Astrophysics News

January 3, 2026

Top Headlines

How Manipulating Gravitational Waves Could Reveal Gravity’s Quantum Secrets

Jan. 2, 2026 A physicist has proposed a bold experiment that could allow gravitational waves to be manipulated using laser light. By transferring minute amounts of energy between light and gravity, the ...

What Are Asteroids Really Made of? New Analysis Brings Space Mining Closer to Reality

Dec. 25, 2025 Scientists are digging into the hidden makeup of carbon-rich asteroids to see whether they could one day fuel space exploration—or even be mined for valuable resources. By analyzing rare meteorites ...

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 ...

Gravitational Waves May Reveal Hidden Dark Matter Around Black Holes

Dec. 19, 2025 Gravitational waves from black holes may soon reveal where dark matter is hiding. A new model shows how dark matter surrounding massive black holes leaves detectable fingerprints in the waves recorded by future space ...

Scientists Are Turning Earth Into a Giant Detector for Hidden Forces Shaping Our Universe

Dec. 6, 2025 SQUIRE aims to detect exotic spin-dependent interactions using quantum sensors deployed in space, where speed and environmental conditions vastly improve sensitivity. Orbiting sensors tap into ...

Space Is Filling with Junk and Scientists Have a Fix

Dec. 3, 2025 Earth’s orbit is getting crowded with broken satellites and leftover rocket parts. Researchers say the solution is to build spacecraft that can be repaired, reused, or recycled instead of abandoned. They also want new tools to collect old debris ...

Solar Superstorm Gannon Crushed Earth’s Plasmasphere to a Record Low

Nov. 23, 2025 A massive solar storm in May 2024 gave scientists an unprecedented look at how Earth’s protective plasma layer collapses under intense space weather. With the Arase satellite in a perfect observing position, researchers watched the plasmasphere ...

Japanese Spacecraft Faces a Massive Challenge from a House-size Asteroid

Nov. 21, 2025 New observations show that asteroid 1998 KY26 is a mere 11 meters across and spinning twice as fast as previously thought. The discovery adds complexity to Hayabusa2’s 2031 mission but also heightens scientific interest. The asteroid’s ...

AI Creates the First 100-billion-star Milky Way Simulation

Nov. 16, 2025 Researchers combined deep learning with high-resolution physics to create the first Milky Way model that tracks over 100 billion stars individually. Their AI learned how gas behaves after supernovae, removing one of the biggest computational ...

Dark Matter Acts Surprisingly Normal in a New Cosmic Test

Nov. 16, 2025 Dark matter may be invisible, but scientists are getting closer to understanding whether it follows the same rules as everything we can see. By comparing how galaxies move through cosmic gravity wells to the depth of those wells, researchers found ...

Physicists Prove the Universe Isn’t a Simulation After All

Nov. 10, 2025 New research from UBC Okanagan mathematically demonstrates that the universe cannot be simulated. Using Gödel’s incompleteness theorem, scientists found that reality requires “non-algorithmic understanding,” something no computation can ...

JWST Captures Stunning 3D View of a Planet’s Scorching Atmosphere

Nov. 2, 2025 A team of astronomers used the James Webb Space Telescope to create the first 3D atmospheric map of an exoplanet. The fiery WASP-18b, a massive “ultra-hot Jupiter,” revealed striking temperature contrasts, including regions so hot they destroy ...

Latest Headlines

updated 6:25am EST

Two Unstable Atoms Are Rewriting Neutron Star Explosions

Jan. 3, 2026 Scientists have precisely measured two unstable atomic nuclei that play a crucial role in explosive X-ray bursts on neutron stars. The results reveal faster nuclear reactions than previously thought, ...

Did an Exploding Comet Wipe out the Mammoths?

Jan. 1, 2026 Scientists are uncovering new clues that a cosmic explosion may have rocked Earth at the end of the last ice age. At major Clovis-era sites, researchers found shocked quartz—evidence of intense ...

A Planet Just Vanished. NASA’s Hubble Reveals a Violent Cosmic Secret

Jan. 1, 2026 Astronomers tracking a nearby star system thought they had spotted an exoplanet reflecting light from its star. Then it vanished. Even stranger, another bright object appeared nearby. After studying ...

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 ...

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. ...

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 ...

Most Distant Supernova: James Webb Sees a Star Explode at Cosmic Dawn

Dec. 28, 2025 Scientists have detected the most distant supernova ever seen, exploding when the universe was less than a billion years old. The event was first signaled by a gamma-ray burst and later confirmed ...

Something Fundamental About Black Holes May Be Changing

Dec. 27, 2025 New observations reveal that the relationship between ultraviolet and X-ray light in quasars has changed over billions of years. This unexpected shift suggests the structure around supermassive black ...

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 ...

Astronomers Discover One of the Universe’s Largest Spinning Structures

Dec. 25, 2025 Scientists have discovered a giant cosmic filament where galaxies spin in sync with the structure that holds them together. The razor-thin chain of galaxies sits inside a much larger filament that ...

A Christmas Tree 80 Light-Years Wide Appears in Space

Dec. 25, 2025 This Christmas, astronomers are highlighting a spectacular region of space that looks remarkably like a glowing holiday tree. Known as NGC 2264, this distant star-forming region sits about 2,700 ...

NASA Just Caught a Rare Glimpse of an Interstellar Comet

Dec. 20, 2025 An instrument aboard NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft captured rare ultraviolet observations of an interstellar comet while Earth-based telescopes were blinded by the Sun. The spacecraft’s unique ...

Astronomers Watched a Sleeping Neutron Star Roar Back to Life

Dec. 14, 2025 Astronomers tracked a decade of dramatic changes in P13, a neutron star undergoing supercritical accretion. Its X-ray luminosity rose and fell by factors of hundreds while its rotation rate ...

Webb Finds a Hidden Atmosphere on a Molten Super-Earth

Dec. 14, 2025 Webb’s latest observations reveal a hellish world cloaked in an unexpected atmosphere: TOI-561 b, an ultra-hot rocky planet racing around its star in under 11 hours. Despite being blasted by ...

Astronomers Just Watched a Black Hole Twist Spacetime

Dec. 18, 2025 Astronomers have detected spacetime itself being dragged and twisted by a spinning black hole for the first time. The discovery, seen during a star’s violent destruction, confirms a prediction made ...

Ghost Particles Slip Through Earth and Spark a Hidden Atomic Reaction

Dec. 12, 2025 Scientists have managed to observe solar neutrinos carrying out a rare atomic transformation deep underground, converting carbon-13 into nitrogen-13 inside the SNO+ detector. By tracking two faint ...

Uranus and Neptune Are Hiding Something Big Beneath the Blue

Dec. 10, 2025 Uranus and Neptune may not be the icy worlds we’ve long imagined. A new Swiss-led study uses innovative hybrid modeling to reveal that these planets could just as easily be dominated by rock as by ...

Astronomers Capture Sudden Black Hole Blast Firing Ultra Fast Winds

Dec. 9, 2025 A sudden X-ray flare from a supermassive black hole in galaxy NGC 3783 triggered ultra-fast winds racing outward at a fifth the speed of light—an event never witnessed before. Using XMM-Newton and ...

This Surprising Discovery Rewrites the Milky Way’s Origin Story

Dec. 9, 2025 New simulations of Milky Way-like galaxies reveal that the strange split between two chemically distinct groups of stars may arise from several very different evolutionary events. Bursts of star ...

Astrophysicists Map the Invisible Universe Using Warped Galaxies

Dec. 21, 2025 By studying tiny distortions in the shapes of distant galaxies, scientists mapped dark matter and dark energy across one of the largest sky surveys ever assembled. Their results back the standard ...

A Nearby Earth-Size Planet Just Got Much More Mysterious

Dec. 12, 2025 TRAPPIST-1e, an Earth-sized world in the system’s habitable zone, is drawing scientific attention as researchers hunt for signs of an atmosphere—and potentially life-supporting conditions. Early ...

New Cosmic Lens Measurements Deepen the Hubble Tension Mystery

Dec. 9, 2025 Scientists are testing a novel way to measure cosmic expansion using time delays in gravitationally lensed quasars. Their results match “local” measurements but clash with early-universe ...

A Violent Star Explosion Just Revealed a Hidden Recipe for Life

Dec. 8, 2025 XRISM’s high-precision X-ray data revealed unusually strong signatures of chlorine and potassium inside the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant. These levels are far higher than theoretical models ...

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 ...

Ramanujan’s 100-Year-Old Pi Formula Is Still Revealing the Universe

Dec. 16, 2025 Ramanujan’s elegant formulas for calculating pi, developed more than a century ago, have unexpectedly resurfaced at the heart of modern physics. Researchers at IISc discovered that the same ...

SPHERE’s Stunning Space Images Reveal Where New Planets Are Forming

Dec. 6, 2025 SPHERE’s detailed images of dusty rings around young stars offer a rare glimpse into the hidden machinery of planet formation. These bright arcs and faint clouds reveal where tiny planet-building ...

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 ...

JWST Finds a Milky Way Twin Born Shockingly Early in the Universe

Dec. 3, 2025 A surprisingly mature spiral galaxy named Alaknanda has been spotted just 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang—far earlier than astronomers believed such well-structured galaxies could form. With ...

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 ...

James Webb Catches a Giant Helium Cloud Pouring Off a Puffy Planet

Dec. 10, 2025 Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have captured dramatic helium streams pouring off the super-puff exoplanet WASP-107b, revealing a world with an enormously inflated, weakly bound ...