Science News Today | Latest Discoveries & Research

Newly discovered supernova SN 2026ahvu is seen here in the nearby spiral galaxy NGC 1433. The supernova appears as a very bright point of light to the right and slightly below the center of the galaxy. Credit: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA

Astronomers caught a white dwarf star exploding before its supernova reaches peak brightness

Left: JWST/NIRCam observation of star 51 Eridani A (51 Eri) in the F430M filter, using the standard method KLIP (Soummer et al. 2012) to subtract the glare of the star. This method was not able to detect the planet 51 Eri b in the original analysis (Balmer et al. 2025), whose expected location is marked with a dashed circle. Middle: The same observation, but using the new method FLIP (Ferrer-Chavez et al. 2026) to subtract the glare of the star. Astrophysicists obtained a significant detection (>5 sigma) of 51 Eri b. Right: Simulated image of 51 Eri b, highlighting that the planet is detected at its expected location and that the planet signal has the expected morphology. The location of the star 51 Eri is marked with a star symbol. Credit: Rodrigo Ferrer-Chavez

JWST captures a giant exoplanet at a wavelength where it had remained invisible

The cannabis seeds are not easy to spot in the excavation context. Credit: T. Wallace

Chemical traces in ancient hair reveal cannabis was used to get high 2,800 years ago

Artistic reconstruction of what Megapodius rokusi (left) may have looked like next to the orange-footed scrubfowl. The reconstruction is based on the generic Megapodius body plan. Credit: Davin Arya Nirwasita in Meijer et al. 2026

This extinct bird was several times heavier than the megapodes still living on Flores

This image illustrates atoms held in an optical trap aboard China's space station, where they were cooled to 10 picokelvin (10 pK)—the lowest temperature reached in space. Credit: Xiaoji Zhou, Peking University

Scientists cool atoms to a record 9.7 picokelvin aboard China’s space station

Andromeda Galaxy captured in the vast deep space. Credit: Pixels

Could the universe be 26.7 billion years old? An alternative theory gives early galaxies billions more years to grow

Pandora's Cluster, Abell 2744, Abell2744-QSO1. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Lukas Furtak (Ben-Gurion University); image processing: Alyssa Pagan (STSCI)

A 1,000-solar-mass black hole may have grown into a giant without building a galaxy around it

NIRCam RGB color image of the MACS J0257.1-2325 cluster field. The white squares show the positions of ID1–ID5 of the Misty Moons predicted by the independent lens models while the colored circles denote the z ∼ 1–8 multiple image systems used to constrain the lens models. Credit: The Astrophysical Journal (2026). DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ae8d09

Seven massive star clusters hold at least 80% of a galaxy from the universe’s first 400 million years

Possible castaway camp site BF008 on Isla de los Estados. Credit: N. C. Ciarlo

Shipwreck survivors may have built a temporary camp on a remote Argentine island in 1873

Artist's impression of GRB 260310A. A massive star collapses and launches a jet made up of a narrow, ultrafast core (white beam) wrapped in a broader and slower outflow. The jet points away from Earth. Researchers first saw light from the jet's outer wings and only later from its energetic core. The inset shows the image acquired by the Large Binocular Telescope, displaying the bright optical afterglow (marked) next to its host galaxy. Credit: Fortuna/Yang/ERC BHianca

A gamma-ray burst faded, then its X-ray afterglow suddenly brightened weeks later

VVVX color-composite image of the Garro 04 field. Credit: Elisa R. Garro et al., arXiv (2026). DOI: 10.48550/arXiv.2609.24811

Hidden behind Galactic dust, Garro 04 emerges as a 10,000-light-year-distant cluster with shared motion, chemistry and a disk-like orbit

An artist's rendition of an imagined rocky exoplanet with an atmosphere. Credit: 852278-MCS via Wikimedia Commons

Earth may have kept its oceans and mild climate for billions of years without life

The binary star system 70 Ophiuchi AB, or 70 Oph AB, can be seen near the center of this image taken by the U.S. Naval Observatory in 1937. Astronomers have long been interested in this two-star system and its potential to host planets we have yet to discover. Although researchers led by the University of Michigan didn't confirm any planets in 70 Oph AB in their latest study, they have set constraints that can aid scientists designing future searches. Credit: Courtesy of the U.S. Naval Observatory Library

The stars’ 20-day rotation masquerades as planet-like signals in a nearby binary system

Location of CL001. (a) Optical panorama of the Milky Way (ESO/S. Brunier) in galactic coordinates. The box marks CL001. (b) VVV DR4 H-band field centered on CL001, with the neighboring massive cluster UKS-1. This shows the data used in this work: DECam r (blue, extending beyond the panel), FourStar Ks 2012 (gold dashed) and 2023 (red solid; the two epochs are rotated one with respect to the other), and HST/WFC3-IR (pink). (c) FourStar JHKs color composite of CL001 with the HST footprint. Credit: J. Olivares Carvajal et al., arXiv (2026). DOI: 10.48550/arXiv.2610.27969

Hidden Milky Way star cluster may be 13.4 billion years old, nearly as old as the universe

This artist’s illustration shows the smaller, hotter companion star Siwarha creating a wake-like disruption in Betelgeuse’s outer atmosphere as it orbits directly through it. The shape of Betelgeuse itself becomes slightly oblong as a result of Siwarha's perturbations. Credit: NSF/AUI/NSF NRAO/M. Weiss

Betelgeuse grows more oval as its companion star moves through its atmosphere

Various objects found in the same pit as the bronze Berru-type helmet (1), including an iron scythe (2) and four adzes (3a–d). Credit: B. Kaczyński in Kaczyński et al. 2026

A rare Celtic warrior helmet was deliberately smashed and buried 2,400 years ago in Poland

Giant marine reptiles like long-necked plesiosaurs and marine crocodile relatives, as well as turtles, sharks, crustaceans and others, formed the Paja Biota, "one of the most ecologically complex marine communities found to date," says researcher Dirley Cortés. Credit: Juan Giraldo

In ancient Colombia, dying marine lineages shared the seas with evolutionary newcomers

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Snow and ice give northern lakes a stronger cooling effect than nearby land

A reconstruction of the iguanodontian dinosaur Paludohadros proudlovii walking through mud along the edge of a shallow body of water. In the distance, the large predatory dinosaur Baryonyx can be seen. Credit: Guilherme Gehr

This 125-million-year-old dinosaur may have grown twice as large as the fossil found in England

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Water warming makes young North Pacific water older while old tropical water gets younger

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What Are the Biggest Unsolved Mysteries in Astrophysics and Cosmology?

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Will the Universe End in a Big Freeze, Big Crunch, or Big Rip?

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What Is Space-Time? How Space and Time Form a Four-Dimensional Structure

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What Determines a Star’s Lifetime? Mass, Temperature, and Evolution

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How Do Stars Produce Energy? Nuclear Fusion Explained

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How Do Stars Form? From Giant Gas Clouds to Nuclear Fusion

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What Happens When Two Galaxies Collide?

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Andromeda Galaxy vs. Milky Way: How Our Galaxies Compare

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What Is the Difference Between Spiral, Elliptical, and Irregular Galaxies?

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How Many Galaxies Are in the Observable Universe?