Astronomy

Preliminary studies suggest that a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet could reduce schizophrenia symptoms in some people, but claiming it’s a cure is misleading, experts say

Recently published data from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) of the galaxy Messier 87 facilitate new insights into the direct environment of the central supermassive black hole. Measured differences in the radio light on different spatial scales can be explained by the presence of an as of yet undetected jet at frequencies of 230 Gigahertz at spatial scales comparable to the size of the black hole. The most likely location of the jet base is determined through detailed modeling.

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of a solar flare — seen as the bright flash toward the upper middle — on Feb. 4, 2026. The image shows a subset of extreme ultraviolet light that highlights the extremely hot material in flares and which is colorized in blue and red.

After 25 years, Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider—the U.S.’s largest and only particle collider—has ceased operations, but its science lives on

The upcoming drugs CagriSema and retatrutide target multiple gut hormones and could cause twice as much weight loss than current treatments. But experts wonder how much is too much

Isn’t the FLRW metric way generic? It lays out the basic assumptions and tells us how the universe should behave, but it doesn’t say WHAT the universe is made of.

The flow of ice at Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica has sped up dramatically due to the disintegration of the ice shelf in front of it, and this could lead to faster sea level rise

From vegetation scans to 360-degree smoke detectors, new tools are trying to shine a light on the most dangerously dark areas of the electric grid

Science funding cuts in the UK are expected to be a "devastasting blow" for physics research, affecting international projects such as particle detection experiments at CERN

Many different bird species have been affiliated with the Seattle Seahawks’ mascot, but none is technically a “seahawk”

When we exercise more, our bodies may compensate by using less energy for other things – especially if we eat less too

When we exercise more, our bodies may compensate by using less energy for other things – especially if we eat less too

Week in images: 02-06 February 2026

Discover our week through the lens

Five volcanoes on Jupiter’s moon Io erupted simultaneously, spewing a mind-boggling amount of lava onto the surface and giving us clues to what may lie underneath

Five volcanoes on Jupiter’s moon Io erupted simultaneously, spewing a mind-boggling amount of lava onto the surface and giving us clues to what may lie underneath

Sometimes humans get ahead of ourselves. We embark on grand engineering experiments without really understanding what the long-term implications of such projects are. Climate change itself it a perfect example of that - no one in the early industrial revolution realized that, more than 100 years later, the emissions from their combustion engines would increase the overall global temperature and risk millions of people's lives and livelihoods, let alone the impact it would have on the species we share the world with. According to a new release from the Salata Institute at Harvard, we seem to be going down the same blind path with a different engineering challenge in this century - satellite megaconstellations.

You might think galaxies can’t ever find each other in our runaway cosmos, but it turns out gravity can sometimes overcome even the stretching of space itself

A new study suggests king cobras may be accidentally boarding trains across India

Why psychiatry’s diagnostic system may undergo major changes, and what the scientific debates over how mental illnesses should be defined are

The Winter Hexagon encompasses the brightest winter stars. Near Orion, the Big Dog prances and the Hare crouches. And the moonless dark this week opens telescopic deep-sky depths.

The post This Week's Sky at a Glance, February 6 – 15 appeared first on Sky & Telescope.