Stars are known for their stellar winds, streams of gas and charged particles from their upper atmospheres that collide with the interstellar medium. These winds can create bow shocks in the surrounding gas. But astronomers were surprised to find a bow shock near a white dwarf star, which are sometimes called dead stars or zombie stars.
Combining data from different telescopes is one of the best ways to get a fuller picture of far-off objects. Because telescopes such as Hubble (visible light), the James Webb Space Telescope (infrared), and the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (radio) each collect data in different wavelengths, they are able to capture distinct features of objects like galaxies that other telescopes cannot observe. A new paper by a large group of authors, headed by Andreas Faisst of Caltech, presented at the American Astronomical Society Meeting last week and published in The Astrophysical Journal Supplement tracks eighteen early galaxies in as broad of a spectrum as those instruments can collect, and most significantly found that they seem to “grow up” faster than expected.
On Jan. 8th, 2026, NASA announced its decision to return the SpaceX Crew-11 mission to Earth from the International Space Station earlier than originally planned. This unprecedented move came after one of the crew members reportedly experienced a health-related issue that required full medical services. While the crew member (who has not been identified for privacy reasons) was reported to be in stable condition, NASA will go ahead with the early return mission. According to the latest updates, the Crew-11 mission team will splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California on Thursday, Jan.15th. at approximately 3:40 a.m. EST (Jan. 14th, 12:40 pm PST).
Scientists continue to push the boundaries of astronomy and cosmology, thanks to next-generation instruments that can see farther and clearer than ever before. Through these efforts, astronomers have observed some of the earliest galaxies in the Universe. In turn, this has led to refined theories and timelines of galactic formation and evolution. In a recent study, a team of astronomers led by the University of Pittsburgh (UPitt) uncovered what could be the earliest barred spiral galaxy ever observed. This finding helps constrain the timeframe in which bars first emerged in the Universe.
One of the best things about being able to see thousands of exoplanetary systems is that we’re able to track them in different stages of development. Scientists still have so many questions about how planets form, and comparing notes between systems of different ages is one way to answer them. A new paper recently published in Nature by John Livingston of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan and his co-authors details one particularly interesting system, known as V1298, which is only around 30 million years old, and hosts an array of four “cotton candy” planets, which represent some of the earliest stages of planet formation yet seen.
Time again for a tale of things dark and mysterious. A tale of dark matter. It's a well-told tale, but this time it involves an interactive dance between dark matter and neutrinos.
This is Part 1 in a series on the mathematical universe hypothesis.
The closest planet to the Sun is Mercury. It's a tiny world, even smaller than Saturn's moon Titan and Jupiter's moon Ganymede. That's unusual for a planetary system. Most star systems have a large world between the size of Earth and Neptune orbiting much closer than Mercury. A new study has figured out how these close-orbiting super-Earths form and clues about why they are so common.
Black holes are objects so dense that they warp space time to an extreme degree. They may be better described as places than objects, but regardless, the point stands. So strong is their effect that not even light can esacpe their grasp.
It looks like NASA's Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission has come to a bureaucratic end. The mission was to be the crowning achievement in the study of Mars and all the questions surrounding its ancient habitability. But the US Congress has drastically cut the mission's funding.
Mars has a curious past. Rovers have shown unequivocal evidence that liquid water existed on its surface, for probably at least 100 years. But climate models haven’t come up with how exactly that happened with what we currently understand about what the Martian climate was like back then. A new paper, published in the journal AGU Advances by Eleanor Moreland, a graduate student at Rice University, and her co-authors, has a potential explanation for what might have happened - liquid lakes on the Red Planet would have hid under small, seasonal ice sheets similar to the way they do in Antarctica on Earth.
Dark Matter (DM) remains one of the most daunting mysteries for astronomers, astrophysicists, and cosmologists. Six decades ago, the theory that the Universe was filled with mass that did not interact with normal matter in visible light became an accepted part of our cosmological models. And yet, all efforts to detect this mysterious matter in space or its constituent particles in a lab have produced null results. However, scientists have developed several promising methods that are helping them narrow the search for DM and measure its influence on the cosmos.
Jupiter's ice-covered moon Europa has emerged as a prime target in the search for life in our Solar System. Its frozen surface caps an ocean that contains more water than all of Earth's combined. Because it orbits the massive gas giant Jupiter, tidal heating keeps that ocean from freezing.
All of physics rests on causal determinism. It’s like…how we do physics. It IS physics.
So let’s say you set up an experiment to measure a quantum property of subatomic particles. Like, I don’t know, spin.
In 1604, German astronomer Johannes Kepler spotted a new star in the sky that was so bright it could be seen during the daytime. The discovery, which Kepler described in his book *De Stella Nova*, caused quite a stir in the astronomical community. With this one point of light, astronomers questioned the prevailing dogma that the "firmament" (the background stars in the sky) was not unchanging and permanent. In time, we would come to realize that Kepler's Supernova (as it's come to be known) was a white dwarf that exceeded its critical mass and exploded in a brilliant burst.
It feels like every time we publish an article about an exciting discovery of a potential biosignature on a new exoplanet, we have to publish a follow-up one a few months later debunking the original claims. That is exactly how science is supposed to work, and part of our job as science journalists is to report on the debunking as well as the original story, even if it might not be as exciting. In this particular case, it seems the discovery of dimethyl sulfide in the atmosphere of exoplanet K2-18 b was a false alarm, according to a new paper available in pre-print form on arXiv by Luis Welbanks of Arizona State University and his co-authors.
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