astrophysics

Chinese scientists report ‘smoking gun’ gamma-ray signal for dark matter

A team of astrophysicists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences has reported what it calls the most direct evidence to date for dark matter, identifying a "sharp" gamma-ray signal consistent with the annihilation of weakly interacting massive particles, or WIMPs…

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Physicists trace first runaway black hole to violent merger

Researchers have pieced together the violent merger that ejected a supermassive black hole from its host galaxy at nearly 1,000 kilometers per second, marking the first observed case of a phenomenon long predicted by general relativity.

Telescopes detect gamma rays from blazar 8 billion light-years away

Telescopes at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory in La Palma, Spain have captured very-high-energy gamma rays from OP 313, establishing it as the most distant blazar ever observed at these energies. The findings, released on August 15 by the…

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Two new discoveries offer fresh ways to trace dark matter

Two separate discoveries reported this month are offering astronomers fresh approaches to one of the universe's deepest puzzles: the nature of dark matter, the invisible substance that accounts for roughly 85% of all matter yet has never been directly detected.

JWST finds early galaxies up to 4 times more massive than thought

The most massive galaxies in the early universe contain far more small, faint stars than astronomers had assumed, making them up to four times heavier than previous estimates suggested. The finding, published Monday in Nature Astronomy, deepens an already vexing…

Fastest star ever seen orbits Milky Way’s black hole at 8% of light speed

Astronomers have discovered the fastest star ever observed in the Milky Way, a faint object called S301 that whips around the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy at roughly 8 percent of the speed of light. The…

Webb telescope finds water surviving near Milky Way’s black hole

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have detected water molecules and silicate dust around a dying star just 0.55 light-years from Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way — a discovery that challenges…

Astronomers discover ‘black hole star,’ an entirely new type of cosmic object

Astronomers have identified a never-before-seen type of astrophysical object in the early universe: a "black hole star," a hybrid entity that looks like an enormous star but is powered by the gravitational engine of a black hole. The discovery, published…

NASA’s ‘Big Bang’ fix extends Voyager 2’s mission by at least a year

Engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory have successfully implemented a power-saving maneuver on Voyager 2 that will keep the 49-year-old probe's three remaining science instruments operating for at least another year, the agency announced on August 4.

NASA telescope finds evidence for 90-year-old quantum theory

An international team of astronomers has reported what may be the first direct astrophysical evidence of vacuum birefringence — a nearly 90-year-old quantum physics prediction that extreme magnetic fields can alter how light travels through seemingly empty space. The results,…

Scientists find first binary star system where both stars went supernova

Astronomers have identified what they believe is the first known binary star system in which both stars ended their lives in supernova explosions, each leaving behind a distinct cloud of glowing debris still visible thousands of years later. The discovery,…

Milky Way flipped over 90 degrees after ancient collision, study finds

The Milky Way's stellar disc was dramatically reoriented — flipping more than 90 degrees — following a head-on collision with a massive dwarf galaxy roughly 10 to 11 billion years ago, according to new research from Durham University presented this…

Scientists locate universe’s ‘missing’ matter in vast clouds around galaxies

Astronomers have pinpointed the location of the universe's long-sought "missing" ordinary matter, finding it scattered in vast, diffuse clouds stretching millions of light-years from galaxies — far further than simulations had predicted.

Scientists produce first spectral map of a black hole’s event horizon

Researchers have moved beyond photographing a black hole to diagnosing its physical properties, producing the first spatially resolved spectral-index map of the supermassive black hole M87* at the scale of its event horizon. The study, published Monday in The Astrophysical…

Scientists detect ‘cosmic drift’ that triggers star birth for the first time

An international team of astrophysicists has for the first time detected an observational signature of ambipolar diffusion — a subtle velocity difference between ions and neutral molecules — inside a prestellar core, offering a direct glimpse into the physical mechanism…

Rubin Observatory launches decade-long survey of the universe

The NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory has officially launched its Legacy Survey of Space and Time, beginning a decade-long campaign to create what its operators call "the greatest cosmic movie ever made." The announcement on June 30, 2026, marks the…

Scientists detect black hole event horizon’s ‘fingerprints’ for first time

Scientists have detected the direct imprint of a black hole's event horizon in gravitational wave data for the first time, extracting information from closer to the "point of no return" than any previous observation. The findings, published Wednesday in Nature,…

Nature study finds cosmic structures ten times larger than models predict

A study published in Nature on Wednesday challenges one of the foundational assumptions of modern cosmology, reporting the detection of anisotropic structures in the cosmic web on scales of up to a gigaparsec — roughly 3.26 billion light-years — well…

Plutonium from ancient cosmic explosion found on Pacific Ocean floor

Debris from a cataclysmic cosmic explosion more than 100 million years ago is still falling on Earth today. An international team of researchers has detected hundreds of atoms of plutonium-244 — a radioactive isotope that can only form in the…

Yale team finds third galaxy with no dark matter

A Yale-led team of astronomers has confirmed that a faint dwarf galaxy 67 million light-years from Earth contains no dark matter, making it the third such galaxy found along an unusual linear trail — and offering some of the strongest…

Study reaffirms universe’s expansion is accelerating

The expansion of the universe is still accelerating, according to a new study that rebuts claims made late last year suggesting the cosmos had entered a phase of deceleration. The paper, published on June 11 in the Monthly Notices of…

Two galaxies with almost no dark matter found in Fornax Cluster

A team of astronomers has identified two ghostlike galaxies in the Fornax Cluster that appear to contain almost no dark matter, marking only the second known case of such a twin pair and adding fresh tension to standard models of…

10 scientists win 2026 Kavli Prizes for work on dark matter, twistronics, and neurons

The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters on Wednesday named ten scientists as recipients of the 2026 Kavli Prize, honoring breakthroughs in astrophysics, nanoscience, and neuroscience. Each prize carries a $1 million award shared among its laureates.

Scientists praise ‘Project Hail Mary’ for getting most of its science right

Two weeks after its theatrical debut, scientists continue to weigh in on "Project Hail Mary," the Ryan Gosling-led adaptation of Andy Weir's best-selling novel, and the consensus is that the film gets most of its science right — with a…