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This artist’s impression compares the semi-heavy water content of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS (left) and Earth (right). Insets illustrate the relative abundance of deuterated water (HDO) molecules, showing that 3I/ATLAS contains over 30 times more HDO than is found in Earth’s oceans. This elevated ratio suggests the comet formed in an extremely cold environment, very different from the conditions that shaped our Solar System.
3I/ATLAS Contains 30X More Semi-Heavy Water Than Comets In Our Solar System
April 23, 2026 at 5:00 am | News Release

New observations of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS include the first measurement of the abundance of deuterated water relative to…
An artist's rendition of pair of twin stars being born in the HOPS-312 system in Orion.
Most Close Pairs of Stars Are Born as Cosmic Twins
April 13, 2026 at 8:00 am | News Release

A new study of infant stars in the Perseus and Orion star-forming regions suggests that most close pairs of…
An artist's rendition of pair of twin stars being born in the HOPS-312 system in Orion.
New Director of North American ALMA Science Center Named Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
March 31, 2026 at 8:00 am | News Release

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has named Joe Pesce a 2026 AAAS Fellow. Pesce is…
A bright, icy-looking object floats in deep space at the center of the image, surrounded by a large, glowing blue and pale orange cloud that fades softly into the dark background. The blue part of the cloud is largest and mostly on the left-hand side. The orange part is smaller and on the right-hand side. Small stars are scattered throughout the black sky.
ALMA Detects Extremely Abundant Alcohol in Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS
March 6, 2026 at 12:00 pm | News Release

Comet 3I/ATLAS continues to make astonishing headlines, thanks to new findings from astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array…
This image shows the complex distribution of molecular gas in the Central Molecular Zone (CMZ) of the Milky Way. It was obtained with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), in which ESO is a partner. This map is as long as three full Moons side-by-side in the sky, and it is in fact the largest ALMA image ever obtained. This map is part of ACES — the ALMA CMZ Exploration Survey — a project designed to understand how gas condenses into stars in the extreme and chaotic environment at the heart of our galaxy. The survey has charted the distribution of dozens of different molecules, five of which are shown here in different colours: sulphur monoxide (cyan), silicon monoxide (green), isocyanic acid (red), cyanoacetylene (blue), and carbon monosulphide (magenta). The stars in the foreground of this image were observed at infrared wavelengths (Y, Z and J filters) with ESO’s VISTA telescope as part of a different project. The actual density of stars in the CMZ is much higher than what is shown here, where we have opted to highlight the details in the molecular cloud. Note that the edges of the ALMA map appear somewhat sharp because the ALMA observations do not cover the entire rectangular area here.
ALMA Creates Largest-Ever Image of the Milky Way’s Core
February 25, 2026 at 8:00 am | News Release

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), of which the U.S. National Science Foundation National Radio Astronomy Observatory…
Artist’s illustration of the binary star system WR 112. A bright blue-white Wolf-Rayet star and a nearby, smaller companion star orbit each other in space. Their powerful stellar winds collide between them, creating a glowing region where dust forms and streams outward in a spiral plume. A magnified inset in the top right corner, shows the dust grains against a reddish background, highlighting mostly extremely tiny, nanometer-sized particles along with a smaller number of grains about 100 times larger.
A Quintillion-to-One: Giant Stars, Tiny Dust
February 23, 2026 at 10:00 am | News Release

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have discovered that some…
A Hubble Space Telescope image of the giant elliptical galaxy M87 with its blowtorch-like jet. The visible part of this giant stream of particles spans around 3000 light-years.
New Event Horizon Telescope Results Trace M87 Jet Back to Its Black Hole
January 28, 2026 at 4:00 am | News Release

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and other radio telescopes in the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) network…
The astro-modified camera used to take this photo lets in the hydrogen alpha light that is normally filtered out. This modification makes the camera more sensitive to the red end of the electromagnetic spectrum, thus giving a pink tint to the sky.
Magnetic Superhighways Discovered in a Starburst Galaxy’s Winds
January 27, 2026 at 8:00 am | News Release

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international team of astronomers has mapped a magnetic highway driving a…
Composite radio astronomy image showing multiple views of ring-like gas and dust structures around galaxies on a black background. At the top left, nearly face-on amber rings appear clumpy and irregular, gradually transitioning across each row into more inclined and edge-on views that stretch the rings into thin, bright streaks. Toward the right side of several rows, blue-tinted versions of the same disks are shown, highlighting different components or wavelengths of emission. The sequence from top to bottom emphasizes how the same type of galactic disk looks progressively more elongated as the viewing angle tilts from face-on to edge-on.
ALMA Reveals Teenage Years of New Worlds
January 20, 2026 at 3:00 am | News Release

Astronomers have, for the first time, captured a detailed snapshot of planetary systems in an era long shrouded in…
A new, extremely luminous fast blue optical transient, AT2024wpp, flares as a bright blue point of light in the left panel, located just off the edge of its faint host galaxy, while the right panel shows the same region of sky after the outburst faded
Radio telescopes uncover “invisible” gas around record-shattering cosmic explosion
January 8, 2026 at 12:15 pm | News Release

Astronomers using the U.S. National Science Foundation National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NSF NRAO) instruments, the U.S. National Science Foundation Very Large Array (NSF VLA) and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), have revealed a dense cocoon of gas around one of the most extreme cosmic explosions ever seen, showing that a ravenous black hole ripped apart a massive star and then lit up its surroundings with powerful X-rays.
Showing results 1 - 10 of 312