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For the first time, astronomers have caught a stellar nursery in the act of blowing giant celestial bubbles, revealing a massive outflow of gas stretching over 650 light-years from one of the Milky Way’s most extraordinary star clusters. Using nearly two decades of data from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, researchers traced this budding stream of supercharged particles as it expands beneath our Galaxy’s disk, offering crucial insights into how young, massive stars shape galactic evolution.

Lunar dust poses one of the most persistent challenges for spacecraft operations on the Moon, clinging stubbornly to surfaces and infiltrating equipment with potentially devastating consequences. Now, researchers have developed a comprehensive mathematical model that reveals exactly how electrically charged dust particles behave when they collide with spacecraft at low speeds, uncovering surprising insights about what makes them stick and what allows them to bounce away.

Astronomers have measured water streaming from interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS for the first time since it passed closest to the Sun. Using a spacecraft that’s been watching the Sun for nearly three decades, scientists detected hydrogen glowing around the comet and calculated that it was producing water at extraordinary rates. These measurements not only confirm that interstellar comets behave remarkably like our own Solar System’s icy wanderers, but also provide crucial clues about what comets looked like in the early universe.

Researchers have confirmed the mass of a free-floating planet thanks to a lucky convergence of ground- and space-based telescopes

Chess960 involves shuffling the pieces at the back of the board, and an analysis suggests doing so can increase the complexity of the game to favour white, black or neither player

Astronomers just measured the mass of a free-floating planet without a star for the first time

What created the Waterfall Nebula?

Yes, but can your comet tail do this?

This is the mess that is left when a star explodes.

Jewels don't shine this bright -- only stars do.

Awkward and angular looking,

3I/ATLAS Flyby

Auroral Corona

The new year has arrived, and the Quadrantid meteor shower is coming in hot. Here’s how to see this often-spectacular shower at its peak

Olivia Remes, a mental health researcher at the University of Cambridge, says these are the three things everyone should do this New Year to cultivate a more positive mindset

Olivia Remes, a mental health researcher at the University of Cambridge, says these are the three things everyone should do this New Year to cultivate a more positive mindset

In this month’s episode, start with one of the year’s best meteor showers, then spend some time with Jupiter, and check out a mythical queen and hunter who have ego problems. So bundle up, grab your curiosity, and come along on this month’s Sky Tour.

The post January Podcast: Jupiter and Orion appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

ESA’s Gaia space telescope has achieved something astronomers thought nearly impossible, detecting planets while they’re still forming inside the dusty discs surrounding newborn stars. By measuring the subtle gravitational wobbles that unseen companions induce on their host stars, Gaia has found hints of planets, brown dwarfs, and companion stars in 31 young stellar systems out of 98 surveyed.

The iconic 2019 and 2022 photographs of black holes M87* and Sagittarius A* captivated astronomers worldwide with their fuzzy orange doughnut shapes. Now, scientists are preparing to take the next giant leap by creating the first ever 3D movies of black holes that could fundamentally reshape our understanding of gravity and the universe’s most violent phenomena.

Two spiral galaxies locked in a slow motion collision have been captured in stunning detail by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory. The pair grazed past each other millions of years ago, triggering spectacular waves of star formation and distorting their elegant spiral arms into sweeping silver blue streamers. This celestial dance, playing out over hundreds of millions of years, offers astronomers a rare glimpse into the violent yet creative process that shapes galaxies across the universe.