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This artist’s rendering illustrates a precessing jet erupting from the supermassive black hole at the center of galaxy VV 340a. Optical observations from the W. M. Keck Observatory revealed extended, cooler gas pushed outward over thousands of light-years, while infrared data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope captured the super-heated coronal gas near the galaxy’s core.
The NSF Very Large Array Helps Reveal Record-Breaking Stream of Super-Heated Gas from Nearby Galaxy
January 8, 2026 at 7:15 am | News Release

Astronomers using the U.S. National Science Foundation Very Large Array (NSF VLA), together with the NASA James Webb Space Telescope and other observatories, have identified an enormous, galaxy-scale stream of super-heated gas erupting from the nearby galaxy VV 340a.

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 7:15 am | 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…

PASASAGES Lensed Protocluster Core Candidate PJ0846+15
Cosmic Lens Reveals Hyperactive Cradle of Future Galaxy Cluster
January 7, 2026 at 11:15 am | News Release

Astronomers using the U.S. National Science Foundation Very Large Array (NSF VLA) and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have discovered a rare protocluster that was exceptionally bright, all when the Universe was 11 billion years younger.

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…

Showing news items 61 - 70 of 971