Astronomy News

May 6, 2026 by News Staff

Space debris — ranging from defunct satellites and discarded rocket stages to fragments from collisions — poses an ever-increasing threat to active spacecraft and human spaceflight. New research shows that surges in solar activity can accelerate the descent of space debris, reshaping how scientists predict satellite lifetimes and collision risks. Space junk begins to fall down much faster once the Sun’s activity across the solar cycle...

May 5, 2026 by News Staff

In today’s Universe, most galaxies are held together by orderly rotation. But among the largest, no-longer star-forming systems, many are instead dominated...

May 4, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

A team of astronomers in Japan has detected a thin atmosphere around (612533) 2002 XV93, a trans-Neptunian object about 500 km in diameter — an object...

May 4, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

The existence of circumbinary planets — exoplanets that orbit binary stars — has only been firmly established over the past 15 years. Observations...

May 4, 2026 by News Staff

Using data from NASA’s Juno spacecraft, planetary scientists have produced the most precise measurements of Jupiter’s size in half a century and found...

May 1, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have captured this vivid image of the spiral galaxy NGC 3137, which is located in the constellation...

Apr 29, 2026 by News Staff

New research by astronomers from the University of California, Riverside, Sam Houston State University and the University of Oklahoma suggests decaying...

Apr 29, 2026 by News Staff

An unusual object discovered by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory may represent a missing link between hidden ‘black hole stars’ and fully exposed...

Apr 28, 2026 by News Staff

Water is made of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom, hence its H2O formula. In typical water molecules, though, those hydrogen atoms have just one...

Apr 27, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

The Dark Energy Camera, a powerful 570-megapixel camera mounted on NSF’s Víctor M. Blanco 4-m telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in...

Apr 23, 2026 by News Staff

Using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have detected water-ice clouds swirling through the atmosphere of Epsilon Indi Ab, a cold...

Apr 20, 2026 by News Staff

A new anniversary image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reveals surprisingly fast evolution in a turbulent stellar nursery called the Trifid Nebula,...

Apr 20, 2026 by News Staff

New research by Professor Enrique Gaztañaga from the University of Portsmouth and the Institute of Space Sciences in Barcelona suggests some black holes...

Apr 16, 2026 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) on NSF’s Nicholas U. Mayall 4-m telescope have produced the largest high-resolution...

Apr 16, 2026 by News Staff

The TOI-201 system consists of a super-Earth, a warm Jupiter, and a more massive brown dwarf at 5.8-, 53-, and 2,900-day orbital periods, respectively. An...

Apr 15, 2026 by News Staff

A new ‘agnostic biosignature’ method searches for patterns across exoplanets, suggesting alien life could be detected by how it spreads and reshapes...

Apr 15, 2026 by Natali Anderson

Observations from the Subaru Telescope on January 7, 2026, revealed a surprisingly low carbon dioxide-to-water ratio, suggesting the composition of the...

Apr 13, 2026 by News Staff

New Webb observations of two exoplanets TRAPPIST-1b and TRAPPIST-1c show blistering days and frozen nights, offering the first detailed climate maps of...

Apr 10, 2026 by Natali Anderson

A new statistical analysis of archival sky surveys from the early Cold War has found that mysterious, short-lived bursts of light in the night sky were...

Apr 8, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

New images from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope reveal two young stars surrounded by planet-forming disks, Tau 042021 (left) and Oph 163131...