Astronomy

For observers on Earth, the sun appears as a bright, familiar disk—but what we see is only half the story. Like the moon, one half of the sun is permanently hidden from our direct view: […]

Messier 104, nicknamed the Sombrero Galaxy, is a popular target for amateur observing and astronomical research. Its recognizable extended halo, as well as a faint stellar stream, are captured in exquisite detail in this image […]

The Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory (LHAASO) has detected PeV (1015 eV) gamma-ray emission from a pulsar wind nebula powered by PSR J1849-0001 in the constellation Aquila, marking the discovery of a new PeVatron […]

Using the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST), astronomers have observed a nearby young open cluster known as NGC 1647. Results of the new observations, presented in a paper published April 13 on […]

A star’s mass determines its entire life story, from how it shines to how it dies. For young stars shrouded in dust, getting an accurate mass has long been difficult, but new radio measurements are […]

Ultra-faint dwarf galaxies—tiny satellite galaxies orbiting the Milky Way—have long been seen as cosmic fossils. Now, a new study published today in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society uses an unprecedented set of simulations […]

New observations of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS include the first measurement of the abundance of deuterated water relative to ordinary water in an interstellar object. Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) discovered that […]

New observations and simulations by a team of researchers led by MPE reveal that a massive binary star near our galaxy’s center is responsible for creating a series of enigmatic gas clouds—compact gas clumps that […]

NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope team now is targeting as soon as early September 2026 for launch, ahead of the agency’s commitment to flight no later than May 2027.This post was originally published on […]

Fifteen years after Western astronomers first discovered “buckyballs” in space (soccer ball-shaped molecules that resemble a hollow sphere), they’re back with stunning images and rich data generated using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)—the most […]