Astronomy News

September 4, 2025

Top Headlines

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 ...

A Record-breaking Antenna Just Deployed in Space. Here’s What It Will See

Aug. 18, 2025 — NASA and ISRO s NISAR satellite has just reached a major milestone: the successful deployment of its enormous 39-foot antenna reflector in orbit. Folded up like an umbrella during launch, the reflector is now fully extended and ready to support ...

NASA’s PREFIRE Satellites Reveal a Secret Glow Escaping from Our Planet

Aug. 18, 2025 — With its two tiny CubeSats, NASA’s PREFIRE mission is capturing invisible heat escaping from Earth, offering clues to how ice, clouds, and storms influence the climate system. The insights could lead to better weather forecasts and a deeper ...

NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover Just Learned How to Multitask

Aug. 14, 2025 — Thirteen years after landing on Mars, NASA’s Curiosity rover is running smarter and more efficiently than ever. With new autonomy and multitasking capabilities, it’s maximizing the output from its long-lasting nuclear power source while ...

Trapped by Moon Dust: The Physics Error That Fooled NASA for Years

July 27, 2025 — Engineers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison uncovered a critical flaw in how lunar and Martian rovers are tested on Earth. Simulations revealed that test results have been misleading for decades because researchers only adjusted rover weight to ...

UF Students Are Bending Metal with Lasers to Build Massive Structures in Orbit

July 2, 2025 — UF engineers, backed by DARPA and NASA, are perfecting laser-forming techniques that let metal sheets fold themselves into giant solar arrays, antennas, and even space-station parts right in ...

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 ...

Martian Dust to Dream Homes: How Microbes Can Build on the Red Planet

June 25, 2025 — Imagine printing your Martian home from dust, sunlight, and a bit of biology. A new synthetic lichen system uses fungi and bacteria to grow building materials directly from Martian soil, completely autonomously and without human ...

Mojave Lichen Defies Death Rays—could Life Thrive on Distant Exoplanets?

June 24, 2025 — Lichen from the Mojave Desert has stunned scientists by surviving months of lethal UVC radiation, suggesting life could exist on distant planets orbiting volatile stars. The secret? A microscopic “sunscreen” layer that protects their vital ...

AI Reveals Milky Way’s Black Hole Spins Near Top Speed

June 15, 2025 — AI has helped astronomers crack open some of the universe s best-kept secrets by analyzing massive datasets about black holes. Using over 12 million simulations powered by high-throughput computing, scientists discovered that the Milky Way's central ...

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 ...

Latest Headlines

updated 11:12pm EDT

A Monster Molecular Cloud Has Been Discovered in Our Galaxy – “No One Had Any Idea This Existed”

Sep. 4, 2025 — Researchers spotted a colossal cloud of gas and dust in the Milky Way, filled with turbulent motion, newborn star seeds, and even a natural microwave ...

The Sun’s Hidden Particle Engines Finally Exposed

Sep. 3, 2025 — Solar Orbiter has identified the Sun’s dual “engines” for superfast electrons: explosive flares and sweeping coronal mass ejections. By catching over 300 events close to their origin, the ...

A Weirdly Shaped Telescope Could Finally Find Earth 2. 0

Sep. 3, 2025 — Spotting Earth-like planets is nearly impossible with conventional telescopes, but researchers propose a bold fix: a rectangular design that can separate a planet’s faint glow from its blinding ...

Warped Planet Nurseries Rewrite the Rules of How Worlds Are Born

Sep. 2, 2025 — Astronomers using ALMA have discovered that planet-forming discs are not flat and serene but subtly warped, reshaping our understanding of how planets form. These slight tilts, similar to those seen ...

Distant Suns Covered in Dark Spots Could Shape the Search for Life

Sep. 2, 2025 — A new model called StarryStarryProcess lets scientists map star spots with precision, improving how exoplanets are studied. By factoring in both transits and stellar rotation, it provides richer ...

NASA’s SPHEREx Captures Comet 3I/ATLAS, a Visitor From Beyond the Solar System

Sep. 2, 2025 — NASA’s SPHEREx joined Webb and Hubble in studying interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, gathering data on its size, chemistry, and physical traits. While ...

NASA’s Webb Space Telescope Reveals Secrets of Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS

Sep. 2, 2025 — Webb, Hubble, and SPHEREx are joining forces to study the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, revealing details about its structure and chemistry. The comet ...

NASA Finds Titan’s Alien Lakes May Be Creating Primitive Cells

Sep. 1, 2025 — Saturn’s moon Titan may be more alive with possibilities than we thought. New NASA research suggests that in Titan’s freezing methane and ethane lakes, simple molecules could naturally arrange ...

Dark Matter Could Be Turning Giant Planets Into Black Holes

Sep. 1, 2025 — Astronomers have found over 5,000 exoplanets, and now scientists think these distant worlds could unlock one of the universe’s greatest mysteries: dark matter. A new study suggests that ...

Scientists Stunned by the Universe’s First Known Black Hole

Aug. 31, 2025 — Just 500 million years after the Big Bang, a colossal black hole, 300 million times the mass of the Sun, was already blazing at the heart of a tiny, brilliant galaxy. Found with JWST, this discovery ...

NASA’s X-Ray Telescope Finds Bizarre Features in a Cosmic Hand

Aug. 31, 2025 — Astronomers have taken a fresh look at the famous “Hand of God” pulsar, combining X-ray data from NASA’s Chandra Observatory with new radio observations from the Australia Telescope Compact ...

Astronomers Stunned as James Webb Finds a Planet Nursery Flooded With Carbon Dioxide

Aug. 31, 2025 — Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have uncovered a planet-forming disk shockingly rich in carbon dioxide but nearly devoid of water, upending traditional theories of planetary ...

Scientists Uncover Hidden Shards of Mars’ Violent Birth, Frozen for Billions of Years

Aug. 31, 2025 — Mars isn’t the neatly layered world we once imagined — its mantle is filled with ancient, jagged fragments left over from colossal impacts billions of years ago. Seismic data from NASA’s ...

Butterfly Nebula Reveals Sparkling Gems, Fiery Dust, and the Ingredients of Life

Aug. 28, 2025 — James Webb has revealed that the Butterfly Nebula hides a complex mix of gemstone-like crystals, fiery dust, and unexpected carbon molecules. The discovery may rewrite how we understand the chemistry ...

Astronomers Capture Breathtaking First Look at a Planet Being Born

Aug. 27, 2025 — WISPIT 2b, a gas giant forming around a young Sun-like star, has been directly imaged for the first time inside a spectacular multi-ringed disk. Still glowing and actively accreting gas, the planet ...

Scientists Finally Pinpoint Jupiter’s Birth Using “molten Rock Raindrops”

Aug. 26, 2025 — Billions of years ago, Jupiter’s violent growth transformed the young solar system, smashing icy and rocky bodies together at incredible speeds. These cataclysmic collisions created tiny molten ...

Stunning New Images: The Sun’s Smallest Loops Ever Seen

Aug. 26, 2025 — Astronomers using the Inouye Solar Telescope have captured the sharpest-ever images of a solar flare, revealing coronal loops as thin as 21 km wide. These threadlike plasma structures, imaged during ...

Strange Ripples Frozen in Mars’ Sands Could Hold Keys to Human Survival

Aug. 24, 2025 — Perseverance is exploring Mars’ sandy ripples, strange frozen waves that could reveal how wind still shapes the planet. Along the way it uncovered unusual helmet-shaped rocks, sparking new ...

Are We Accidentally Broadcasting Our Location to Alien Civilizations?

Aug. 23, 2025 — Earth may already be broadcasting its presence to alien civilizations without realizing it. A new study shows that our deep-space transmissions, especially those aimed at Mars and interplanetary ...

Astronomers Track Record-Breaking Radio Flash Across 130 Million Light-Years

Aug. 30, 2025 — A team of astronomers spotted RBFLOAT, one of the brightest fast radio bursts ever seen, and traced it to a galaxy 130 million light-years away. Using CHIME’s new Outrigger array, researchers ...

Closest and Brightest Fast Radio Burst Ever Detected by Astronomers

Aug. 24, 2025 — Astronomers have detected the closest and brightest fast radio burst ever recorded, a dazzling signal from a galaxy just 130 million light-years away. The extraordinary flash, nicknamed RBFLOAT, ...

Jupiter’s Core Isn’t What We Thought

Aug. 24, 2025 — For years, scientists thought Jupiter’s strange interior was the result of a massive collision in its youth. But new research suggests that the planet’s diffuse, “fuzzy” core wasn’t born ...

These Asteroids Share a Strange Fingerprint from Billions of Years Ago

Aug. 23, 2025 — Scientists studying asteroids found that two seemingly unrelated types share a strange dusty coating of troilite. By using polarization of light instead of traditional spectra, they uncovered ...

What Came Before the Big Bang? Supercomputers May Hold the Answer

Aug. 22, 2025 — Scientists are rethinking the universe’s deepest mysteries using numerical relativity, complex computer simulations of Einstein’s equations in extreme conditions. This method could help explore ...

Astronomers Uncover Enormous Bubble Bigger Than Our Solar System

Aug. 21, 2025 — A giant bubble of gas and dust surrounds the red supergiant DFK 52, likely created in a powerful outburst 4,000 years ago. Astronomers are baffled at how the star survived without going supernova, ...

Astronomers Stunned by the Strangest Supernova Ever Seen

Aug. 21, 2025 — Scientists have identified a never-before-seen supernova, SN2021yfj, which exploded after losing nearly all of its outer layers. Instead of light elements, it revealed silicon and sulfur from deep ...

How Hidden Cosmic Highways Feed the Universe’s Biggest Stars

Aug. 21, 2025 — Massive stars have always puzzled scientists—how do they grow so quickly despite fierce radiation pushing material away? New high-resolution ALMA observations suggest that instead of relying solely ...

Voyager Missed It, but James Webb Just Found Uranus’ Hidden Moon

Aug. 21, 2025 — Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have uncovered a tiny new moon orbiting Uranus, increasing the planet’s moon tally to 29. The object, only about six miles wide, escaped Voyager ...

Ancient Solar System Crash May Explain Bennu and Ryugu’s Origin

Aug. 21, 2025 — Scientists from the Southwest Research Institute have found strong evidence that near-Earth asteroids Bennu and Ryugu share a common origin with Polana, a much larger asteroid in the main belt. By ...

After 70 Years, the Sun’s Explosive Mystery Is Finally Solved

Aug. 20, 2025 — NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has directly observed magnetic reconnection in the Sun’s atmosphere for the first time, confirming decades-old theories about solar explosions. This discovery bridges ...