Astrophysics

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Astronomers surprised by mysterious shock wave around dead star

January 12, 2026

Press Release 12 January 2026 Gas and dust flowing from stars can, under the right conditions, clash with…

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Shaken, Not Stirred: NASA’s StarBurst Aces Extreme Temperature Tests

January 10, 2026

Heated, cooled, shaken, and settled – NASA’s StarBurst instrument is several steps closer to being ready for launch.…

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NASA SVS | NASA’s Pandora Satellite to Explore Exoplanets and Stars

January 10, 2026

The NASA Pandora spacecraft will observe planets as they pass in front of their stars as seen from…

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Roman Space Telescope on track for September launch

January 9, 2026

PHOENIX — NASA expects to launch the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope as soon as September, citing the…

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Private group unveils plans for large space telescope

January 8, 2026

PHOENIX — A billionaire-backed philanthropic organization is funding the development of a series of new observatories, including a…

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An illustration of the red supergiant star Betelgeuse, its companion star, and a dusty wake. The disk of a red-orange star is in the center. It is surrounded by a diffuse orange cloud representing its extended atmosphere. Below it about one stellar diameter away is a yellow dot representing a smaller companion star. From the companion, a dark red cloud wraps around in a counterclockwise direction. It begins very narrow and expands as it gets further from the companion, finally disappearing at the outer edge of the diffuse orange cloud around 10 ou2019clock. The words u201cartistu2019s conceptu201d are at lower right.

January 6, 2026

Using new observations from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based observatories, astronomers tracked the influence of a recently…

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This artist’s concept depicts a smaller white dwarf star pulling material from a larger star, right, into an accretion disk. Earlier this year, scientists used NASA’s IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarization Explorer) to study a white dwarf star and its X-ray polarization.

January 6, 2026

By Michael Allen For the first time, scientists have used NASA’s IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarization Explorer) to study a…

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A region of space mostly filled with background galaxies, with one prominent star at upper left. A large blob of purple haze occupies much of the field. Within the purple region, an unremarkable area is outlined with a dashed white circle.

January 5, 2026

A team using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has uncovered a new type of astronomical object — a starless,…

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$This release features a composite image of a galaxy cluster first discovered on New Year's Eve day, 2020. The cluster appears here as a large collection of brilliant white lights, each a distinct galaxy. A neon purple cloud stretches across the cluster's crowded core. Many of the hundred-plus galaxies in the cluster are in two clumps of galaxies towards the top and bottom of center. Some are encircled by a faint glowing haze, while a few foreground stars gleam with diffraction spikes. Some of the smaller galaxies are tinted blue, orange, or red, and some appear more oblong than round, suggesting spiral shapes viewed edge-on. The neon purple cloud sits at the heart of the image, surrounding the most densely-packed part of the cluster. This cloud, which spreads vertically across the cluster, is multimillion-degree gas observed by Chandra. The two clumps of observable galaxies, and the spread of superheated gas, reveal that the Champagne Cluster is in fact two clusters in the process of colliding. With the two clusters of sparkling light clinking together, and the auspicious discovery date, astronomers have dubbed the merged cosmic structure "The Champagne Cluster".$