Journal News

The 1954 Castle Bravo mushroom cloud.
End of nuclear secrecy? Underground tests now '99% detectable'
Secret underground nuclear tests could now be a thing of the past thanks to a major scientific breakthrough in ways to identify them. A team of Earth scientists and statisticians say they can now tell with 99 per cent accuracy if such an explosion h…
Artist impressions of a so-called 'Old Smoker' red giant star and 'Squalling Newborn' protostar, both observed as part of new research.
'Old smokers' and 'squalling newborns' among hidden stars spotted for first time
'Hidden' stars including a new type of elderly giant nicknamed an 'old smoker' have been spotted for the first time by astronomers. The mystery objects exist at the heart of our Milky Way galaxy and can sit quietly for decades – fading almost to inv…
Early images of Uranus and Neptune compared to those reprocessed in a new study.
New images reveal what Neptune and Uranus really look like
Neptune is fondly known for being a rich blue and Uranus green – but a new study has revealed that the two ice giants are actually far closer in colour than typically thought. The correct shades of the planets have been confirmed with the help…
Dynamic spectra (or “waterfall” plots) for all the bursts from FRB 20220912A.
Never-before-seen Fast Radio Burst sheds new light on deep space signals
Astronomers are continuing to unravel the mystery of deep space signals after discovering a never-before-seen quirk in a newly-detected Fast Radio Burst (FRB). FRBs are millisecond-long, extremely bright flashes of radio light that generally come fr…
Image from the Solar Dynamics Observatory mission of the solar disk with multiple sunspots, which appear dark compared with their surroundings. Credit: HMI/SDO/NASA
Solar activity likely to peak next year, new study suggests
Researchers at the Center of Excellence in Space Sciences India at IISER Kolkata have discovered a new relationship between the Sun’s magnetic field and its sunspot cycle, that can help predict when the peak in solar activity will occur. Their work i…
Artist's impression of the Cassini spacecraft near to Saturn..JPG
Using eclipses to calculate the transparency of Saturn’s rings
A Lancaster University PhD student has measured the optical depth of Saturn’s rings using a new method based on how much sunlight reached the Cassini spacecraft while it was in the shadow of the rings. The optical depth is connected to the transparen…
Background image of simulation of present-day matter from FLAMINGO simulation, with three insets showing detail.
Astronomers carry out largest ever cosmological computer simulation
An international team of astronomers has carried out what is believed to be the largest ever cosmological computer simulation, tracking not only dark but also ordinary matter (such as planets, stars and galaxies), giving us a glimpse into how our Uni…
An artist's impression of a T Tauri star. The star appears in colours of red, purple, orange and yellow, and is obscured by dust clouds.
First observational evidence of gamma-ray emission in young Sun-like stars
A team of scientists from Argentina and Spain have reported the first observational evidence that a type of young low-mass star, known as T Tauri stars, are capable of emitting gamma radiation. The study is published in Monthly Notices of the Royal A…
An image of two merging galaxies. Both are light blue and cream in colour. Faint stars are seen in the background.
Galaxy mergers shed light on galactic evolution model
An Australian astronomer has solved a century-old mystery regarding how galaxies evolve from one type to another. The same study shows that the Milky Way, the galaxy we live in, was not always a spiral. The work by Professor Alister Graham from Swinb…
An image of the star-forming region IC348 overlaid with an image of the tryptophan molecule.
Evidence of the amino acid tryptophan found in space
Using data from the Spitzer space observatory, Dr Susana Iglesias-Groth, a researcher from The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), has found evidence for the existence of the amino acid tryptophan in the interstellar material in a nearby star…
An artist's concept of the Kepler Space Telescope in space. The telescope is roughly cylindrical in shape, made of rust and silver coloured materials. Many stars can be seen in the background, as well as the Sun and Earth-Moon system.
Astronomers discover last planets seen by Kepler Space Telescope
Astronomers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Wisconsin at Madison, with the help of citizen scientists, have discovered the last three planets that the Kepler Space Telescope gazed upon before going dark. The researc…
This artist's impression of a quasar shows a bright orange and white disc of material centred around a small black circle. A jet of light emanates from this circle, white and blue in colour.
An X-ray look at the heart of powerful quasars
Researchers have observed the X-ray emission of the most luminous quasar seen in the last 9 billion years of cosmic history, known as SMSS J114447.77-430859.3, or J1144 for short. The new perspective sheds light on the inner workings of quasars and h…