AAS Nova

Supercritical accretion of black holes may drive the formation of enigmatic “little red dots.” aasnova.org/2026/10/26/s... 🔭🧪

Most galaxies are expected to contain at least one massive black hole, but how robust is this prediction? New research uses simulations to look at which galaxies tend to have more or fewer black holes, and with what properties. aasnova.org/2026/10/23/a... 🔭🧪 @yale.edu

Get to know your neighbors with a new database of nearby star clusters, stellar associations, and substellar objects. aasnova.org/2026/10/21/m... 🔭🧪

The center of our galaxy is known to host hundreds of radio-emitting filaments, but the energy source for these features remains a mystery. New simulations attempt to shed light on what powers galactic non-thermal filaments. aasnova.org/2026/10/20/f... 🔭🧪

Jayde Willingham reports for @astrobites.bsky.social on a new diagnostic tool used to understand how the neighborhood a black hole grows up in may affect the rest of its life. aasnova.org/2026/10/19/n... 🔭

The white dwarf–brown dwarf pair J0404+1112 — one of only about a dozen known systems like it — offers researchers a chance to study a substellar atmosphere blasted with intense radiation. aasnova.org/2026/10/16/a... 🔭🧪 @mit.edu

Globular clusters have far fewer binary stars than the solar neighborhood. New research identifies black hole burning as the culprit. aasnova.org/2026/10/14/c... 🔭🧪

Why do spicules — tiny spikes of plasma on the Sun — appear to rotate, split, and merge? New simulations reveal the possible cause of these motions. aasnova.org/2026/10/13/d... 🔭🧪

Sandy Chiu reports for @astrobites.bsky.social on why interstellar magnetic fields can appear ordered or tangled, depending on which gas clouds you measure and how. aasnova.org/2026/10/12/t... 🔭

Researchers have discovered a millisecond pulsar with two stellar companions — one of only a handful of these rapidly spinning stellar remnants known to be in a triple system. aasnova.org/2026/10/09/a... 🔭🧪

The hot Jupiter WASP-12b is on a collision course with its host star, and it’s heading that way faster than expected. New research examines a possible explanation for the planet’s speedy inspiraling. aasnova.org/2026/10/07/t... 🔭🧪 @princeton.edu

A new catalog of giant pulses from the Crab Nebula pulsar reveals a feature predicted to exist but not seen until now. aasnova.org/2026/10/06/f... 🔭🧪

Chris Layden reports for @astrobites.bsky.social on NASA’s SPHEREx mission, which is collecting an infrared spectrum for every point in the sky — potentially revolutionizing our understanding of cosmic inflation, galaxy formation, and interstellar ices. aasnova.org/2026/10/05/s... 🔭

Last year, gravitational wave detectors triggered on what may have been a collision involving a sub-solar-mass neutron star. New research investigates a potential link between this event and a supernova. aasnova.org/2026/10/02/s... 🔭🧪 @jhu.edu

New simulations suggest the outer solar system could disassemble within about one billion years after the Sun becomes a white dwarf. aasnova.org/2026/09/30/t... 🔭🧪 @caltech.edu

Ben Sherwin reports for @astrobites.bsky.social on the discovery of a new ultra-faint dwarf galaxy in preview data taken before the start of Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s 10-year survey. aasnova.org/2026/09/29/a... 🔭

New radio observations provide the best view yet of the WISPIT 2 planetary system, revealing spiral wakes driven by a growing young planet. aasnova.org/2026/09/28/r... 🔭🧪

My first solo piece for @aasnova.org as a new AAS Media Fellow! As someone who has worked on pulsar timing in the past, I found this study really interesting—the authors used stellar *pulsation* timing to infer the existence of companions around massive A-type stars, including a possible exoplanet!

Researchers use stellar pulsations to detect substellar companions around A-type stars — including what could be a first-of-its-kind exoplanet. aasnova.org/2026/09/25/s... 🔭🧪

Handwritten eclipse observations and sketches of solar prominences from 1733 offer researchers a rare window into a data-poor period of solar history. aasnova.org/2026/09/23/a... 🔭🧪

Drew Lapeer reports for @astrobites.bsky.social on a hunt for evidence of a universal initial mass function using JWST observations of local relic galaxy Boötes I. aasnova.org/2026/09/22/a... 🔭

See the famous Crab Nebula in a whole new way: researchers have mapped the 3D kinematic structure of the nebula and investigated a jet-like feature emerging from the expanding shell. aasnova.org/2026/09/21/f... 🔭🧪

A recent study has found that the observed mass–eccentricity relation of warm Jupiters can be explained by dynamical interactions between planets in these systems. 🔭🧪 aasnova.org/2026/09/18/p...

Researchers have found a planetary nebula in a star cluster in the Andromeda Galaxy — one of just a handful of known extragalactic planetary nebula–open cluster pairs. aasnova.org/2026/09/16/e... 🔭🧪

Kaz Gary reports for @astrobites.bsky.social on why we might need a cosmic feather duster to see life on other worlds. aasnova.org/2026/09/15/d... 🔭

We’re excited to welcome Alexia Kubas and Lucas Brown to the team as AAS Media Fellows for 2026–2027! aasnova.org/2026/09/14/w...

A recent study has used spectroscopy from JWST to decipher the source of carbon oxides on the four largest moons of Uranus. aasnova.org/2026/09/11/b... 🔭🧪

Light and dark regions speckle the Sun and other stars, complicating the interpretation of exoplanet transmission spectra. New modeling suggests that certain bright spots appear dark on cooler stars, adding a new wrinkle to this challenge. aasnova.org/2026/09/09/w... 🔭🧪

Chloe Klare reports for @astrobites.bsky.social on how synchrotron emission from thermal electrons could help to explain the behavior of certain tidal disruption events. aasnova.org/2026/09/08/t... 🔭

The original plan for an upcoming flagship mission to Uranus called for a slingshot around Jupiter. Now that the planet won’t be in the right position at launch time, the spacecraft will need to follow a different path. aasnova.org/2026/09/04/w... 🔭🧪

How early did planets form in the universe? A recent study used simulations to find that planetesimals could have formed significantly earlier than previously thought. 🧪🔭 aasnova.org/2026/09/02/p...

Natalie Price reports for @astrobites.bsky.social on JWST observations of dust that has survived being expelled from a galaxy into the circumgalactic medium. aasnova.org/2026/09/01/h... 🔭

Researchers have discovered a comet-shaped nebula surrounding a pulsar speeding through the remains of its progenitor star. aasnova.org/2026/08/31/f... 🔭🧪

JWST observations of the most recent interstellar visitor reveal a coma dominated not by water, as expected for solar system comets, but instead carbon monoxide. aasnova.org/2026/08/21/a... 🔭🧪

New research suggests that the circumplanetary disk surrounding the exoplanet PDS 70c contains a ring of dense dust, and the conditions within this ring may allow baby moons to form. aasnova.org/2026/08/19/p... 🔭🧪

Margaret Verrico reports for @astrobites.bsky.social on whether our methods for weighing galaxies can help save cosmology from JWST’s universe-breaking galaxies. aasnova.org/2026/08/18/g... 🔭

An accreting stellar-mass black hole embedded in a supernova remnant is potentially a powerful cosmic particle accelerator. aasnova.org/2026/08/17/f... 🔭🧪

When two galaxies collide, they spark new star formation that can emit tons of powerful radiation. A recent study observes such a system and connects this process to the reionization of the universe. aasnova.org/2026/08/14/a... 🔭🧪

Ultra-hot Jupiter WASP-121b is once again puzzling astronomers. New JWST observations have revealed aspects of this superheated planet’s atmosphere that models cannot yet explain. aasnova.org/2026/08/12/c... 🔭🧪 @umich.edu

A supernova discovered in 2010 appears to have created tens of thousands of Earth masses of dust. aasnova.org/2026/08/11/a... 🔭🧪 @stewardobservatory.bsky.social

Sandy Chiu reports for @astrobites.bsky.social on whether the correlation between galactic radio, infrared, and gamma-ray emission is truly a sign that cosmic-ray electrons deposit all their energy before they can escape to intergalactic space. aasnova.org/2026/08/10/d... 🔭

Astronomers may have spotted the crumbs of a recently-eaten asteroid around a white dwarf star. 🧪🔭 aasnova.org/2026/08/07/f...

Using fast radio bursts, researchers have measured just how empty cosmic voids truly are. 🧪🔭 aasnova.org/2026/08/05/d...

Margaret Verrico reports for @astrobites.bsky.social on a whodunit of cosmic significance: who killed star formation in massive elliptical galaxies? aasnova.org/2026/08/04/e... 🔭

Citizen scientists from the Dynamic Eclipse Broadcast Initiative recorded nearly an hour of coronal behavior during the 8 April 2024 solar eclipse. aasnova.org/2026/08/03/f... 🔭🧪

A recent study investigated the possible mechanisms that caused a known Jupiter-family comet to split in two. 🧪🔭 aasnova.org/2026/07/31/s...

A recent Focus Issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters introduces the fourth version of the gravitational wave transient catalog from LIGO, Virgo, and KAGRA. aasnova.org/2026/07/29/m... 🔭🧪

Shalini Kurinchi-Vendhan reports for @astrobites.bsky.social on the interplay between the interstellar medium and star formation in simulated galaxies. aasnova.org/2026/07/28/t... 🔭

What powers the prominent helium emission from Hebe, a gas clump seen just 450 million years after the Big Bang? aasnova.org/2026/07/27/f... 🔭🧪

How did neon end up inside Earth’s mantle, and what does that tell us about how our planet formed? aasnova.org/2026/07/24/n... 🔭🧪 @ucsandiego.bsky.social