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What if a galaxy could exist without the brilliant stars that normally make galaxies visible? Cloud-9 may offer astronomers one of the most intriguing examples yet. Located near the spiral galaxy M94, this mysterious hydrogen-rich object appears to contain enormous amounts of gas while producing almost no detectable starlight.

Astrophysicists have completed ASTRID, the largest cosmological hydrodynamic simulation ever run, tracing the universe from the cosmic dawn ($z=99$) down to the present day ($z=0$). By resolving 166 billion particles across 815 million light-years, ASTRID unveils how supermassive black holes co-evolve with galaxies and sculpt the cosmic web.

Scientists have uncovered the first robust evidence of a black hole and neutron star crashing together while orbiting in an oval path, challenging long-standing assumptions about cosmic pair formation. Most neutron star-black hole pairs are expected to adopt circular orbits long before merging, their orbits slowly rounded out by the constant emission of gravitational waves over millions of years.

Far from the warmth of any star, moons orbiting rogue gas giants might harbor oceans of liquid water—and potentially complex life—for billions of years. Liquid water is considered essential for life. Surprisingly, however, stable conditions that are conducive to life could exist far from any sun.

Look up on a clear night and you'll see the streaks of our modern satellite networks. What you don't see is the growing fallout for the atmosphere that keeps us alive. A wave of satellite launches and reentries is changing the chemistry and physics of the middle and upper atmosphere. Studies warn of ozone depletion, stratospheric heating, and new metal aerosols from burning spacecraft.

Astronomers have witnessed the birth of a highly magnetized, spinning neutron star, confirming it as the hidden engine behind some of the brightest exploding stars in the cosmos. Superluminous supernovae—which can be 10 or more times brighter than run-of-the-mill supernovae—have puzzled astronomers since their discovery in the early 2000s. They were thought to result from the explosion of very massive stars, perhaps 25 times the mass of our sun, but they stayed bright much l

Anastasios Tzanidakis was combing through old telescope data when he found an otherwise boring star acting very strangely. What he uncovered was the violent birth of a dust cloud—the aftermath of two planets colliding. The star, named Gaia20ehk, is located about 11,000 light-years from Earth near the constellation Puppis. It was a stable "main sequence" star, much like our sun, which meant that it should emit steady, predictable light. Yet this star began to flicker wildly.

By analyzing the delicate balance between gravitational pull and cosmic expansion in our local neighborhood, astronomers are rewriting the rules on dark matter and the expansion rate of the universe. Two new studies have measured the expansion of the universe in our immediate cosmic neighborhood using a novel method.

The Vera Rubin Observatory will do more than probe dark energy—it is poised to revolutionize our detection of Near-Earth Objects, giving us unprecedented warning before they strike. The Vera Rubin Observatory (VRO) has barely begun observations and is already wowing us. Images like its Cosmic Treasure Chest have us anticipating even more cosmic glory. And when the observatory sent out 800,000 alerts in one night in February, we got a taste of the scientific boost it will giv

Just a few days in simulated microgravity can subtly change the way women's blood clots, sparking bigger questions about health monitoring protocols for astronauts who spend six months or more in orbit. First reported in 2020, an International Space Station (ISS) mission detected an unexpected blood clot in a female astronaut's jugular vein.

For the first time, scientists have successfully measured magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence on scales below one parsec within the gamma-ray halo surrounding the Geminga pulsar wind nebula. Published in Science Advances, this groundbreaking observation extends to the highest energies—above 100 tera-electron volts (TeV)—providing entirely new insights into the behavior of cosmic rays and magnetic fields within the Milky Way.

It is one of the most famous questions in science, asked over lunch by physicist Enrico Fermi. With hundreds of billions of stars and billions of years, life should have emerged many times over. And yet, no signals. No visitors. No evidence of anyone at all. The universe is 13 billion years old. Our galaxy alone contains hundreds of billions of stars, a significant proportion of which host planets. Many of those planets sit in the right temperature range for liquid water.