Evan Gough

The Red Planet Has a Purple Side

September 18, 2026

Mars appears red because of iron oxides in the regolith. But it's not uniformly red. Different lighting conditions and different materials accumulated on the surface can make it appear purple, as in these images from Mars Express and its High-Resolution Stereo Camera.

A Zombie White Dwarf Star is Born Again. Hallelujah!

September 17, 2026

30 years ago, an amateur astronomer noticed a white dwarf star suddenly getting brighter. New research shows this is due to a Very Late Thermal Pulse, a type of helium flash. The star has heated up and become brighter, and is now called a 'born again' star. It's evolved into a Wolf-Rayet type star, and astronomers will get to watch as it continues to evolve on human timescales.

When Stars Engulf Rocky Planets, Beryllium Gives It Away

September 16, 2026

Astronomers know that stars can engulf planets when they stray too close. But how can they know, by looking at a star, if it has ever done so? The answer lies in Beryllium, an element not synthesized inside stars.

Webb Searches for Brown Dwarfs in a Stunning Star-Forming Region

September 16, 2026

How small can brown dwarfs be before the definition breaks down? That question is at the heart of new research, and new JWST images. Using the space telescope, researchers have discovered a new class of brown dwarfs with low masses, marked by a peculiar hydrocarbon feature.

If Venus Had An Ancient Moon, It Was Doomed

September 15, 2026

Earth has a big beautiful Moon, while Venus, its 'sister planet', doesn't. Why is that? Did it ever have one? If it did, new research shows it was never going to last very long.

From 10 to 22 years: The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope's Mission Has Just Been Extended.

September 15, 2026

More good news for NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. The telescope's first mid-course correction was extremely efficient, using only 10% of the fuel allotted for it. This efficiency, coupled with other factors, means the powerful space telescope will likely have an additional ~12 years of observing time.

ALMA is Watching a Massive Binary Star System Form

September 15, 2026

Astronomers used 8 years of observations to create a 3D image of a very young, very massive binary star as it forms. The image shows that the disks in the system are all misaligned. Those misalignments, together with the orbit, are clues to the system's chaotic history.

Don't Get Your Hopes Up for a City on the Moon

September 14, 2026

Bezos said we should move heavy industry to the Moon. Musk says we'll have sustainable lunar cities. We know there's ancient water ice in craters on the Moon's poles, but there's not enough water to support a city.

Dense Galaxies Are Carving Out A Bubble in the Early Universe

September 11, 2026

Light could only travel freely in the Universe after cosmic reionization. Before that, neutral hydrogen stopped photons from travelling. The JWST has found evidence of an overdensity of galaxies carving out a bubble of reionization. Is this how it all started?

Unexplained Gamma-Rays from the Galactic Center Could be from Self-Annihilating Dark Matter

September 10, 2026

Over a decade ago, the Fermi satellite detected an excess of gamma-ray emissions in the galactic center. Potential explanations included Sgr. A*, the Milky Way's SMBH, pulsars, and even self-annihilating dark matter. There's no clear answer yet, since the region is so difficult to observe. But recent research shows that dark matter can't be ruled out.

A New Surface Atlas of Phobos Will Help JAXA's MMX Mission Collect its Samples

September 10, 2026

JAXA's Martian Moon eXploration (MMX) will be on its way to Mars and Phobos next month. It will collect samples from Phobos and return them to Earth. A new morphodynamic atlas of the small moon will help scientists collect and understand the samples.

Astronomers Unmask a Supernova Impostor

September 09, 2026

Astronomers observe faint light signals from stellar objects, study it intently, and try to understand what's behind these signals. In one case, the signals they detected masqueraded as an imminent supernova explosion. But more observations revealed a different reality.

Widespread Turbulence is Upsetting Star Formation in Stephan's Quintet

September 09, 2026

Stephan's Quintet contains the most well-studied compact galaxy group. Japanese researchers have mapped star forming gas in the Quintet, along with its turbulence. The results show that the Quintet is an evolved group of interacting galaxies where gas struggles to settle down and form stars. Even where gas is concentrated, turbulence from interactions throttles star formation.

Icy Exocomets Around a Distant Star Help Explain Earth's Water

September 08, 2026

Did icy comets deliver water to the young Earth? That idea won't go away. Now, astronomers at Lund University in Sweden have found evidence of exocomets orbiting a young star named PDS 70. The observations suggest that these comets are delivering water to that system's inner regions.

Scientists Are Still Trying To Understand How the Moon Formed

September 08, 2026

The Earth and the Moon have nearly identical isotopic compositions, and the Giant Impact Hypothesis strives to explain this. New research into the ancient impact shows how the temperature of both worlds, and how it affects the strength of the materials involved in the collision, shaped the outcome, including the isotopic compositions.

New Research Shows How Mercury's Crust Formed by Extreme Volcanism

September 02, 2026

Researchers have figured out how to use lunar samples to determine the nature of volcanic activity on ancient Mercury. It's all based on SiO2, or silicon dioxide. Its abundance in a planet's crust reveals a lot about magma and volcanic activity.

Astronomers Find Little Red Dots About to Merge

September 01, 2026

Prior to its launch, astronomers were uncertain what the powerful JWST would find in the ancient, early Universe. One of its surprising findings was Little Red Dots, unexplained ancient objects. They're widely considered to be connected to the growth of SMBHs in the Universe. New research suggests that we may be seeing some LRDs before they merge, on their way to becoming SMBH.

Meet ASTRID, the New High-Resolution Cosmological Simulation

September 01, 2026

The ASTRID cosmological simulation has run from the Universe's early days up to the present day, z=0. ASTRID is larger than some other simulations, and smaller than others. But with a higher number of particles, it has higher-resolution than its fellows. Among other things, this can tell astronomers where to look for gravitational waves from black hole mergers with future GW observatories.

Some Comets are Naked, and One Just Got Caught Photo-Bombing

August 27, 2026

Japanese researchers got lucky when a comet they wanted to study was found photo-bombing archival images from Japan's Subaru Telescope. The Subaru, with its 8.2 meter mirror, happened to image comet 28P/Neujmin from just the right angle to accurately characterize its surface. Their work is part of the ongoing effort to understand comets and asteroids, why some of them share properties, and what that means for their formation and evolution as Solar System objects.

Theory-Defying Exoplanet Atmospheres Force a Rethink of Theories

August 27, 2026

The discovery of lava worlds with atmospheres is challenging our theories of how atmospheres escape, and calling into question the idea of the cosmic shoreline. Stanford researchers have developed a model that explains how lava-covered worlds close to their stars can retain their atmospheres. The new theory could inform the search for life beyond our Solar System.

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