https://phys.org/ en-us Latest news from Royal Astronomical Society Our universe's expansion is still accelerating despite recent claims suggesting otherwise, an international team of astrophysicists says. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-cosmic-analysis-rebuts-slowdown.html Astronomy Wed, 10 Jun 2026 19:00:02 EDT news700313642 Astronomers have discovered a "galaxy-killing wind" that may explain why there are far more massive "dead" galaxies than expected in the early universe. This wind, powered by cosmic collisions between galaxies, could quickly blow away all the fuel for new stars, leaving a galaxy on the brink of death and helping to solve one of the biggest mysteries in modern astrophysics. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-galaxy-early-universe.html Astronomy Wed, 10 Jun 2026 09:00:03 EDT news700300141 Astronomers have found some of the strongest evidence yet that stars can swallow their own planets. A new study, published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, supports the long-held belief that young stars are capable of "eating" nearby worlds as planetary systems form. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-red-dwarf-stars-earth-planets.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 28 May 2026 19:20:01 EDT news699197341 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 The most realistic picture yet of how galaxies formed and then evolved from the beginning of time has been revealed in a suite of new and unique audiovisual simulations. These data, accepted for publication in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, show that the standard cosmological model can successfully explain the observed growth of galaxies, from the first billion years after the Big Bang to the present day, when key physics is included. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-galaxies-evolve-dawn-universe.html Astronomy Mon, 13 Apr 2026 14:20:06 EDT news695301782 Our Milky Way's halo of hot gas is warmer to the "south" than the "north" because of an internal combustion engine-like effect that is compressing the gas like a piston, a new study has found. Computer simulations reveal that the Large Magellanic Cloud—a satellite galaxy below, or on the south side, of our own—attracts the Milky Way, causing gas in the southern half of the halo to compress and heat up. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-galactic-car-effect-milky.html Astronomy Thu, 26 Mar 2026 09:20:01 EDT news693734401 If we're to find extraterrestrial life in the universe, astronomers have pinpointed the best places to look for it. They have identified just under 50 rocky worlds most likely to be habitable out of the more than 6,000 exoplanets discovered so far. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-alien-life-scientists-earth-worlds.html Astrobiology Thu, 19 Mar 2026 10:31:24 EDT news693134878 The Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) is alarmed by the threat to ground-based astronomy posed by proposals put forward by Elon Musk's SpaceX and Reflect Orbital. SpaceX has applied to launch one million satellites to act as data centers to power artificial intelligence, but brightness estimates show that thousands would be visible to the naked eye, many more than visible stars. On average, each image with the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope would lose 10% of data due to satellite trails. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-spacex-orbital-permanently-scar-night.html Space Exploration Mon, 16 Mar 2026 09:58:54 EDT news692873678 One of the longest stellar dimming events ever observed was likely caused by the gigantic saucer-like rings of either an unseen brown dwarf or "super-Jupiter" blocking its host star's light, astronomers say. For decades, the star—which sits 3,200 light-years from Earth and is about twice as big as our sun—had been observed as stable, but at the end of 2024 it faded dramatically. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-unseen-planet-brown-dwarf-hidden.html Astronomy Wed, 11 Feb 2026 19:00:04 EST news690041401 Our Milky Way galaxy may not have a supermassive black hole at its center but rather an enormous clump of mysterious dark matter exerting the same gravitational influence, astronomers say. They believe this invisible substance—which makes up most of the universe's mass—can explain both the violent dance of stars just light-hours (often used to measure distances within our own solar system) away from the galactic center and the gentle, large-scale rotation of the entire matter in the outskirts of the Milky Way. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-dark-black-hole-power-milky.html Astronomy Thu, 05 Feb 2026 11:23:12 EST news689512921 A mysterious bar-shaped cloud of iron has been discovered inside the iconic Ring Nebula by a European team led by astronomers at University College London (UCL) and Cardiff University. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-mysterious-iron-bar-famous-nebula.html Astronomy Sat, 17 Jan 2026 18:00:01 EST news687622322 One of the most vivid portraits of "reborn" black hole activity—likened to the eruption of a "cosmic volcano" spreading almost 1 million light-years across space—has been captured in a gigantic radio galaxy. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-reborn-black-hole-awakens-million.html Astronomy Thu, 15 Jan 2026 09:35:38 EST news687691934 Compelling evidence that the structure of matter surrounding supermassive black holes has changed over cosmic time has been uncovered by an international team of astronomers. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-astronomers-year-quasar-law.html Astronomy Thu, 11 Dec 2025 10:34:14 EST news684671641 One of the most spectacular meteor showers of the year reaches its peak this week—giving skywatchers the chance to see up to 100 "shooting stars" an hour under perfect conditions. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-video-geminid-meteor-shower.html Astronomy Wed, 10 Dec 2025 11:05:36 EST news684587102 Clues about how galaxies like our Milky Way form and evolve and why their stars show surprising chemical patterns have been revealed by a new study. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-cosmic-gas-collisions-milky-chemical.html Astronomy Mon, 08 Dec 2025 06:30:05 EST news684397772 The discovery of a superheated star factory that forms stars 180 times faster than our own Milky Way could help solve a long-standing puzzle about how galaxies grew so quickly in the early universe. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-superheated-star-factory-early-universe.html Astronomy Wed, 12 Nov 2025 02:00:01 EST news682072561 The universe's expansion may actually have started to slow rather than accelerating at an ever-increasing rate as previously thought, a new study suggests. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-universe-expansion-evidence-mounts-dark.html Astronomy Wed, 05 Nov 2025 19:00:06 EST news681392511 The most distant and most powerful "odd radio circle" (ORC) known so far has been discovered by astronomers. These curious rings are a relatively newly identified astronomical phenomenon, having been detected for the first time just six years ago. Only a handful of confirmed examples are known—most of which are 10–20 times the size of our Milky Way galaxy. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-powerful-odd-radio-circle-date.html Astronomy Thu, 02 Oct 2025 09:45:35 EDT news678617123 Clues about how worlds like Earth may have formed have been found buried at the heart of a spectacular "cosmic butterfly." With the help of the James Webb Space Telescope, researchers say they have made a big leap forward in our understanding of how the raw material of rocky planets comes together. https://phys.org/news/2025-08-cosmic-butterfly-reveals-clues-earth.html Astronomy Wed, 27 Aug 2025 08:49:05 EDT news675503341 The exciting discovery of an extremely rare quadruple star system could significantly advance our understanding of brown dwarfs, astronomers say. These mysterious objects are too big to be considered a planet but also too small to be a star because they lack the mass to keep fusing atoms and blossom into fully-fledged suns. https://phys.org/news/2025-08-rare-quadruple-star-mystery-brown.html Astronomy Tue, 19 Aug 2025 09:05:04 EDT news674813101 Astronomers have discovered potentially the most massive black hole ever detected. The cosmic behemoth is close to the theoretical upper limit of what is possible in the universe and is 10,000 times heavier than the black hole at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy. https://phys.org/news/2025-08-billion-solar-masses-cosmic-horseshoe.html Astronomy Thu, 07 Aug 2025 12:22:04 EDT news673788121 A mystery interstellar object discovered last week is likely to be the oldest comet ever seen—possibly predating our solar system by more than 3 billion years, researchers say. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-3iatlas-interstellar-oldest-comet.html Astronomy Fri, 11 Jul 2025 05:00:02 EDT news671364488 The Milky Way could have many more satellite galaxies than scientists have previously been able to predict or observe, according to new research. Cosmologists at Durham University used a new technique combining the highest-resolution supercomputer simulations that exist, alongside novel mathematical modeling, to predict the existence of missing "orphan" galaxies. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-milky-teeming-satellite-galaxies-previously.html Astronomy Thu, 10 Jul 2025 19:00:01 EDT news671357821 Women and ethnic minority groups are still significantly underrepresented in astronomy and geophysics despite attempts to bring about change over the past decade, research has shown. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-astronomy-geophysics-overwhelmingly-white-women.html Astronomy Thu, 10 Jul 2025 07:58:04 EDT news671353081 The discovery of more than 15,000 kilometers of ancient riverbeds on Mars suggests that the Red Planet may once have been much wetter than previously thought. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-ancient-river-reveal-mars-wetter.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 09 Jul 2025 19:00:01 EDT news671284118 The answer to whether tiny bacterial life-forms really do exist in the clouds of Venus could be revealed once and for all by a UK-backed mission. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-life-venus-probe-mission-clouds.html Astrobiology Wed, 09 Jul 2025 11:14:23 EDT news671278450 If we're to land humans on Mars in the coming decades, we'll have to know what challenges await them when they get there. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-matisse-mission-robot-orbiters-mars.html Space Exploration Wed, 09 Jul 2025 11:13:57 EDT news671278423 Astronomers want to unlock the secrets of the "Cosmic Dawn" by sending a miniature spacecraft to listen out for an "ancient whisper" on the far side of the moon. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-probing-cosmic-dark-ages-side.html Astronomy Tue, 08 Jul 2025 19:00:04 EDT news671197565 A new U.K.-led satellite mission concept aims to strengthen the country's position in space weather observation and forecasting by deploying a suite of homegrown scientific instruments on a low-cost spacecraft in low-Earth orbit. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-uk-bolster-space-weather-europe.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 08 Jul 2025 19:00:03 EDT news671197554 Recreating artificial solar eclipses in space could help astronomers decipher the inner workings of our sun much quicker than if they had to wait for the celestial show on Earth. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-artificial-solar-eclipses-space-reveal.html Astronomy Tue, 08 Jul 2025 19:00:02 EDT news671197577