Universe Today

The JWST has shown us some strange things about supermassive black holes (SMBH) in the early Universe. Many of them are far more massive than we think they should be. Now astronomers working with the JWST have found one that seems to have formed before its galaxy did.

Complex organic molecules (COMS) are at the heart of life. They're created where jets from protostars slam into the interstellar medium, environments that scientists call natural laboratories. In these intense environments, important carbon-bearing molecules are created. Recent research took a close look at one of these jets and found some COMS in them for the first time.

A new statistical model reveals more details about the ringdown period of merging black holes.

There’s nothing like a random celestial coincidence, turned good internet meme. In this case, the chance event is this weekend’s Full Moon, which also happens to be the second Full Moon of May, and is also the most distant and visually smallest Full Moon of the year.

You’re on a camping trip with your family and your parents tell you to turn off all the lights. But, of course, your little brother wants to shine his flashlight directly at the sky saying aliens will see it. You finally get him to shut off his flashlight, and you give your eyes a few minutes to adjust to the darkness. As they do, more and more stars begin to appear in the night sky that were initially hidden beneath the glare of your (loser) brother’s flashlight. As the stars get brighter and increase in number, you start firing off a slew of questions in your head: How far away are they? Are there planets around them? What kinds of life are on those planets?

An international team led by Associate Professor Kimihiko Nakajima of Kanazawa University has captured a rare look at the early universe. Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the power of gravitational lensing, the team achieved a definitive characterization of LAP1-B, an ultra-faint galaxy from 13 billion years ago.

In the heirarchy of black holes, intermediate mass black holes (IMBH) lie in between stellar mass black holes and supermassive black holes. But the problem is that we've never found one. There have been hints, but nothing conclusive. Could gravitational microlensing of Fast Radio Bursts help find them?

Scientists have captured one of the most detailed observations ever of a failed solar eruption, a powerful blast from the Sun that built into what should have been a billion tonne plasma ejection, then stalled and collapsed back to the surface. Using data from five spacecraft simultaneously, the team identified a double magnetic process that strangled the eruption from both above and below.

In August 2025, a NASA spacecraft detected a solar radio burst that refused to stop lasting 19 days, nearly four times longer than any previously recorded. A team of researchers used data from four spacecraft spread across the inner Solar System to track the event and pinpoint its source to a magnetic structure called a helmet streamer, likely supercharged by a series of powerful solar eruptions.

Astronomers have discovered a remarkable triple star system in which two Sun like stars orbit each other every 4.75 days, while a giant star, ten times the size of our Sun circles the pair every 412 days. All three orbit in almost exactly the same plane, and because we view that plane edge on from Earth, the stars eclipse each other in a distinctive pattern that allows all three to be measured simultaneously. The giant is slowly swelling and will eventually overflow its gravitational boundary, triggering a dramatic mass transfer event that could reshape or even destroy the system.

Our Sun is a loner. It lacks a stellar companion hurtling through interstellar space with it. But we’ve known for a long time that’s actually relatively rare - most stars have at least one gravitationally bound partner. Understanding how exactly those stars are related to each other is critical for observational campaigns - especially for those of exoplanets. So a new paper from researchers at the University of Madrid that categorizes almost every star within ten light years into companion categories is a welcome addition to the literature on the subject, and could be used to inform the next round of planet habitable planet hunting satellites.

We’ve been reporting a lot lately on the negative impacts of satellite constellations. And unfortunately it’s time for another article about a paper pointing out the potential hazards of them. This one, by lead author Conner Barker of University College London, focuses on the pollution caused by rocket launches - and admittedly contains some good news, but also a cautionary tale that policy makers should be aware of.

In a stellar flyby, a star approaches our Solar System close enough to create gravitational mayhem. The last one was 70,000 years ago. There are more in the future, and it's possible that they could disrupt comets from the Oort Cloud and send them into the inner Solar System, with the risk of catastrophic impact.

We've discovered large numbers of small rocky exoplanets, but they're at such great distances that habitability is extremely difficult to determine. New research suggests than since Mars is on the edge of being habitable, studying it in detail can shed light on rocky exoplanets. If we can understand things like tectonic activity and atmospheric escape on Mars, we can understand how they may play out on rocky exoplanets.

New research led by Penn State scientists suggests that some of the highest-energy cosmic rays may consist of atomic nuclei heavier than iron and could help narrow down the cosmic sources capable of accelerating these particles.

As part of a commercial partnership, NASA is developing a sophisticated chip that will give spacecraft the processing capabilities to think for themselves.

A team of South Korean scientists has uncovered new evidence that could help explain how Earth’s atmosphere became rich in oxygen, one of the most transformative events in the planet’s history. Researchers from the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources (KIGAM) report the finding of stromatolites, layered structures formed by microbial communities, within the Hapcheon impact crater on the Korean Peninsula. While the Hapcheon crater is only about 40,000 years old, it shows how stromatolites got a boost from the heat in impact crater hydrothermal systems.

Could the "Great Silence" be the result of extraterrestrial civilizations dying out before they can make contact, or will they evolve to the point where communication with them is no longer possible?

It’s 2035 and NASA’s Dragonfly quadcopter has been “hopping” around the surface of Saturn’s largest moon Titan for just over a year taking images, scanning pebbles, drilling holes, and analyzing surface material for potential signs of life. You’re at NASA JPL and just moved to Blue Team (12am-8am) from Red Team (4pm-12am), so you’re hyped up on coffee, Red Bull, and will power. It’s 3:30am, you’ve been analyzing data since you clocked in, and you keep discarding what you’ve been told looks like positive signs of life but is more commonly known as false positives. In the meantime, some microbes on Titan that got scanned by Dragonfly keep posing in front of its main camera with signs saying, “We’re here!”

You’re on the fourth human mission to Mars, and you’ve been tasked with establishing the first self-sustaining food crop on a Martian settlement. You’re nervous because you’re using a new type of fungi called beneficial fungi, which you’re told will help enhance Martian regolith, enabling it to be used for growing crops. You were privately told that doing this will not only get a high school named after you, but you will successfully feed future settlers without the need to bring food from Earth. But you really only care about having your name on a high school.