Space Telescopes News

March 17, 2025

Top Headlines

Combination of Cosmic Processes Shapes the Size and Location of Sub-Neptunes

Mar. 17, 2025 — A combination of cosmic processes shapes the formation of one of the most common types of planets outside of our solar system, according to a new ...

TOI-1453: Sub-Neptune in System of Two Exoplanets

Mar. 14, 2025 — Astronomers have discovered two exoplanets around TOI-1453, a star about 250 light years away. These two exoplanets, a super-Earth and a sub-Neptune, are common in the galaxy, yet are absent from our system. This discovery paves the way for future ...

Signs of Alien Life May Be Hiding in These Gases

Mar. 12, 2025 — Scientists identify a new way to detect life in outer space with currently existing telescopes. The method hinges on worlds that look nothing like Earth, and gases rarely considered in the search for ...

Small, Faint and 'Unexpected in a Lot of Different Ways': Astronomers Make Galactic Discovery

Mar. 11, 2025 — The discovery of the dwarf galaxy Andromeda XXXV --located roughly 3 million light-years away and the smallest yet found in the Andromeda system -- is forcing astronomers to rethink how galaxies ...

Latest Headlines

updated 11:04pm EDT

Entwined Dwarf Stars Reveal Their Location Thanks to Repeated Radio Bursts

Mar. 12, 2025 — A white dwarf and a red dwarf star have been discovered closely orbiting each other emitting radio pulses every two hours. Their findings means we know it isn't just neutron stars that emit such ...

Four Tiny Planets Found Orbiting One of Our Nearest Stars

Mar. 11, 2025 — Astronomers have revealed new evidence that there are not just one but four tiny planets circling around Barnard's Star, the second-nearest star system to ...

James Webb Space Telescope Reveals Unexpected Complex Chemistry in Primordial Galaxy

Mar. 10, 2025 — Astronomers have peered back to a time when the universe was just less than 300 million years old. The research team, using JWST revealed something ...

Ultra-Hot Nova Observed Erupting: Surprising Chemical Signature

Mar. 5, 2025 — Astronomers have for the first time observed a recurring nova outside of the Milky Way in near-infrared light. The data revealed highly unusual chemical emissions as well as one of the hottest ...

Neural Network Deciphers Gravitational Waves from Merging Neutron Stars in a Second

Mar. 5, 2025 — Binary neutron star mergers emit gravitational waves followed by light. To fully exploit these observations and avoid missing key signals, speed is ...

Small and Large Planets Have Significantly Different Upbringings

Mar. 5, 2025 — Studying the orbits of thousands of exoplanets shows that large planets tend to have elliptical orbits, while smaller planets tend to have more circular orbits. This split coincides with several ...

Astronomer Finds Gas Giant Exoplanets Formed Earlier Than Previously Thought

Mar. 5, 2025 — A fresh look at past data reveals that exoplanets with masses similar to Jupiter formed much sooner than previously thought, according to new ...

Beyond Our Solar System: Scientists Identify a New Exoplanet Candidate

Mar. 4, 2025 — The discovery of new exoplanets can help scientists understand how planets form and ...

NASA's Hubble Finds Kuiper Belt Duo May Be Trio

Mar. 4, 2025 — The puzzle of predicting how three gravitationally bound bodies move in space has challenged mathematicians for centuries, and has most recently been popularized in the novel and television show '3 ...

NASA's Hubble Provides Bird's-Eye View of Andromeda Galaxy's Ecosystem

Feb. 27, 2025 — Located 2.5 million light-years away, the majestic Andromeda galaxy appears to the naked eye as a faint, spindle-shaped object roughly the angular size of the full Moon. What backyard observers don't ...

ESO Observations Help Almost Fully Rule out 2024 YR4 Asteroid Impact

Feb. 25, 2025 — New observations of 2024 YR4 conducted with the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (ESO's VLT) and facilities around the world have all but ruled out an impact of the ...

Today's Forecast: Partially Cloudy Skies on an 'Ultra-Hot Neptune'

Feb. 25, 2025 — Using the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers investigate the extreme weather patterns and atmospheric properties of exoplanet LTT 9779 b. New JWST observations with NIRISS reveal a dynamic ...

In Ancient Stellar Nurseries, Some Stars Are Born of Fluffy Clouds

Feb. 20, 2025 — Researchers have found that stars in the early universe may have formed from 'fluffy' molecular clouds. Using the ALMA telescope to observe the Small Magellanic Cloud -- whose environment ...

Flickers and Flares: Milky Way's Central Black Hole Constantly Bubbles With Light

Feb. 18, 2025 — Astrophysicists have observed our central supermassive black hole. They found the accretion disk is constantly emitting flares without periods of rest. Shorter, faint flares and longer, bright flares ...

Einstein Probe Catches X-Ray Odd Couple

Feb. 18, 2025 — Lobster-eye satellite Einstein Probe captured the X-ray flash from a very elusive celestial pair. The discovery opens a new way to explore how massive stars interact and evolve, confirming the unique ...

'Out of Science Fiction': First 3D Observations of an Exoplanet's Atmosphere Reveal a Unique Climate

Feb. 18, 2025 — Astronomers have peered through the atmosphere of a planet beyond the Solar System, mapping its 3D structure for the first time. By combining all four telescope units of the European Southern ...

'Game Changing' Release of Type Ia Supernovae Data May Hold Key to the History of the Universe

Feb. 14, 2025 — A unique dataset of Type Ia Supernovae being released today could change how cosmologists measure the expansion history of the ...

New Research Sheds Light on Using Multiple CubeSats for in-Space Servicing and Repair Missions

Feb. 14, 2025 — As more satellites, telescopes, and other spacecraft are built to be repairable, it will take reliable trajectories for service spacecraft to reach them safely. Researchers are developing a ...

Jumping Workouts Could Help Astronauts on the Moon and Mars, Study in Mice Suggests

Feb. 13, 2025 — Jumping workouts could help astronauts prevent the type of cartilage damage they are likely to endure during lengthy missions to Mars and the Moon, a new study suggests. The researchers found that ...

Phoenix Galaxy Cluster in the Act of Extreme Cooling

Feb. 13, 2025 — New findings explain the Phoenix cluster's mysterious starburst. Data confirm the cluster is actively cooling and able to generate a huge amount of stellar fuel on its ...

First Detection of an Ultra-High-Energy Neutrino

Feb. 12, 2025 — Scientists have just detected a neutrino that is thirty times more energetic than any previously detected anywhere in the world. This exceptional discovery opens up new perspectives for understanding ...

Temperamental Stars Are Distorting Our View of Distant Planets

Feb. 7, 2025 — 'Temperamental' stars that brighten and dim over a matter of hours or days may be distorting our view of thousands of distant planets, suggests a new ...

Largest Radio Jet Ever Seen in the Early Universe

Feb. 6, 2025 — Astronomers have characterized the largest-ever early-Universe radio jet. Historically, such large radio jets have remained elusive in the distant Universe. With these observations, astronomers have ...

Straight Shot: Hubble Investigates Galaxy With Nine Rings

Feb. 4, 2025 — NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has captured a cosmic bullseye! The gargantuan galaxy LEDA 1313424 is rippling with nine star-filled rings after an 'arrow' -- a far smaller blue dwarf ...

The Hidden Power of the Smallest Microquasars

Jan. 29, 2025 — Researchers found for the first time evidence that even microquasars containing a low-mass star are efficient particle accelerators, which leads to a significant impact on the interpretation of the ...

A Super-Earth Laboratory for Searching Life Elsewhere in the Universe

Jan. 28, 2025 — Thirty years after the discovery of the first exoplanet, we detected more than 7000 of them in our Galaxy. But there are still billions more to be discovered! At the same time, exoplanetologists have ...

Innovation 'Sifts' Space for Mysteries

Jan. 27, 2025 — Astronomers and engineers have developed a specialized system for their radio telescope to rapidly detect mysterious fast radio bursts and other space ...

Astronomers Thought They Understood Fast Radio Bursts: A Recent One Calls That Into Question

Jan. 21, 2025 — Fast radio bursts are mysterious and brief flashes of radio emissions that were thought to be produced by magnetars, highly magnetized rotating neutron stars. Yet magnetars appear primarily in young ...

Extreme Supersonic Winds Measured on Planet Outside Our Solar System

Jan. 21, 2025 — Astronomers have discovered extremely powerful winds pummeling the equator of WASP-127b, a giant exoplanet. Reaching speeds up to 33,000 km/h, the winds make up the fastest jet-stream of its kind ...

First Fast Radio Burst Traced to Old, Dead, Elliptical Galaxy

Jan. 21, 2025 — Astronomers previously thought all FRBs were generated by magnetars formed through the explosions of very young, massive stars. But new FRB is pinpointed to the outskirts of 11.3-billion-year-old ...