ESO’s New Instrument Can Read the Light From 1,000 Stars and Galaxies at Once
MOONS has made its first observations at the Very Large Telescope. Its thousand optical fibres could help reveal the history hidden in stars and galaxies.
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Cosmos
This category presents the reader with astronomical events that can be seen each week, and month.
NASA and IBM Give Scientists a New Way to Search the Moon’s Vast Image Archive
A new lunar model can help map craters and promising conditions for polar ice. Its technical documentation reveals what those predictions mean—and how scientists can test them.
NASA Wants Your Help Reading the Light From Distant Galaxies
Artifact InSPECtor invites volunteers to examine Euclid observations and improve the tools that will help astronomers read distant galaxies. Here is what the unusual streaks and blobs mean.
ESA Can Now Predict Where Meteorite Fragments Will Fall Before an Asteroid Enters the Atmosphere
A new ESA model can estimate where fragments from a small incoming asteroid may land before the object reaches the atmosphere. The system was built for the short-warning events that astronomers call imminent impactors.
Did the Young Sun Swallow a Super-Earth? Its Interior May Still Hold the Clue
Could the young Sun have swallowed a super-Earth? A new solar model finds a possible interior fingerprint, but the event has not been observed.
Neptune’s Tiny Moons May Be Wreckage Left by Triton’s Capture
The small moons inside Neptune’s rings may be the surviving debris of a much larger moon system destroyed when Triton was captured billions of years ago.
Early-Universe Plasma May Have Kept Dark Photons From Heating the Cosmos
Dark photons are one proposed explanation for dark matter. A new calculation suggests that the early universe’s plasma may have stopped them from depositing heat as efficiently as earlier models predicted.
A Microquasar May Be Powering the Milky Way’s Giant Cygnus Bubble
The enormous Cygnus Bubble is usually linked to a busy star-forming region. A new study argues that the microquasar Cygnus X-3 may be the more natural source of its highest-energy gamma rays.
What Is the Cosmic Microwave Background? The Universe’s Ancient Afterglow Explained
The cosmic microwave background is the oldest light we can observe. Here is where it came from, what its tiny patterns reveal, and why it still matters.
Einstein Probe’s Hidden X-Ray Flash May Reveal a Supernova’s Engine
A sub-threshold Einstein Probe X-ray flash was found after ZTF spotted supernova SN 2025wkm. Researchers link the signal to shock breakout and a possible magnetar-powered engine.
Did Two Massive Stars Form Together—or Meet While Still Growing?
A massive star pair still wrapped in its birth material follows a sharply stretched orbit, while the disks around its two stars point in different directions. Together, those clues suggest the pair may have come together after forming separately.
A Faint Stellar Stream Outside the Milky Way Is Revealing Hidden Dark Matter
An ancient star cluster is slowly coming apart in a galaxy 115 million light-years away. The thin trail it left behind is giving astronomers a new way to study dark matter beyond the Milky Way.
What Is the Hubble Constant—and Why Do Astronomers Still Disagree About the Universe’s Expansion?
The Hubble constant measures how quickly the universe expands. Here is how astronomers calculate it—and why two powerful methods still disagree.
A Deep-Underground Detector Just Recorded Its Most Puzzling Dark-Matter Event Yet
An underground LUX–ZEPLIN detector found a 2.6-sigma event that could be dark matter—or an unknown background. Here is why researchers remain cautious.
Saturn Has a New Geometric Storm at Its South Pole. Why Is It Taking Shape Now?
Hubble has found a growing ten-sided atmospheric wave around Saturn’s south pole—the first large regular-sided jet seen there. Saturn has long been known for a strange shape in its clouds.…
Hubble and Webb Found Tiny Worlds That Still Remember How the Solar System Formed
Twenty-seven faint objects beyond Neptune are giving astronomers a rare look at the planet-building material that survived when the outer solar system stopped growing. The outer solar system is not…
Astronomers Found 84 Strange X-Ray Sources Hiding in Six Galaxies. What Are They?
The objects are unusually soft in X-rays but bright in extreme ultraviolet light—exactly the combination that makes them difficult to find and potentially important to the history of stars and…
Hubble Reveals a 210-Light-Year Cavity Where Stars Are Reshaping Their Neighborhood
Look into the middle of N44 and the most striking feature is what seems to be missing. A vast opening interrupts the glowing gas, while stars crowd the surrounding scene.…
Dragonfly’s Titan Destination Has a Name—and a Question About Life’s Ingredients
What might happen when the ingredients of life have an entire landscape in which to react? On Titan, NASA hopes to investigate that question by flying from one patch of…
What Is the Solar System? How Our Cosmic Neighborhood Took Shape
Look up at the night sky and it is easy to imagine a few bright worlds hanging in an empty blackness. But what are we really looking at when we…
Neutron Star or Black Hole? The Signals Astronomers Use to Tell Them Apart
A brilliant X-ray source is not automatically a black hole. Matter falling toward a neutron star can also become intensely luminous, and some neutron stars have surprised astronomers by producing…
Why Venus Can Shine Brightest When It Looks Like a Crescent
Venus can reach its greatest brilliance while a telescope shows only a crescent. A nearly full Venus exposes more of its sunlit hemisphere, yet that does not necessarily deliver more…
Saturn Has a Ten-Sided Wave at Its South Pole. How Does It Compare With the Hexagon?
Saturn’s south pole has a ten-sided atmospheric wave, giving astronomers a new counterpart to the planet’s famous northern hexagon. The southern pattern appears to be evolving, raising a question that…
Webb Finds 27 Tiny Worlds Beyond Neptune. Their Colors Hold a Clue to the Solar System’s Past
Twenty-seven faint objects beyond Neptune have emerged from a deep James Webb Space Telescope survey, extending the search for the solar system’s building blocks to worlds only kilometres across. Hubble…