https://phys.org/space-news/astronomy/ en-us The latest science news on astronomy, space, and astrophysics. Astronomers, using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), have confirmed the existence of a close quasar pair housed in a pair of merging galaxies seen when the universe was less than a billion years old, at a redshift of 5.7. The system, designated J2037–4537, is one of only two confirmed quasar pairs at redshift greater than 5 ever found. A paper outlining this work was submitted to the preprint server arXiv on April 7. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-blazing-quasars-caught-waltzing-merger.html Astronomy Sun, 26 Apr 2026 13:30:01 EDT news695898411 It takes a moment for the eyes to adjust. A faint spark appears in the darkness; then another, brighter one. Soon, stars, planets and entire constellations emerge. Before long, a whole galaxy stretches across the sky, visible to the naked eye. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-threat-pollution-world-darkest-skies.html Astronomy Sun, 26 Apr 2026 11:40:01 EDT news696422376 In the exotic world of particle physics, neutrinos may be the most mysterious members. They rarely interact with other matter, have almost no mass, and have no electrical charge. These characteristics make them extremely difficult to study. Even detecting them requires specialized facilities in deep caves, in thick Antarctic ice, or on the ocean floor. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-energetic-neutrino-primordial.html Astronomy Fri, 24 Apr 2026 22:20:01 EDT news696242367 A team of astrophysicists from Nanjing University and University of Bonn have demonstrated that, rather than being random, the mass of new stars born inside a star cluster is actually governed by a defined process of self-regulation. Their work has been published in the journal Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-cosmic-star-clusters.html Astronomy Fri, 24 Apr 2026 13:40:04 EDT news696248642 For observers on Earth, the sun appears as a bright, familiar disk—but what we see is only half the story. Like the moon, one half of the sun is permanently hidden from our direct view: the far side beyond the visible solar limb. Yet, activity brewing there can eventually turn toward Earth, sometimes unleashing solar flares and eruptions capable of disrupting human technology. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-scientists-hidden-magnetism-sun-side.html Astronomy Fri, 24 Apr 2026 13:20:03 EDT news696248402 Messier 104, nicknamed the Sombrero Galaxy, is a popular target for amateur observing and astronomical research. Its recognizable extended halo, as well as a faint stellar stream, are captured in exquisite detail in this image from the Department of Energy-fabricated Dark Energy Camera (DECam), mounted on the U.S. National Science Foundation Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, a Program of NSF NOIRLab. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-sombrero-galaxy-vast-halo-emerges.html Astronomy Fri, 24 Apr 2026 12:50:01 EDT news696253012 The Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory (LHAASO) has detected PeV (1015 eV) gamma-ray emission from a pulsar wind nebula powered by PSR J1849-0001 in the constellation Aquila, marking the discovery of a new PeVatron and posing a challenge to the classical theory of particle acceleration in pulsar wind nebulae. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-aquila-booster-theoretical-limits-particle.html Astronomy Fri, 24 Apr 2026 12:40:01 EDT news696248102 Using the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST), astronomers have observed a nearby young open cluster known as NGC 1647. Results of the new observations, presented in a paper published April 13 on the pre-print server arXiv, deliver essential information regarding the properties of this cluster. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-lamost-cluster-ngc-linking-broad.html Astronomy Fri, 24 Apr 2026 12:20:03 EDT news696247213 A star's mass determines its entire life story, from how it shines to how it dies. For young stars shrouded in dust, getting an accurate mass has long been difficult, but new radio measurements are beginning to change that. Astronomers are helping unravel the mass mystery of young stars in the Orion star-forming complex by measuring their masses with unprecedented precision. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-orbital-true-masses-orion-young.html Astronomy Fri, 24 Apr 2026 09:40:03 EDT news696239941 Ultra-faint dwarf galaxies—tiny satellite galaxies orbiting the Milky Way—have long been seen as cosmic fossils. Now, a new study published today in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society uses an unprecedented set of simulations to show just how powerfully these faint systems can reflect the conditions of the early universe and tell us why some galaxies grew and others did not. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-milky-cousins-clues-infant-universe.html Astronomy Thu, 23 Apr 2026 19:00:03 EDT news696167281 New observations of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS include the first measurement of the abundance of deuterated water relative to ordinary water in an interstellar object. Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) discovered that the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is made of an astonishingly high ratio of semi-heavy water relative to water, indicating that its system of origin likely formed under conditions far colder than our own. The findings are published in Nature Astronomy. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-3iatlas-semi-heavy-comets-solar.html Astronomy Thu, 23 Apr 2026 13:26:02 EDT news696169452 New observations and simulations by a team of researchers led by MPE reveal that a massive binary star near our galaxy's center is responsible for creating a series of enigmatic gas clouds—compact gas clumps that help feed the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*. The study is published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-mysterious-gas-clouds-milky-black.html Astronomy Thu, 23 Apr 2026 12:00:08 EDT news696159422 NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope team now is targeting as soon as early September 2026 for launch, ahead of the agency's commitment to flight no later than May 2027. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-nasa-eyes-september-roman-telescope.html Astronomy Wed, 22 Apr 2026 18:00:07 EDT news696094861 Fifteen years after Western astronomers first discovered "buckyballs" in space (soccer ball-shaped molecules that resemble a hollow sphere), they're back with stunning images and rich data generated using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)—the most powerful space telescope ever built. The team led by Jan Cami, a physics and astronomy professor, first detected buckyballs using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope in 2010. The fantastic find came from the planetary nebula Tc 1, formed from a dying star more than 10,000 light-years away in the constellation Ara. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-astronomers-reveal-spectacular-birthplace-cosmic.html Astronomy Wed, 22 Apr 2026 13:51:05 EDT news696084625 NASA unveiled a new telescope on Tuesday to scan vast swaths of the universe for planets outside our solar system and probe the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-nasa-unveils-roman-telescope-universe.html Astronomy Wed, 22 Apr 2026 10:29:03 EDT news696072437 Astronomers from South Africa and India have analyzed archival data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory and Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) regarding a nearby small galaxy group known as IC 1262. Results of the new study, presented April 14 on the preprint server arXiv, provide more insights into metal enrichment of IC 1262, which could help us better understand the nature of this group. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-cold-fronts-nearby-galaxy-group.html Astronomy Wed, 22 Apr 2026 09:00:03 EDT news696065868 At more than one million degrees, the sun's atmosphere—the corona—is incredibly hot; but not everywhere. Time and again, huge structures of significantly cooler solar plasma—about 10,000 degrees—appear within the corona. These structures are known as prominences. They span up to several thousand kilometers and often resemble flickering flames that can take on a wide variety of shapes. Despite their delicate appearance, they are massive "chunks of matter": their density exceeds that of the surrounding corona by more than a hundred. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-sun-simulations-reveal-cool-prominences.html Astronomy Wed, 22 Apr 2026 05:00:07 EDT news696010501 The universe has a hidden structure, and a University of Virginia professor is mapping it in 3D, using 46 million galaxies and quasars and 19 million stars. Satya Gontcho A Gontcho, an assistant professor in the Department of Astronomy, is part of a team using the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory-led, Arizona-based Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument to conduct one of the most extensive surveys of the cosmos ever. DESI has built the largest 3D map of the universe ever created by humanity to study dark energy, one of the biggest mysteries in physics. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-hidden-universe.html Astronomy Tue, 21 Apr 2026 17:40:05 EDT news695992399 Astronomers at the University of Hawaiʻi have precisely measured the age of a nearby sun-like star and its unusual companion, known as a brown dwarf, an object that falls between a planet and a star. The discovery offers new clues into how brown dwarfs grow and change over time. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-astronomers-precisely-date-rare-brown.html Astronomy Tue, 21 Apr 2026 17:30:01 EDT news696007981 This observation from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, released on March 23, 2026, gives an unparalleled, detailed look at the aftermath of a supernova and how it has evolved over the telescope's long lifetime. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-hubble-reveals-crab-nebula-filaments.html Astronomy Tue, 21 Apr 2026 14:40:06 EDT news696000353 How far the Milky Way's disk extends has long been difficult to define—it doesn't end sharply, but fades away gradually at its outer edges. Now, for the first time, an international team of astronomers has identified the edge of the Milky Way's star-forming disk by studying the ages of stars, revealing that the bulk of our galaxy's star formation occurs within 40,000 light-years of the Galactic Center. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-edge-milky-star-disk-revealed.html Astronomy Tue, 21 Apr 2026 12:40:03 EDT news695986421 Using the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME), an international team of astronomers has performed radio observations of FRB 20220912A—a highly active source of repeating fast radio bursts. Results of the monitoring campaign, published April 10 on the preprint server arXiv, could help us better understand the nature of these enigmatic sources. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-chime-tracks-hyperactive-fast-radio.html Astronomy Tue, 21 Apr 2026 11:40:03 EDT news695985187 With the launch of Space Warps, a new citizen science project on the Zooniverse platform, you can now join in the search to find rare and elusive strong gravitational lenses in never-before-seen images captured by the European Space Agency's Euclid space telescope. The project aims at shining a light on dark matter in galaxies and providing clues about mysterious dark energy. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-euclid-space-warps-citizen-science.html Astronomy Tue, 21 Apr 2026 11:00:08 EDT news695986434 This shimmering region of star-formation, a close-up of the Trifid Nebula about 5,000 light-years from Earth, was captured in intricate detail by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The colors in Hubble's visible light image, which marks the 36th anniversary of the mission's launch on April 24, are reminiscent of an underwater scene filled with fine-grained sediments fluttering through the ocean's depths. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-hubble-dazzles-young-stars-trifid.html Astronomy Mon, 20 Apr 2026 14:00:03 EDT news695911647 Using the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST), Chinese astronomers have inspected two nearby galactic globular clusters, namely NGC 6517 and NGC 7078. The study resulted in the discovery of six new millisecond pulsars in these clusters, which are isolated and faint. The finding was detailed in a paper published April 9 on the arXiv pre-print server. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-isolated-millisecond-pulsars-fast.html Astronomy Mon, 20 Apr 2026 12:20:04 EDT news695898433 Luminous fast blue optical transients (LFBOTs) are among the universe's brightest and fastest explosions but their origin is not completely understood. A new study takes a closer look at the galaxies they occur in, offering two important clues about their nature. A paper outlining these results was uploaded to the preprint server arXiv on March 24. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-blazing-blue-explosions-born-compact.html Astronomy Sun, 19 Apr 2026 13:00:03 EDT news695304780 The Perseus Cluster is a massive galaxy cluster located in the constellation Perseus. It is one of the largest structures in the observable universe, comprising more than a thousand galaxies—equivalent to roughly a thousand trillion times the mass of the sun. Hot gases within the cluster, known as the intracluster medium (ICM), emit powerful X-rays detectable by telescopes. These gases are produced by billions of supernova explosions, and their chemical composition reveals how typical supernovae have exploded throughout cosmic history. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-theoretical-supernova-chemistry-overhauled-ray.html Astronomy Sun, 19 Apr 2026 12:00:05 EDT news695444262 The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) has successfully completed the largest high-resolution 3D map of the universe ever made, a major milestone in understanding the force driving cosmic expansion. The milestone was reached when DESI's 5,000 fiber-optic sensors captured their final scheduled observations, targeting a region of sky near the Little Dipper. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-desi-3d-universe-exploring.html Astronomy Sat, 18 Apr 2026 16:00:02 EDT news695563761 European astronomers have used the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to observe a recently discovered giant disk galaxy known as ADF22.1. Results of the new observations, published April 8 on the arXiv preprint server, shed more light on the formation and evolution of this galaxy. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-alma-jwst-giant-disk-galaxy.html Astronomy Fri, 17 Apr 2026 08:20:05 EDT news695616950 In the era of precision cosmology, research often means big science: large observatories, highly complex instruments, international collaborations and substantial funding. Yet even in such an advanced field, progress is still possible—including in the search for elusive dark matter—through more agile approaches, driven by small teams and young researchers, supported by institutions and a good dose of ingenuity. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-student-limits-axions.html Astronomy Fri, 17 Apr 2026 00:00:01 EDT news695547002