Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array have for the first time found that the outer region of a dusty disk encircling a brown dwarf contains millimeter-sized solid grains like those found in denser disks around newborn stars.

Spectacular jets powered by the gravitational energy of a supermassive black hole in the core of the elliptical galaxy Hercules A illustrate the combined imaging power of two of astronomy’s cutting-edge tools, the Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3, and the recently upgraded Very Large Array radio telescope in west-central New Mexico.

After an odyssey of design and construction stretching across more than a decade, North America has delivered the last of the 25, 12-meter-diameter dish antennas that comprise its share of antennas for the international ALMA telescope.

Jeffrey Mangum, a scientist at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory headquarters in Charlottesville, Virginia, has been appointed Editor of the Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

An unexpected discovery by astronomers using the National Science Foundation’s Very Large Array is forcing scientists to rethink their understanding of the environment in globular star clusters, tight-knit collections containing hundreds of thousands of stars.

Combining the cutting-edge capabilities of the ALMA telescope with newly-developed laboratory techniques, scientists are opening a completely new era for deciphering the chemistry of the Universe.