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Astronomers have detected the longest-lasting gamma-ray burst in history. It defies standard models and hides within a dusty, massive galaxy. Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) usually last just a few seconds (Short GRBs) or a few minutes (Long GRBs). They are blink-and-you-miss-it cataclysms. GRB 250702B lasted nearly seven hours.

Astronomers have witnessed a supermassive black hole hurling matter at 20% the speed of light—driven not by heat, but by snapping magnetic fields. We usually think of black holes ejecting matter via radiation pressure (heat). But SRON researchers found something different: the outburst was driven by Magnetic Reconnection. This is the same mechanism that causes solar flares and Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) on our Sun. Magnetic field lines twist, snap, and reconnect, releasi

An unusually bright flare in a distant galaxy wasn't a supernova. It was a star being ripped apart by a hidden black hole. The flare AT2022zod lasted just over a month. It was detected in an elliptical galaxy about 10,000 light-years from the center. Astronomers had to rule out the usual suspects. It was too bright and fast for a standard supernova. It wasn't the galaxy's central supermassive black hole (too far away).

Astronomers have found the chemical fingerprints of the first "Monster Stars"—titans 10,000 times the mass of the Sun—solving the mystery of supermassive black holes. How do you get so much nitrogen? The answer lies inside stars weighing 10,000 times the mass of the Sun. In these titans, the core is so hot that the CNO Cycle (Carbon-Nitrogen-Oxygen) goes into overdrive.

Astronomers have watched a supernova change its identity in real-time, transitioning from Type IIn to Type Ib for the first time in history. Normally, supernovae are classified early and stay that way. SN 2021ukt broke the rules.

Why does the Milky Way have two distinct populations of stars? New simulations reveal the turbulent chemical history of our home galaxy. Researchers from ICCUB and CNRS used the Auriga simulations to create 30 virtual galaxies. They wanted to see what cosmic events cause this chemical split. The Surprise: There isn't just one way to build a Milky Way. The study found multiple paths to the same outcome:

Scientists stared at WASP-121b for 37 hours straight. They found a giant helium cloud wrapping halfway around its star. WASP-121b is an "ultra-hot Jupiter." It hugs its star so tightly that a year lasts only 30 hours. The intense radiation boils the atmosphere, stripping away heavy gases like iron and magnesium, and lighter ones like helium.

TRAPPIST-1 is small, cool, and throws temper tantrums six times a day. New research reveals the "wimpy" but destructive physics behind these flares. Using models to "wind back time" on 6 flares observed by JWST, the team found the culprit: electron beams. Surprisingly, these beams were much weaker than expected. TRAPPIST-1's flares are produced by electron beams about 10 times weaker than those of similar M-dwarf stars.

JWST detected hints of methane on the Earth-sized world TRAPPIST-1e. But new research suggests the planet's star might be playing tricks on us. Why is the star such a problem? Because the TRAPPIST-1 system is incredibly compact. The entire system of seven planets fits comfortably inside the orbit of Mercury. A "year" on TRAPPIST-1e lasts only days.

95% of reality is hidden. By analyzing the distorted shapes of 270 million galaxies, astrophysicists are finally seeing the ghost in the machine. In the leading model of cosmology (Lambda-CDM), everything we can touch, see, or photograph—stars, planets, gas, you—makes up only 5% of the universe. The rest is a mystery. Dark Matter acts as the gravitational glue holding galaxies together, while Dark Energy pushes the universe apart, accelerating its expansion.

New models show how dark matter "spikes" around black holes alter gravitational waves, creating a fingerprint we can detect from Earth. Until now, scientists used simplified approximations to guess how dark matter affects these spirals. The new study from the University of Amsterdam provides the first fully relativistic framework.

Indian astronomers have spent 16 years monitoring TXS 0518+211, a blazar that shoots high-energy particles directly at Earth. Using NASA's Swift (X-ray/UV) and Fermi (Gamma-ray) telescopes, the team tracked the blazar's chaotic brightness. They found complex behavior. Sometimes all energy bands flare together. Other times, X-rays spike alone ("Orphan Flares"), hinting at a complex structure within the jet.