Astronomy

A large new study reveals how early relationships with parents and friends influence how we relate to those closest to us in adulthood

Researchers from Keio University have made the most precise measurement yet of the cosmic microwave background radiation's temperature from seven billion years ago, finding it was approximately 5.13 K, roughly twice today's temperature of 2.7 K. By analysing archived data from the ALMA telescope in Chile, the team confirmed a key prediction of Big Bang model, that the universe cools as it expands, meaning it was hotter in the past. This highly accurate measurement provides strong support for the standard cosmological model and helps scientists better understand the thermal history of our universe.

Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS has undergone dramatic brightening as it approached its closest point to the Sun. Researchers have been using solar monitoring satellites to track it during a period when Earth based observations were impossible due to the comet's position behind the Sun. Analysis of data from STEREO-A, SOHO, and GOES-19 spacecraft revealed the comet brightened at an unexpectedly rapid rate between mid September and late October 2025, with its light showing a distinctly blue colour indicating significant gas emission rather than just reflected sunlight from dust. The comet's unusual behaviour and the cause of its steep brightening remain mysteries that ground based observers will now investigate as it emerges into dark skies.

In this month’s Sky Tour astronomy podcast, we’ll watch two sets of shooting stars, spot some bright planets, point out a few late-autumn constellations, and put a spotlight on five fascinating stars.

The post November Podcast: Five Fascinating Stars appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Scientists at MIT have discovered over 100 different molecules in a stellar nursery called the Taurus Molecular Cloud-1, making it the most chemically diverse interstellar cloud ever observed. Using over 1,400 hours of telescope time, the team found mostly hydrocarbons and nitrogen rich compounds, along with 10 ring shaped aromatic molecules similar to those found in coffee, vanilla, and DNA. This discovery helps solve a decades old mystery about complex organic molecules in space and provides key insights into the chemical conditions that existed before our own Solar System formed.

For the first time, astronomers have mapped the three-dimensional atmosphere of a planet orbiting a distant star, revealing temperature variations and distinct atmospheric regions across an alien world 400 light years away. Using the James Webb Space Telescope to track minute changes in brightness as the scorching gas giant WASP-18b passed behind its star, scientists created a weather map of an exoplanet, transforming these distant worlds from featureless dots into environments we can actually study layer by layer. This new technique could soon map hundreds of other similar hot Jupiters, finally bringing alien atmospheres into focus as real places with their own geography and weather patterns.

Every kilogram of rocket fuel is dead weight once it’s burned, yet conventional spacecraft must carry hundreds, sometimes thousands of tons of propellant to reach even nearby planets. This fundamental limitation has confined humanity to our own Solar System for decades. But a new generation of propulsion concepts promises to break free from this constraint entirely, harnessing radiation pressure, solar wind, and planetary gravity to accelerate spacecraft without carrying a single drop of fuel. These elegant systems could finally make interstellar exploration feasible…if engineers can overcome their formidable technical challenges.

How does water form on exoplanets and what could this mean for the search for life beyond Earth? This is what a recent study published in Nature hopes to address as an international team of scientists investigated the processes responsible for exoplanets producing liquid water. This study has the potential to help scientists better understand the conditions for finding life beyond Earth, and specifically which exoplanets could be viable future targets for astrobiology.

NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto has forced astronomers to rewrite their textbooks — but that’s not all: In the latest episode of the Fiction Science podcast, space scientist Les Johnson explains how New Horizons forced him to rewrite "Pluto," the final novel in Ben Bova's Grand Tour series.

Black holes are usually described as having an event horizon and a singularity, but there are alternative models that don't have these bothersome mathematical paradoxes.

So where do we go after years of empty searches for dark matter? We haven’t learned nothing.

The uncertainty inherent to quantum mechanics has long left physicists wondering whether the observations we make on the quantum level reflect reality - a new test suggests they do

The uncertainty inherent to quantum mechanics has long left physicists wondering whether the observations we make on the quantum level reflect reality - a new test suggests they do

We now have only the second high-quality genome from an ancient Denisovan human, which reveals there were more populations of this species than we thought

We now have only the second high-quality genome from an ancient Denisovan human, which reveals there were more populations of this species than we thought

A sheet of fabric that is three times stronger than Kevlar could stop a bullet despite being just 1.8 millimetres thick, thanks to the addition of carbon nanotubes that keep its molecules aligned

A sheet of fabric that is three times stronger than Kevlar could stop a bullet despite being just 1.8 millimetres thick, thanks to the addition of carbon nanotubes that keep its molecules aligned

Week in images: 27-31 October 2025

Discover our week through the lens

Existing tools that work out the carbon footprint of flights greatly underestimate their warming impact, say the makers of a new calculator

Existing tools that work out the carbon footprint of flights greatly underestimate their warming impact, say the makers of a new calculator