https://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Most of the stars in our Milky Way galaxy sit neatly on a flat plane. But the space around our galaxy is much more chaotic. Rogue bands of stars called "stellar streams" orbit the Milky Way much like planets in our solar system orbit the sun. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-milky-gravity-mimic-dark-clues.html Astronomy Thu, 27 Aug 2026 17:00:01 EDT news707063221 The Roman Space Telescope is designed to directly image exoplanets using complex optomechanical systems developed by the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy https://phys.org/news/2026-08-roman-telescope-aims-image-exoplanets.html Astronomy Wed, 26 Aug 2026 15:00:01 EDT news706962003 At the center of our solar system, the sun influences every planet that orbits it. In two recent studies, scientists uncovered how ancient events in the sun's history may have helped create Earth's unique climate and driven previously unexplained climatic shifts. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-sun-galactic-journey-superflare-youth.html Astronomy Mon, 24 Aug 2026 18:50:01 EDT news706810501 At the center of most galaxies lies a supermassive black hole, with a mass millions to billions of times that of our sun and some of the most extreme gravity in the universe. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-stellar-black-hole-flares-dimmer.html Astronomy Fri, 21 Aug 2026 12:00:01 EDT news706527070 Astronomers have discovered a chemically rich collection of sulfur-bearing molecules surrounding the rare massive star HD 87643. The observations include the first detection of sulfur monoxide and sulfur dioxide around a B[e] supergiant. The paper was published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters on July 1. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-alma-uncovers-sulfur-rare-class.html Astronomy Thu, 20 Aug 2026 09:20:07 EDT news706267123 Astronomers have discovered the fastest known star in our galaxy, the Milky Way, orbiting the black hole at its center. The star, named S301, was detected with the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope Interferometer (ESO's VLTI) and reaches speeds of 25,000 km/s (15,500 miles per second) as it travels around the four-million-solar-mass black hole. It comes closer to it than any other star observed before, so close that it feels the effects of the black hole's rotation. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-fastest-milky-star-supermassive-black.html Astronomy Wed, 19 Aug 2026 11:00:01 EDT news706201660 Astronomers have discovered that the most massive galaxies in the early universe contain far more small stars than expected. As a result, these early galaxies were likely much more massive than initial measurements suggested. This discovery challenges current understanding about how the first galaxies formed. The results are published today in Nature Astronomy. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-hidden-stars-distant-galaxies-massive.html Astronomy Tue, 18 Aug 2026 17:00:04 EDT news706273141 Our home galaxy, the Milky Way, grew to its current size in part by consuming smaller galaxies. Now, new data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope show definitive evidence of a dwarf galaxy merging with the young Milky Way in the earliest phases of its evolution. This finding extends our knowledge of our galaxy's history 1.8 billion years farther back in time than before. The results are published in the journal Nature Astronomy. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-hubble-merger-mystery-milky-early.html Astronomy Mon, 17 Aug 2026 18:20:01 EDT news706191061 Astronomers have proposed a new explanation for the mysterious Cygnus Bubble, a vast cloud of ultra-high-energy gamma rays stretching thousands of light-years across the sky. While the bubble has generally been linked to the Cygnus X star-forming region, the new study argues that a microquasar more naturally explains its highest-energy emission. The results were published in a paper in The Astrophysical Journal Letters on July 21. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-mysterious-cygnus-microquasar-astronomers.html Astronomy Fri, 14 Aug 2026 14:20:07 EDT news705921760 In the image above, a faint trail of stars can be seen stretching across the galaxy. These structures, known as globular cluster stellar streams, are coherent stellar structures that retain a record of their dynamical history and can provide unique insights into the evolution of galaxies and the nature of dark matter. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-stellar-stream-milky-tool-dark.html Astronomy Wed, 12 Aug 2026 16:20:06 EDT news705755275 Like a collage made of layered sheets of colored cellophane, a vibrant new image layers observations of a famous star-forming nebula from NASA's space telescopes. The resulting cosmic "craft" reveals new details about the star-forming region known as 30 Doradus, or the Tarantula Nebula. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-energy-loss-routes-tarantula-nebula.html Astronomy Tue, 11 Aug 2026 16:50:01 EDT news705681362 University of Missouri researchers have uncovered evidence that challenges one of astronomy's most trusted assumptions, a breakthrough that could reshape how scientists measure galaxies and reconstruct the history of the universe. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-star-cluster-discovery-scientists-universe.html Astronomy Tue, 11 Aug 2026 14:40:07 EDT news705668701 Using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, an international team of astronomers has discovered that dust and water can form and survive surprisingly close to the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. The observations reveal that the evolved star IRS 3 continues to enrich its surroundings with newly formed material despite the intense radiation environment around Sagittarius A*. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-webb-reveals-oxygen-rich-surviving.html Astronomy Tue, 11 Aug 2026 13:00:02 EDT news705665284 Hold on to your telescopes: The DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys team has released the largest-ever 2D color map of the universe. The 5.6-trillion-pixel map contains nearly 4 billion celestial objects, primarily stars and galaxies. The data is available for all to use and publicly view through the Legacy Survey Sky Viewer. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-desi-biggest-2d-universe.html Astronomy Mon, 10 Aug 2026 13:00:05 EDT news705582662 Every year, millions of migratory birds travel between different geographical regions on Earth to find food, escape cold weather or reach safe environments to raise chicks. To determine which direction to fly, these birds rely on various types of sensory cues and information, including the magnetic field surrounding our planet, known as the geomagnetic field. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-pulsed-radiofrequency-magnetic-fields-disorient.html Plants & Animals Sat, 08 Aug 2026 12:40:01 EDT news705314676 The Sloan Digital Sky Survey V (SDSS-V) has announced its 20th public data release (DR20), delivering a dramatic expansion of the Milky Way Mapper (MWM) scientific survey—the most detailed spectroscopic map yet assembled of stars in and around our home galaxy. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-galaxy-milky-mapper-survey-latest.html Astronomy Thu, 06 Aug 2026 18:30:01 EDT news705257521 Understanding the formation and evolution of the centers of galaxies is one of the most intriguing challenges in astrophysics. The new study aims to unveil the physical processes that led to the formation of two striking features surrounding the black holes at the centers of most galaxies: nuclear star clusters and nuclear stellar disks. Only in the last decade have such galactic structures been observed in the Milky Way and extragalactic systems. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-milky-simulation-reveals-central-galactic.html Astronomy Thu, 06 Aug 2026 16:40:01 EDT news705248221 In a billion years, the sun will start to run out of fuel and expand to become a red giant. Earth's oceans and atmosphere will be burned away, and Earth will likely be engulfed by the sun altogether. The sun will then shrink to a dim white dwarf, and all light and warmth in the solar system will diminish. In a hundred trillion years, the galaxy's ability to produce stars will be exhausted, and everything will turn dark. However, there's a way for life to escape this fate—and what's more, we wouldn't need to leave the planet to do it. We just need to build some safeguards. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-earth-habitable-sun-dies.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 03 Aug 2026 16:40:03 EDT news704969045 So far, almost all stellar-mass black holes detected by astronomers have been found in binary systems. However, astronomers have long suspected that these binary black holes are the exception and that, within the Milky Way, most exist on their own. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-simulations-hint-hidden-population-companionless.html Astronomy Mon, 03 Aug 2026 15:20:07 EDT news704973799 Researchers have obtained the deepest images ever taken of IC 1101, allowing them to identify the galaxy's outer edge for the first time. The observations confirm it as the largest known galaxy, spanning roughly 520 kiloparsecs, or about 1.7 million light-years, and containing an estimated 3.4 trillion solar masses in stars. The paper was posted to the arXiv preprint server on July 16. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-astronomers-full-size-largest-galaxy.html Astronomy Fri, 31 Jul 2026 08:40:07 EDT news704457789 Amina Helmi's passion for the Milky Way is clear as soon as one steps into her small office at the University of Groningen, in the north of the Netherlands. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-astronomer-milky-fossils.html Astronomy Thu, 30 Jul 2026 04:30:01 EDT news704603749 A new study using data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope finds that star formation in the nearby Andromeda galaxy has undergone a 500-million-year decline, with an even steeper drop in the last 40 million years. Andromeda, a spiral galaxy comparable in size to our Milky Way, is close enough to be seen with the unaided eye from areas with dark skies. Located about 2.5 million light-years from Earth—practically our cosmic backyard—Andromeda offers an opportunity for astronomers to examine its stellar populations in detail, leading to a better understanding of the past of galaxies like our own. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-hubble-star-formation-andromeda-galaxy.html Astronomy Mon, 27 Jul 2026 17:20:09 EDT news704382061 "Dead stars" known as white dwarfs have already shown the potential to help us better understand how planetary systems, including our own solar system, take shape and evolve. Now, research from the University of Michigan and the University of Colorado Boulder suggests that potential could be even greater than anticipated. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-dead-stars-healthy-appetites.html Astronomy Mon, 27 Jul 2026 15:40:03 EDT news704380621 Positrons—the antimatter counterpart of electrons—are created in high-energy cosmic processes. When normal matter meets its antimatter counterpart, they annihilate, or vanish, and produce a distinctive 511 keV gamma-ray signal. Scientists use this signal to detect where these annihilations occur. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-extragalactic-positron-annihilation-hotspots-milky.html Astronomy Mon, 27 Jul 2026 12:30:02 EDT news704373911 Astronomers have discovered a remarkably tiny group of six young galaxies just 1.2 billion years after the Big Bang. This may be a rare glimpse of how some of the universe's largest galaxies formed. The paper outlining the findings was submitted to the arXiv preprint server on July 13. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-astronomers-massive-galaxy-piece-billion.html Astronomy Fri, 24 Jul 2026 08:40:02 EDT news703844724 Mysterious high-speed "bullets"—clumps of possibly oxygen-rich gas traveling at up to 20 million miles per hour—have been discovered shooting out of the rarest stellar explosion in our galaxy. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-mysterious-gas-bullets-milky-helium.html Astronomy Tue, 21 Jul 2026 19:00:05 EDT news703871581 The star that formed the Jellyfish nebula may have had a partner star that exploded 100,000 years earlier, according to international researchers, who say that this may be the first known discovery of a binary star system in which both stars have gone supernova. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-jellyfish-nebula-scene-stars-supernova.html Astronomy Tue, 21 Jul 2026 16:30:01 EDT news703866901 The Milky Way may have undergone a dramatic change in orientation during its history, according to new research that helps explain a long-standing mystery about our galaxy. Using supercomputer simulations of galaxies like the Milky Way, a team of astronomers from Durham University found that galaxies with slowly rotating stellar halos are more likely to have experienced a major "disk flip," in which the galaxy's disk changed its orientation by more than 90 degrees. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-cosmic-gymnastics-milky-underwent-flip.html Astronomy Tue, 21 Jul 2026 11:00:03 EDT news703848661 A new study led by astronomers at The University of Texas at Austin proposes a theory that could solve two astronomical riddles at once: the nature of Little Red Dots and the origin of globular clusters. Rather than representing distinct objects, the study suggests that one may instead be the ancestor of the other: Little Red Dots are, in fact, an early form of globular clusters. The findings are published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-idea-cosmic-mysteries-linking-red.html Astronomy Mon, 20 Jul 2026 18:40:01 EDT news703783802 Researchers at Uppsala University have calculated that the sun contains 55% more silver than previously estimated. The results are based on more realistic modeling of the sun's atmosphere and resolve a long-standing problem of missing silver in the solar system. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-sun-silver-reveals.html Astronomy Fri, 17 Jul 2026 11:00:04 EDT news703497673