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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.

Stylized space scene showing the glowing top of a spacecraft or capsule emerging from a deep red nebula, with scattered distant stars on a black background

New Discovery Challenges Evolution of Galaxy Clusters

January 7, 2026 at 4:15 pm | News Release

Peering back in time, around 12 billion years, astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have found the…

A multi-panel astronomical image shows the spiral galaxy M33 on the left, with soft blue-white spiral arms and a bright central bulge, overlaid by a faint rectangular outline marking a region near the galaxy’s center. Inset on the right is a zoomed, false-color radio/optical composite of that outlined area, filled with mottled clouds of blue, purple, and red, where the red regions trace clumpy, dense gas and the blue-purple background highlights more diffuse material and a central cavity. White labels identify a “Supernova Remnant” within a dashed circular outline in the lower-left of the inset, a nearby “Wolf-Rayet Star” just above and to the right, a faint “Cavity” region outlined by a dotted circle above them, and “Dense Gas” along the bright red structures to the right, illustrating how the massive star and past supernova have carved out a bubble in the surrounding gas within the galaxy.

Stars That Die Off the Beaten Path

January 6, 2026 at 4:15 pm | News Release

Astronomers have created a detailed forecast of where they expect to observe future stellar explosions in a nearby galaxy,…

A rectangular collage of fifteen small, purple-and-gold astronomical images arranged in three rows on a black background, each showing a hazy, glowing central source with irregular contours and scattered fainter specks resembling distant galaxies or stars.

Young Galaxies Grow Up Fast

January 6, 2026 at 12:15 pm | News Release

Astronomers have captured the most detailed look yet at faraway galaxies at the peak of their youth, an active…

The U.S. National Science Foundation Very Large Array on the plains of San Agustin, New Mexico

Hidden Giants of the Early Universe: NSF NRAO Telescopes Help Reveal Divergent Fates of the Most Massive Galaxies

January 5, 2026 at 11:56 am | News Release

Astronomers using the U.S. National Science Foundation National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NSF NRAO) instruments Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and, the U.S. National Science Foundation Very Large Array (NSF VLA), and the W. M. Keck Observatory have uncovered the hidden lives of some of the most massive galaxies in the early Universe, revealing that while some shut down star formation quickly, others continue forming stars behind thick veils of cosmic dust.

Illustration of a young star system seen edge-on in space, with a dark, dusty disk cutting horizontally across the center and glowing orange clumps along the disk that suggest sites of active star formation. Bright white and gray gas flows extend above and below the disk like broad cones or jets, fading into the deep blue background of space. Soft, scattered stars of varying brightness surround the scene.

ALMA Devours Cosmic “Hamburger,” Reveals Potential for Giant Planet Formation

January 5, 2026 at 4:27 am | News Release

Have you ever found something unexpected in your hamburger? Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) were surprised…

A nighttime view of a high-altitude radio observatory shows several large parabolic antennas silhouetted against a dark plateau, while the bright, star-filled band of the Milky Way arches dramatically across the sky overhead.

Super Massive Black Holes May Be Picky Eaters

December 19, 2025 at 7:38 am | News Release

Black holes are notorious for gobbling up everything that comes their way, but astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter…

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