Radio signal

This illustration depicts Faraday rotation in the afterglow of a gamma-ray burst. A powerful jet (upper left) sends polarized radio waves outward through the thin wall of a surrounding bubble of magnetized gas called an HII region. As the light passes through this material, its polarization angle is twisted by the magnetic field. Because the effect is stronger at longer wavelengths, the red and blue waves, which represent different radio wavelengths, exit the bubble oscillating in different directions. By measuring this difference, astronomers were able to map the magnetic environment surrounding GRB 260310A for the first time. Image credit: NSF / AUI / NRAO / M. Weiss

July 15, 2026

Using NSF’s Very Large Array (VLA), astronomers made the first radio detection of polarized light and Faraday rotation…

Extended Orion nebula shell sampled by HI emission from the combined VLA and FAST observations (shown in red), Hα emission from the European Southern Observatory Digitized Sky Survey (shown in green), and 3.4-μm emission registered by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) satellite (shown in blue). Image credit: Juan D. Soler, University of Vienna / NRAO / VLA / NASA / WISE.

July 10, 2026

Using the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) s and the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST),…

SScience

Radio signal from the quasar TXS 2005+403 travels roughly 10 billion light-years to reach Earth, traversing the Cygnus region, one of the most turbulent and scattering environments in the Milky Way Galaxy. On the left, this artist’s conception shows the quasar as it truly appears, with a bright accretion disk and jets blasting into the Galaxy like a beacon through the darkness. On the right, we see how turbulent gas distorts scientists’ view of the quasar in much the same way heat haze from a fire warps our view of the objects behind it. Image credit: Melissa Weiss / CfA.

May 15, 2026

For the first time, astronomers have directly detected how turbulent clouds of ionized gas between the stars bend…

SScience

This is a mosaic image, one of the largest ever taken by Hubble of the Crab Nebula, a 6-light-year-wide expanding remnant of a star’s supernova explosion. Japanese and Chinese astronomers recorded this violent event nearly 1,000 years ago in 1054, as did, almost certainly, Native Americans. Image credit: NASA / ESA / J. Hester / A. Loll, Arizona State University.

March 2, 2026

New research from the University of Kansas untangles a decades-old astrophysical puzzle, showing how competing forces — gravity’s…

SSpace

Jupiter is Smaller and More ‘Squashed’ than Previously Believed, New Juno Data Reveal

February 5, 2026

Using high-precision radio-occultation measurements from NASA’s Juno mission and incorporating the effects of zonal winds, planetary scientists derived…

SScience

A screenshot of the SETI@home user interface on a desktop computer in 2009. Image credit: Robert Sanders / UC Berkeley.

January 14, 2026

SETI@home, the pioneering distributed-computing project launched in 1999 that enlisted millions of volunteers to analyze radio signals from…

SScience

An artist’s impression of a rare trio of merging galaxies, J121/1219+1035, which host three actively feeding, radio-bright supermassive black holes and whose jets light up the surrounding gas. Image credit: NSF / AUI / NRAO / P. Vosteen.

December 30, 2025

A rare trio of merging galaxies called J121/1219+1035 hosts three actively feeding, radio-bright supermassive black holes, according to…

SScience

These images show the location of CO-dark molecular gas in Cygnus X. Image credit: NSF / AUI / NSF’s NRAO / P.Vosteen.

October 30, 2025

Astronomers using the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) have created the large-scale maps of carbon monoxide (CO)-dark molecular gas…

SScience

This RadioAstron map two supermassive black holes at the center of OJ 287, a galaxy located about 5 billion light-years away in the constellation of Cancer: if the central component corresponds to the primary black hole, then the next one upwards marks the secondary black hole, and the highest component represents a knot in its jet; the elongation of the individual components is not real, but is a reflection of the beam shape. Image credit: Valtonen et al., doi: 10.3847/1538-4357/ae057e.

October 10, 2025

Using data from the RadioAstron satellite, astronomers have produced a radio image of two supermassive black holes at…

SSpace

A small part of the sky seen in radio waves by the Murchison Widefield Array. Image credit: Nunhokee et al. / ICRAR / Curtin University.

October 2, 2025

Using the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) telescope at CSIRO’s Murchison Radio-Astronomy Observatory, astronomers are searching for the elusive…

Astronomers Detect Gamma-Ray Burst’s Magnetic Fingerprint

Astronomers Uncover Hidden Structures Surrounding Orion Nebula

Astronomers Catch Interstellar Turbulence Warping Light across Milky Way

Astronomer Deciphers Crab Pulsar’s Zebra Stripes

Jupiter is Smaller and More ‘Squashed’ than Previously Believed, New Juno Data Reveal

Millions Joined SETI@home Project, Now Astronomers Zero In on 100 Promising Signals

Astronomers Discover Triple System of Active Galactic Nuclei 1.2 Billion Light-Years Away

Green Bank Telescope Maps Cool ‘Dark’ Gas in Cygnus X

RadioAstron Captures Radio Image of Two Supermassive Black Holes Circling Each Other

Infant Universe Was Warm, Rather than Cold, before It Lit Up, Astronomers Say