe ...

A Violent Star Explosion Just Revealed a Hidden Recipe for Life

Dec. 8, 2025 XRISM’s high-precision X-ray data revealed unusually strong signatures of chlorine and potassium inside the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant. These levels are far higher than theoretical models ...

Astronomers Discover One of the Universe’s Largest Spinning Structures

Dec. 25, 2025 Scientists have discovered a giant cosmic filament where galaxies spin in sync with the structure that holds them together. The razor-thin chain of galaxies sits inside a much larger filament that ...

This Simulation Reveals What Really Happens Near Black Holes

Dec. 22, 2025 Black holes are among the most extreme objects in the universe, and now scientists can model them more accurately than ever before. By combining Einstein’s gravity with realistic behavior of light ...

JWST Finds a Milky Way Twin Born Shockingly Early in the Universe

Dec. 3, 2025 A surprisingly mature spiral galaxy named Alaknanda has been spotted just 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang—far earlier than astronomers believed such well-structured galaxies could form. With ...

Time Runs Faster on Mars and Scientists Just Proved It

Dec. 30, 2025 Thanks to Einstein’s relativity, time flows differently on Mars than on Earth. NIST scientists have now nailed down the difference, showing that Mars clocks tick slightly faster—and fluctuate ...

A Strange Star Near a Black Hole Is Defying Expectations

Dec. 26, 2025 Astronomers have decoded the hidden past of a distant red giant star by listening to tiny vibrations in its light, revealing clues of a dramatic cosmic history. The star, which quietly orbits a ...