NASA News

January 26, 2025

Top Headlines

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 galaxy without young, active stars -- calling those ...

The Universe Is Expanding Too Fast to Fit Theories: Hubble Tension in Crisis

Jan. 17, 2025 — The Universe really seems to be expanding fast. Too fast, even. A new measurement confirms what previous -- and highly debated -- results had shown: The Universe is expanding faster than predicted by ...

NASA's Hubble Traces Hidden History of Andromeda Galaxy

Jan. 17, 2025 — In the years following the launch of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have tallied over 1 trillion galaxies in the universe. But only one galaxy stands out as the most important nearby stellar island to our Milky Way -- the magnificent ...

Latest Headlines

updated 1:05pm EST

This Tiny Galaxy Is Answering Some Big Questions

Jan. 16, 2025 — Leo P, a small galaxy and a distant neighbor of the Milky Way, is lighting the way for astronomers to better understand star formation and how a galaxy grows. Scientists have reported finding that ...

NASA's Pandora Mission One Step Closer to Probing Alien Atmospheres

Jan. 16, 2025 — Pandora, a small satellite mission poised to provide in-depth study of at least 20 known planets orbiting distant stars to determine the composition of their atmospheres cleared an important ...

NASA Celebrates Edwin Hubble's Discovery of a New Universe

Jan. 15, 2025 — For humans, the most important star in the universe is our Sun. The second-most important star is nestled inside the Andromeda galaxy. Don't go looking for it -- the flickering star is 2.2 million ...

This Quasar May Have Helped Turn the Lights on for the Universe

Jan. 15, 2025 — Astronomers have detected an intensely brightening and dimming quasar that may help explain how some objects in the early universe grew at a highly accelerated rate. The discovery is the most distant ...

Super-Earth Vs. Sub-Neptune? The Winner Is Super-Venus!

Jan. 15, 2025 — New observational data and simulation models have confirmed a new type of planet unlike anything found in the Solar System. This provides another piece of the puzzle to understand how planets and ...

Hubble Reveals Surprising Spiral Shape of Galaxy Hosting Young Jet

Jan. 13, 2025 — The night sky has always played a crucial role in navigation, from early ocean crossings to modern GPS. Besides stars, the United States Navy uses quasars as beacons. Quasars are distant galaxies ...

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 the open star ...

New Study Unveils Breakthrough in Understanding Cosmic Particle Accelerators

Jan. 13, 2025 — Scientists have come a step closer to understanding how collisionless shock waves -- found throughout the universe -- are able to accelerate ...

Pluto-Charon Formation Scenario Mimics Earth-Moon System

Jan. 7, 2025 — A researcher has used advanced models that indicate that the formation of Pluto and Charon may parallel that of the Earth-Moon system. Both systems include a moon that is a large fraction of the size ...

Citizen Science Reveals That Jupiter's Colorful Clouds Are Not Made of Ammonia Ice

Jan. 6, 2025 — Collaborative work by amateur and professional astronomers has helped to resolve a long-standing misunderstanding about the composition of Jupiter's ...

Research May Boost Next-Generation Space Rockets

Jan. 3, 2025 — Hidden patterns in electric propulsion plasma beams could help ensure the success of long-term space ...

The Carbon in Our Bodies Probably Left the Galaxy and Came Back on Cosmic 'Conveyer Belt'

Jan. 3, 2025 — Scientists recently discovered that the giant 'conveyer belt' currents that push star-forged material out of our galaxy and pull it back in can also transport carbon atoms. That means that ...

Mysteries of Icy Ocean Worlds

Dec. 20, 2024 — A study introduces a novel thermodynamic concept called the 'centotectic' and investigates the stability of liquids in extreme conditions -- critical information for determining the ...

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, ...

First Results from 2021 Rocket Launch Shed Light on Aurora's Birth

Dec. 19, 2024 — Scientist have begun to reveal the particle-level processes that create the type of auroras that dance rapidly across the sky. The Kinetic-scale Energy and momentum Transport experiment -- KiNET-X -- ...

Origins of Lunar Water and Its Connection to Earth's Early History

Dec. 19, 2024 — Scientists have unveiled groundbreaking research on the origins of lunar water, offering insights that could reshape our understanding of the Earth-Moon system and the broader solar system. The ...

Scientists Solving Meteorological Mysteries on Mars

Dec. 19, 2024 — Scientists are changing our understanding of climate and weather on Mars and providing critical insights into Earth's atmospheric processes as ...

New Evidence Exists for Hidden Water Reservoirs and Rare Magmas on Ancient Mars

Dec. 19, 2024 — A new study explores how variations in Mars' crustal thickness during its ancient history may have influenced the planet's magmatic evolution and hydrological systems. The research suggests ...

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 stars. However, it is still unclear what has shut ...

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 ...

A 'Remelting' of Lunar Surface Adds a Wrinkle to Mystery of Moon's True Age

Dec. 18, 2024 — Scientists propose a 'remelting' of the Moon's surface 4.35 billion years ago due to the tidal pull of Earth causing widespread geological upheaval and intense ...

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 jets into space. Now, a research team has shown that ...

New Paper Examines the Elusive Nature of Liquid Brines on Mars

Dec. 16, 2024 — The combination of low temperature, atmospheric pressure and water vapor pressure on Mars means any liquid water found there would likely freeze, boil or evaporate immediately, making its presence ...

Anthropologists Call for Tracking and Preservation of Human Artifacts on Mars

Dec. 16, 2024 — Anthropologists argue physical artifacts of human exploration on Mars deserve cataloging, preservation and care in order to chronicle humanity's first attempts at interplanetary ...

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 an image of the supermassive black hole at the ...

Heart of Jovian Moon's Volcanic Rage

Dec. 13, 2024 — A new study points to why, and how, Io became the most volcanic body in the solar ...

Superflares Once Per Century

Dec. 12, 2024 — Stars similar to the Sun produce a gigantic outburst of radiation on average about once every hundred years per star. Such superflares release more energy than a trillion hydrogen bombs and make all ...

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 ...

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 ...

Mars' Infamous Dust Storms Can Engulf the Entire Planet: A New Study Examines How

Dec. 9, 2024 — Dust storms on Mars could one day pose dangers to human astronauts, damaging equipment and burying solar panels. New research gets closer to predicting when extreme weather might erupt on the Red ...