Announcements

A map of part of the sky showing the constellations Hercules, Draco, Bootes, and Ursa Major. An orange circle with white streaks radiating from it is placed near the constellation of Bootes to show the radiant of the Quadrantid meteor shower.
Quadrantids Offer Winter Meteor Spectacle
Northern hemisphere stargazers can look forward to what could be 2022’s best meteor shower on 3-4 January. Observers enjoying dark skies could see 50 or more meteors an hour that night, as the Quadrantids shower reaches its peak. Meteors are the res…
Dr Sheila Kanani
Dr Sheila Kanani awarded MBE
Dr Sheila Kanani, the Royal Astronomical Society’s Education, Outreach and Diversity Officer has been awarded the Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the New Year Honours list. She receives the honour in recognition of her services to…
JWST artist impression
James Webb Space Telescope is on its way!
Today saw the successful launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana, atop an Ariane 5 rocket. The culmination of more than three decades of work, JWST is seen as the successor to the Hubble Space Telesc…
A vivid yellow, orange, pink and purple map of the Milkyway with dark black splotches seen top the left centre and far right of image.
Gaia finds fossil spiral arms in Milky Way
An international team of astronomers, led by researcher Chervin Laporte of the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB-IEEC), has used data from the Gaia space mission to create a new map of the Milky Way’s outer disc. Intr…
The UK Team for the 2021 International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics
Record Medal Haul for UK School Students at Astronomy and Astrophysics Olympiad
Students at UK schools have won their largest ever haul of medals in the International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics. The team of three girls and two boys were among 298 pupils from 48 countries, with the online competition run from Bogota i…
A diffuse galaxy in green and blue hues. White and orange stars appear around the clouds of the galaxy.
Evidence emerges for dark-matter free galaxies
An international team of astronomers led by researchers from the Netherlands has found no trace of dark matter in the galaxy AGC 114905, despite taking detailed measurements over a course of fourty hours with state-of-the-art telescopes. They will pr…
A bright white galaxy that is round in shape, glowing against the darkness of space.
The last breaths of massive galaxies
  The massive elliptical galaxy M87. Credit NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)   A team of astronomers propose a scenario in which galaxies…
Charting our history: two centuries of the RAS
  A digital Timeline designed to celebrate the bicentenary of the RAS is now live on the RAS website and on Instagram – as well as printed as a concertina poster sent to RAS Fellows with the December issue of the A&G magazine. You can now explo…
Image of Professor Emma Bunce
Professor Emma Bunce Wins EGU David Bates Medal
President of the Royal Astronomical Society, Professor Emma Bunce, has been named the winner of the European Geosciences Union David Bates Medal. The medal was established by the EGU Planetary & Solar System Sciences Division in recognition of th…
The remains of the Interplanetary Scintillation Array
Professor Antony Hewish, 1924-2021
The Royal Astronomical Society offers its sincere condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of Professor Antony Hewish, who has died at the age of 97. Born in Cornwall, Prof. Hewish served at the Royal Aircraft Establishment and the Telecomm…
An image of Messier 101, the Pinwheel Galaxy, made with the Hubble Space Telescope
Supermassive black holes put a brake on stellar births
Black holes with masses equivalent to millions of suns do put a brake on the birth of new stars, say astronomers. Using machine learning and three state of the art simulations to back up results from a large sky survey, the researchers resolve a 20-y…
An illustration of material being ejected from the Sun (left) interacting with the magnetosphere of the Earth (right)
Planetary Shields Will Buckle Under Stellar Winds From Their Dying Stars
Any life identified on planets orbiting white dwarf stars almost certainly evolved after the star’s death, says a new study led by the University of Warwick that reveals the consequences of the intense and furious stellar winds that will batter a pla…