Stars News

January 24, 2026

Top Headlines

SETI Watched a Pulsar Flicker for Months and Found Space Keeps Shifting

Jan. 6, 2026 A distant pulsar’s radio signal flickers as it passes through space, much like stars twinkle in Earth’s atmosphere. By monitoring this effect for 10 months, researchers watched the pattern slowly evolve as gas, Earth, and the pulsar all moved. ...

Subaru Telescope Reveals a Hidden Giant Planet

Dec. 22, 2025 Astronomers have uncovered a massive hidden planet and a rare “failed star” by combining ultra-precise space data with some of the sharpest ground-based images ever taken. Using the Subaru Telescope in Hawaiʻi, the OASIS survey tracked subtle ...

A Star Torn Apart by a Black Hole Lit Up the Universe Twice

Aug. 22, 2025 Astronomers using AI have captured a once-in-a-lifetime cosmic event: a massive star’s violent death triggered by its black hole companion. The explosion, known as SN 2023zkd, not only produced a brilliant supernova but also shocked scientists by ...

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 ...

Understanding Why Galaxy Clusters Are Warm May Explain the Origin of Giant Interstellar Structures

May 29, 2025 Astronomers have explained how a galaxy cluster maintains its heat, despite emitting X-rays that cool the hot gas at its center. The group discovered the existence of a fast-moving, high-temperature ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

New Look at Galactic Region Surrounding Our Solar System: Lyman-alpha Emissions

Apr. 29, 2025 The NASA New Horizons spacecraft's extensive observations of Lyman-alpha emissions have resulted in the first-ever map from the galaxy at this important ultraviolet wavelength, providing a new look ...

Scientists Discover How Stellar-mass Black Holes Emit Powerful Plasma Jets

Apr. 21, 2025 Scientists have discovered key conditions needed for a stellar black hole to create plasma jets. Their findings show that when superheated gas material experiences a rapid shrinkage towards the black hole, jet formation ...

Ever Wonder Why Some Meteor Showers Are so Unpredictable?

Apr. 16, 2025 Why do comets and their meteoroid streams weave in and out of Earth's orbit and their orbits disperse over time? Researchers show that this is not due to the random pull of the planets, but rather the kick they receive from a moving ...

'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 evidence for one of these 'polar planets' orbiting a ...

Latest Headlines

updated 11:48pm EST

“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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

The Ring Nebula Is Hiding a Giant Structure Made of Iron

Jan. 18, 2026 A huge bar of iron has been discovered lurking inside the iconic Ring Nebula. The structure is enormous, spanning hundreds of times the size of Pluto’s orbit and containing a Mars-sized amount of ...

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. ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

A White Dwarf’s Cosmic Feeding Frenzy Revealed by NASA

Jan. 8, 2026 Using NASA’s IXPE, astronomers captured an unprecedented view of a white dwarf star actively feeding on material from a companion. The data revealed giant columns of ultra-hot gas shaped by the ...

Something Was Pumping Enormous Energy Into a Young Galaxy Cluster

Jan. 7, 2026 Scientists have detected a surprisingly hot galaxy cluster dating back to the universe’s infancy. The cluster formed far earlier and burned far hotter than current models predict. Researchers ...

Astronomers Ring in the New Year With a Stunning Galaxy Collision

Dec. 31, 2025 The Champagne Cluster is a rare and beautiful example of two galaxy clusters smashing together. Its festive name comes from both its New Year’s Eve discovery and its bubbly appearance in space. ...

NASA’s Webb Telescope Just Discovered One of the Weirdest Planets Ever

Jan. 1, 2026 A newly discovered exoplanet is rewriting the rules of what planets can be. Orbiting a city-sized neutron star, this Jupiter-mass world has a bizarre carbon-rich atmosphere filled with soot clouds ...

New Images Reveal What Really Happens When Stars Explode

Dec. 31, 2025 New high-resolution images show that novae are anything but simple stellar fireworks. One exploded with multiple gas streams colliding almost immediately, while another shockingly delayed its ...

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 ...

The Solar Mission That Survived Disaster and Found 5,000 Comets

Dec. 3, 2025 For thirty years, SOHO has watched the Sun from a stable perch in space, revealing the inner workings of our star and surviving crises that nearly ended the mission. Its long-term observations ...

A Hidden Star Found Where Dust Shouldn’t Exist

Dec. 17, 2025 A mysterious cloud of ultra-hot dust around Kappa Tucanae A may finally have an explanation: a hidden companion star. The star’s extreme orbit carries it straight through the dust zone, strongly ...

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 ...

A High-Altitude Telescope Just Changed What We Know About Black Holes

Nov. 23, 2025 Scientists flew the XL-Calibur telescope on a high-altitude balloon to measure polarized X-rays from Cygnus X-1. These measurements reveal details about the chaotic, superheated material swirling ...

Astronomers Discover Thousands of Hidden Siblings of the “Seven Sisters”

Nov. 16, 2025 The “Seven Sisters” have far more relatives than anyone imagined. Using NASA and ESA space telescopes, astronomers found thousands of hidden stars linked to the Pleiades, forming a colossal ...

Astronomers Spot a Rare Planet-Stripping Eruption on a Nearby Star

Nov. 14, 2025 Scientists have finally confirmed a powerful coronal mass ejection from another star, using LOFAR radio data paired with XMM-Newton’s X-ray insights. The eruption blasted into space at ...

Astronomers Just Solved the Mystery of “impossible” Black Holes

Nov. 11, 2025 New simulations suggest magnetic fields hold the key to forming black holes that defy known mass limits. When powerful magnetic forces act on a collapsing, spinning star, they eject vast amounts of ...

Einstein Might Have Been Wrong About Black Holes

Nov. 8, 2025 Researchers are using black hole shadows to challenge Einstein’s theory of relativity. With new simulations and future ultra-sharp telescope images, they may uncover signs that his famous equations ...

Astronomers Discover Dying Stars Eating Their Planets

Nov. 6, 2025 Astronomers have discovered that aging stars may be devouring their closest giant planets as they swell into red giants. Using NASA’s TESS telescope to study nearly half a million stars, scientists ...

Black Hole Blast Outshines 10 Trillion Suns

Nov. 7, 2025 A colossal black hole 10 billion light-years away has been caught devouring one of the universe’s biggest stars, unleashing a flare 30 times brighter than any seen before. The flare, detected by ...

Colossal Stars Forged the Universe’s Earliest Clusters

Nov. 6, 2025 A team of astrophysicists has unveiled how colossal stars thousands of times more massive than the Sun shaped the earliest star clusters and galaxies. These short-lived giants not only forged the ...

Twin Black Hole Collisions Put Einstein’s General Relativity to Its Most Extreme Test

Oct. 30, 2025 Two recently observed black hole mergers, occurring just weeks apart in late 2024, have opened an extraordinary new window into the universe’s most extreme events. These collisions not only ...

Astronomers Detect a Cosmic “heartbeat” in Pulsar Signals

Oct. 15, 2025 Researchers analyzing pulsar data have found tantalizing hints of ultra-slow gravitational waves. A team from Hirosaki University suggests these signals might carry “beats” — patterns formed by ...

Dead Stars Aren’t So Dead After All: The Hidden Force Inflating White Dwarfs

Dec. 2, 2025 Some white dwarfs in rapid binary orbits are far hotter and larger than theory predicts. Researchers found that powerful tidal forces between them generate enough heat to inflate their sizes and ...

JWST Spots a Hidden Red Supergiant Just Before It Exploded

Oct. 9, 2025 The James Webb Space Telescope has uncovered a massive red supergiant star just before it exploded, finally solving a cosmic mystery. Hidden beneath layers of dust, the doomed star revealed itself ...