Journal News

Multicoloured filaments in space surrounding a bright blue core, Sagittarius A*. The filaments appear to be red, and green, and look gaseous.
Black hole at centre of Milky Way unpredictable and chaotic
An international team of researchers, led by postgraduate student Alexis Andrés, has found that the black hole at the centre of our galaxy, Sagittarius A*, not only flares irregularly from day to day but also in the long term. The team analysed 15 ye…
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…
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…
""
New RAS journal invites submissions and reviewers
The new open access RAS journal, RAS Techniques and Instruments (RASTI), is set to open for submissions in November 2021, and invites the astronomy and geoscience communities to make submissions from next month.  RAS Techniques and Instruments is a…
Cutaway of a star showing an artist's impression of a spinning yellow core
Magnetic fields implicated in the mysterious midlife crisis of stars
Middle-aged stars can experience their own kind of midlife crisis, experiencing dramatic breaks in their activity and rotation rates at about the same age as our Sun, according to new research published today in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronom…
RAS launches new multi-disciplinary journal
The Royal Astronomical Society is pleased to announce the launch of its first new journal in almost 100 years. Tentatively titled RAS Techniques and Instruments, it will cover topics in astronomy and geophysics ranging from instrumentation, data scie…
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…
Artist's impression of a free-floating planet
Kepler telescope glimpses population of free-floating planets
Tantalising evidence has been uncovered for a mysterious population of “free-floating” planets, planets that may be alone in deep space, unbound to any host star. The results include four new discoveries that are consistent with planets of similar ma…
""
New observations of the most distant galaxies close in on cosmic dawn
New observations of six of the most distant galaxies currently known have helped to pinpoint the moment of first light in the Universe, known as ‘cosmic dawn’. The new work is published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, and puts…
Side-by-side artist's impressions of Kepler 422-b and Earth
Earth-like biospheres on other planets may be rare
A new analysis of known exoplanets has revealed that Earth-like conditions on potentially habitable planets may be much rarer than previously thought. The work focuses on the conditions required for oxygen-based photosynthesis to develop on a planet,…
Artist's impression of a small blue star accreting material from its much larger yellow binary companion
Mysterious hydrogen-free supernova sheds light on stars’ violent death throes
A curiously yellow pre-supernova star has caused astrophysicists to re-evaluate what’s possible at the deaths of our Universe’s most massive stars. The team describe the peculiar star and its resulting supernova in a new study published today in Mon…