Space Telescopes News

August 19, 2025

Top Headlines

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 ...

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 ...

Particles Energized by Magnetic Reconnection in the Nascent Solar Wind

June 3, 2025 — Scientists have identified a new source of energetic particles near the Sun. These definitive observations were made by instruments aboard NASA's Parker Solar Probe, which detected the powerful phenomena as the spacecraft dipped in and out of the ...

Scientists Discover New Evidence of Intermediate-mass Black Holes

May 30, 2025 — A series of studies sheds light on the origins and characteristics of intermediate-mass black ...

Cosmic Mystery Deepens as Astronomers Find Object Flashing in Both Radio Waves and X-rays

May 28, 2025 — A team of international astronomers have discovered a new cosmic object emitting both radio waves and ...

'Raindrops in the Sun's Corona': New Adaptive Optics Shows Stunning Details of Our Star's Atmosphere

May 27, 2025 — Scientists have produced the finest images of the Sun's corona to date. To make these high-resolution images and movies, the team developed a new 'coronal adaptive optics' system that removes blur ...

Gas Location Drives Star Formation in Distant Galaxies

May 21, 2025 — In the intriguing realm of star-forming galaxies, the key factor isn't the total amount of gas but rather its strategic distribution within the ...

Not One, but Two Massive Black Holes Are Eating Away at This Galaxy

May 19, 2025 — Astronomers searching for massive black holes shredding stars found one in an unusual place -- 2,600 light years from the core of a galaxy. The roque black hole may be from an earlier merger with another galaxy, or have been tossed out of the core ...

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 new paper posits that helium nuclei collide with ...

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 ...

NASA's NICER Maps Debris from Recurring Cosmic Crashes

May 6, 2025 — Astronomers have probed the physical environment of repeating X-ray outbursts near monster black holes thanks to data from NASA's NICER (Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer) and other ...

Latest Headlines

updated 6:37am EDT

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 ...

Tiny Chip Could Unlock Gamma Ray Lasers, Cure Cancer, and Explore the Multiverse

Aug. 13, 2025 — A groundbreaking quantum device small enough to fit in your hand could one day answer one of the biggest questions in science — whether the ...

Betelgeuse’s Hidden Companion Star Found After Centuries of Searching

Aug. 13, 2025 — Astronomers have finally confirmed the existence of a long-suspected companion star orbiting Betelgeuse, the iconic red supergiant in Orion. Using the advanced 'Alopeke speckle imager on the Gemini ...

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 ...

NASA and Japan’s XRISM Just Found Sulfur Hiding Between the Stars

Aug. 6, 2025 — An international team of scientists have provided an unprecedented tally of elemental sulfur spread between the stars using data from the Japan-led XRISM (X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission) ...

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 ...

Astronomers Detect Life’s Building Blocks Around a Young Star

Aug. 2, 2025 — Astronomers using ALMA have discovered complex organic molecules, including potential precursors to life's building blocks, in the protoplanetary disc of a young star, V883 Orionis. This finding ...

Ghost Star’s Planet Orbits Backward in a Bizarre Stellar System

Aug. 2, 2025 — A bizarre planet defies cosmic norms: scientists have confirmed a giant planet orbiting in reverse around one star in a close binary system—an arrangement previously thought impossible. Using ...

A Strange Fossil at the Edge of the Solar System Just Shook Up Planet Nine Theories

July 20, 2025 — A tiny object far beyond Pluto, newly discovered by the Subaru Telescope, could reshape our understanding of the early Solar System. Named 2023 KQ14, ...

Mysterious Object Found Dancing With Neptune

July 20, 2025 — Astronomers have discovered a bizarre object in the outer solar system, 2020 VN40, that dances to Neptune’s gravitational beat in a never-before-seen rhythm. It’s the first of its kind, orbiting ...

Astronomers Just Witnessed Planets Being Born Around a Baby Star 1300 Light-Years Away

July 20, 2025 — Astronomers have, for the first time, observed the very beginning of planet formation around a star beyond our Solar System. Using the James Webb Space Telescope and ALMA, researchers detected hot ...

NASA’s IXPE Tracked a Rare Pulsar—and Found an Unexpected Power Source

July 20, 2025 — Astronomers studying a rare neutron star system have uncovered a surprising source of powerful X-rays. Using NASA s IXPE telescope and data from other observatories, an international team found that ...

Gravitational Shockwave: LIGO Catches a 225-Solar-Mass Black-Hole Smash-Up

July 14, 2025 — Gravitational-wave detectors have captured their biggest spectacle yet: two gargantuan, rapidly spinning black holes likely forged by earlier smash-ups fused into a 225-solar-mass titan, GW231123. ...

This Interstellar Comet May Be a Frozen Relic from Before the Sun

July 11, 2025 — A newly discovered comet, 3I/ATLAS, may be the most ancient visitor ever detected, potentially older than our solar system itself. Unlike previous interstellar objects, this ice-rich comet seems to ...

NASA Probe Flies Into the Sun and Captures the Origins of Solar Storms

July 11, 2025 — In its closest-ever dive into the Sun’s atmosphere, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has returned stunning new images and data that bring scientists closer to solving one of the Sun’s biggest ...

Big-Bang Echoes Unmask a Billion-Light-Year Hole Around Earth—and It’s Stretching Space Faster

July 15, 2025 — Our galaxy may reside in a billion-light-year-wide cosmic bubble that accelerates local expansion, potentially settling the long-running Hubble tension. Galaxy counts reveal a sparsely populated ...

Astronomers Catch Planets in the Act of Being Born

July 9, 2025 — Astronomers have spotted centimeter-sized “pebbles” swirling around two infant stars 450 light-years away, revealing the raw ingredients of planets already stretching to Neptune-like orbits. ...

Ice in a Million-Degree Fermi Bubble Reveals the Milky Way’s Recent Eruption

July 9, 2025 — Astronomers using the Green Bank Telescope spotted surprisingly cold, dense hydrogen clouds embedded inside the Milky Way’s vast, super-hot Fermi bubbles—structures thought to be created by a ...

A Star Exploded Twice — First-Ever Image Reveals Its Cosmic Fingerprint

July 3, 2025 — Astronomers studying the remnant SNR 0509-67.5 have finally caught a white dwarf in the act of a rare “double-detonation” supernova, where an initial helium blast on the star’s surface triggers ...

Citizen Scientists Spot Rare Exploding Star in Real-Time

July 1, 2025 — Citizen scientists using the Kilonova Seekers platform spotted a stellar flash 2,500 times brighter than before, allowing astronomers to identify the exploding cataclysmic variable GOTO0650 within ...

What the Universe Tried to Hide: The 21-Centimeter Signal Explained

June 22, 2025 — Scientists are peering into the universe's mysterious Cosmic Dawn using the faint whispers of hydrogen radio waves emitted over 13 billion years ago. These signals, particularly the elusive ...

Massive Thread of Hot Gas Found Linking Galaxies — and It’s 10 Times the Mass of the Milky Way

June 19, 2025 — Astronomers have uncovered a colossal, searing-hot filament of gas linking four galaxy clusters in the Shapley Supercluster a discovery that could finally solve the mystery of the Universe s missing ...

A Thousand Colors, One Galaxy: Astronomers Reveal a Cosmic Masterpiece

June 18, 2025 — Astronomers have produced the most detailed map yet of the Sculptor Galaxy, revealing hundreds of previously unseen celestial features in stunning color and resolution. By combining over 50 hours of ...

Impossible Signal from Deep Beneath Antarctic Ice Baffles Physicists

June 14, 2025 — A cosmic particle detector in Antarctica has emitted a series of bizarre signals that defy the current understanding of particle physics, according to an international research group that includes ...

Magnetic Mayhem at the Sun’s Poles: First Images Reveal a Fiery Mystery

June 16, 2025 — For the first time in history, we re seeing the Sun from an angle no one ever has: from above and below its poles. Thanks to the European Space Agency s Solar Orbiter and its tilted orbit, scientists ...

NASA’s Webb Telescope Reveals Monster Star Clumps in Galactic Wreckage

June 12, 2025 — Surveying nearby galaxies in the process of merging with other galaxies, astronomers have identified massive, dense star factories, unlike any found in the Milky Way. The findings provide a rare ...

From the Andes to the Beginning of Time: Telescopes Detect 13-Billion-Year-Old Signal

June 11, 2025 — Astronomers have pulled off an unprecedented feat: detecting ultra-faint light from the Big Bang using ground-based telescopes. This polarized light scattered by the universe's very first stars ...

Sun Unleashes Monster Solar Storm: Rare G4 Alert Issued for Earth

June 10, 2025 — A violent solar eruption on May 31 launched a coronal mass ejection (CME) hurtling toward Earth, triggering a rare G4-level geomagnetic storm alert. Captured in real-time by U.S. Naval Research ...

Biggest Boom Since the Big Bang? Astronomers Record 25x Supernova Brightness

June 17, 2025 — Astronomers have identified a new kind of cosmic explosion extreme nuclear transients so powerful they outshine typical supernovae by orders of magnitude and stay bright for years. Triggered when ...

Sharpest-Ever Solar View Shows Tiny Stripes Driving Big Space Storms

June 21, 2025 — A stunning breakthrough in solar physics reveals ultra-fine magnetic structures on the Sun's surface, thanks to the NSF's Inouye Solar Telescope. Researchers captured never-before-seen ...