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. For decades, astronomers lumped brown dwarfs into a single category defined by mass alone—too big to be classified as planets but too small to become stars. However, this definition ignores the two very different mechanisms that can form them: the direct collapse of gas clouds and formation within the accretion disks of massive stars. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-tess-rare-brown-dwarf-orbiting.html Astronomy Thu, 13 Aug 2026 17:00:06 EDT news705841178 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 High-energy particles in Earth's radiation belt can appear to spread out randomly, even when they are moving in a "predictable" way. This is because spacecraft observations naturally blur the fine-scale structure of the particle population, a new study reveals. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-spacecraft-conceal-particles-earth-space.html Astronomy Thu, 06 Aug 2026 09:20:06 EDT news705226201 Since 2016, an ordinary-looking F-type star called KIC 8462852, nicknamed Tabby's star, has behaved anything but ordinarily. In a new study published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society on July 6, researchers revisited this star to find out what is really causing its irregular dimming. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-hour-dip-tabby-star-decade.html Astronomy Mon, 03 Aug 2026 08:00:05 EDT news704472236 By analyzing data from NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and conducting new radial velocity measurements, U.K. and French astronomers have found evidence that the mysterious Tabby's star may be orbited by an object about nine times more massive than Jupiter. The new findings are published on the preprint server arXiv. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-tabby-star-orbited-planetary-mass.html Astronomy Tue, 28 Jul 2026 10:00:03 EDT news704450067 Jupiter's moon Io is the most volcanically active planetary body in the solar system, boasting hundreds of active volcanoes that spew molten lava into space. This activity results from a process called tidal heating, in which Jupiter's massive gravity constantly stretches and compresses the much smaller moon during its noncircular orbit. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-jwst-volcanic-exo-ios-super.html Astronomy Tue, 28 Jul 2026 08:20:03 EDT news704443561 Observations made with the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (ESO's VLT) have revealed evidence for a moon-like object in the CD-35 2722 system. Unlike moons in our solar system, the newly found object does not orbit a planet, raising questions about what to name it. Instead, it circles a brown dwarf, an object larger than a planet, that orbits the CD-35 2722 star. If confirmed, this could be the first "moon" discovered outside our solar system. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-jupiter-mass-exomoon-orbiting-brown.html Astronomy Wed, 22 Jul 2026 11:00:03 EDT news703842182 Astronomers using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope have discovered a giant planet outside our solar system, called an exoplanet, hiding within one of the most intensely studied planetary systems in the Milky Way galaxy. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-webb-telescope-hidden-planet-famous.html Astronomy Thu, 16 Jul 2026 10:40:03 EDT news703405527 In the course of studying planets beyond our solar system (6,316 confirmed exoplanets and counting), scientists have discovered some very interesting systems. Consider TOI-201, a compact system populated by three bodies, including a brown dwarf, orbiting on the same plane. The system was recently observed by an international team led by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and the National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) using data from NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). https://phys.org/news/2026-07-astronomers-characterize-improbable-brown-dwarf.html Astronomy Mon, 06 Jul 2026 12:00:01 EDT news702552273 A star called TOI-2155 lies around 1,350 light-years (839 trillion miles) from Earth. It is a little bigger, heavier and hotter than the sun, and it is not particularly interesting or unusual in itself. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-star-strange-inbetween-celestial-astronomers.html Astronomy Thu, 02 Jul 2026 12:40:08 EDT news702209042 For just one day, our dark universe detective, Euclid, turned its gaze toward the light: the extremely bright inner region of our Milky Way galaxy, known as the galactic bulge. This special request came from astronomers who were after what Euclid does best: capturing huge areas of the sky in crisp detail. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-euclid-captures-million-stars-sharpest.html Astronomy Wed, 24 Jun 2026 12:40:01 EDT news701518093 Northwestern University-led astronomers have discovered salty skies surrounding the universe's famous "Pink Planet." For more than a decade, the ancient, rosy-hazed world kept astronomers guessing. One of the coldest known planetary-mass companions ever directly imaged, the elusive object is too faint for astronomers to dissect its light from Earth. But new observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) reveal an atmosphere filled with exotic chemistry—and salty clouds unlike anything seen before. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-famous-pink-planet-harbors-salty.html Astronomy Thu, 18 Jun 2026 10:00:09 EDT news700896902 A team of astronomers, led by Brooke Kotten of the University of Michigan, has shown that TOI-5882—a sunlike star located some 1,300 light-years away—has likely eaten one of its planets. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-lithium-spike-reveals-sun-star.html Astronomy Mon, 15 Jun 2026 14:40:02 EDT news700746421 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 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 posted to the arXiv preprint server from researchers at the University of Madrid that categorizes almost every star within 10 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. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-definitive-census-multiple-star-ten.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 27 May 2026 22:00:02 EDT news699092679 If you've ever taken an introductory astronomy class, you've probably seen the Hertzsprung-Russell (HR) diagram. This graph maps out the life cycle of stars by plotting their temperature against their luminosity, and has been a "cheat sheet" for stellar astrophysics for over a century. But the universe is full of more than just stars, and a new paper in the journal Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific by Gabriel Steward and Matthew Hedman of the University of Idaho, attempts to do for the density and mass of all objects what the HR diagram did for the lifecycle of stars—provide a coherent, visual map to represent them. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-graph-universe.html Astronomy Tue, 12 May 2026 18:20:03 EDT news697810264 There's so little we know about circumbinary planets—planets that orbit two stars instead of one—that they can feel like the stuff of fantasy. And for good reason: to date, we've only confirmed the existence of 18 circumbinary planets, compared to the more than 6000 planets we know about in single star systems. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-star-wars-worlds-emerge-planet.html Astronomy Mon, 11 May 2026 10:20:01 EDT news697712282 A new paper from NASA's Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 project announces that volunteers have essentially doubled the number of known brown dwarfs, with over 3,000 new discoveries made over the past 10 years since the project began. Brown dwarfs are balls of gas the size of Jupiter, less massive than stars. There's one for every three or four stars near the sun. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-planet-volunteers-population-brown-dwarfs.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 05 May 2026 18:00:04 EDT news697203249 Exoplanet science and the search for life beyond Earth continue to advance at break-neck speeds, with the number of confirmed exoplanets by NASA rapidly approaching 6,300, with 223 of those exoplanets being designated as terrestrial (rocky) exoplanets. With the promise of discovering an increasing number of Earth-sized exoplanets increasing every day, new telescopes from across the world have the opportunity to contribute to this incredible field. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-canada-poet-mission-earth-sized.html Space Exploration Sat, 02 May 2026 18:00:01 EDT news696681018 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 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 Astronomers at The University of New Mexico have published new research confirming three bodies orbiting the dynamic exoplanet system TOI-201. They include a super-Earth (TOI-201 d), a warm Jupiter (TOI-201 b), and a brown dwarf (TOI-201 c). https://phys.org/news/2026-04-astronomers-reveal-multi-planet.html Astronomy Wed, 15 Apr 2026 14:00:05 EDT news695463481 For some time, astronomers have theorized that there is a connection between planetary mass and rotation. In the solar system, Jupiter and Saturn both rotate rapidly, completing a rotation in roughly ten hours, while accounting for a significant fraction of the solar system's rotational energy. Using the W.M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea, Hawai'i, a team of astronomers tested this predicted relationship by studying 32 gas giants and brown dwarfs in distant star systems—6 giant planets larger than Jupiter and 25 brown dwarf companions. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-largest-survey-exoplanet-held.html Planetary Sciences Sun, 05 Apr 2026 11:00:01 EDT news694347533 Astronomers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and elsewhere report the discovery of a binary system consisting of two brown dwarfs undergoing stable mass transfer. The detection of the system, designated ZTF J1239+8347, was made with the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) and is detailed in a paper published March 18 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-ztf-mass-brown-dwarf-binary.html Astronomy Sun, 29 Mar 2026 15:00:03 EDT news693734619 This week, among a lot of other important findings, we learned that emperor cichlid fish have gaze sensitivity and dislike it if you look at them—or especially their children. England is looking for a solution to its 5-billion-liter water deficit. And a high-fiber diet isn't only healthy for you—it also benefits your parasitic tapeworms! https://phys.org/news/2026-03-saturday-citations-merging-brown-dwarfs.html Other Sat, 21 Mar 2026 08:30:01 EDT news693226847 Brown dwarfs get a bad rap in the stellar world, often labeled as "failed stars" for their inability to sustain nuclear fusion at their cores. The mass of these objects falls between planets and stars, ranging from 13 to 80 times the mass of Jupiter. Because they aren't massive enough to sustain fusion, they are far fainter and cooler than their stellar comrades. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-dim-stars-brightly.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 18 Mar 2026 15:40:02 EDT news693061982 For decades, astronomers have struggled to differentiate giant planets from brown dwarfs, a class of objects more massive than planets but too small to ignite nuclear fusion like true stars. Through a telescope, these cosmic lookalikes can have overlapping brightness, temperatures, and even atmospheric fingerprints. The striking similarity leaves astronomers unsure if they have observed an oversized planet or an undersized star. Now, a Northwestern University-led team has uncovered a crucial clue that separates the two: how fast they spin. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-clearest-evidence-giant-planets-faster.html Astronomy Wed, 18 Mar 2026 10:00:02 EDT news692954942 We all know that stars radiate light and much more. But radiation belts can also surround many other celestial bodies, such as planets. These belts do not generate particles themselves—the belts receive them from nearby stars—but they accelerate the speed of particles in a way that has remained elusive. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-upper-limit-planetary-belt-intensity.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 10 Mar 2026 15:40:05 EDT news692372757 A new study by researchers at the SETI Institute suggests that stellar "space weather" could make radio signals from extraterrestrial intelligence harder to detect. Stellar activity and plasma turbulence near a transmitting planet can broaden an otherwise ultra-narrow signal, spreading its power across more frequencies and making it more difficult to detect in traditional narrowband searches. The paper is published in The Astrophysical Journal. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-technosignatures-turbulent-plasma-blur-ultra.html Astronomy Thu, 05 Mar 2026 16:20:04 EST news691944722 This image, taken with ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT), seems to have captured a cosmic hawk as it spans its wings. While the dark clouds in the middle of the image make up the head and body of the bird of prey, the filaments extending away from the body to the left and right compose its wings. Below it is a mesmerizing blue nebula with massive newly born stars, whose intense radiation make the gas around them glow brightly. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-rcw-nebula-cosmic-hawk-baby.html Astronomy Tue, 03 Mar 2026 15:40:07 EST news691773559 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