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Cosmic conflict continues: new data fuel the Hubble tension debate

Vera C Rubin Observatory reveals its first spectacular images of the cosmos

Pictures include the Trifid and Lagoon nebulas and the Virgo cluster

Astronomers capture spectacular ‘thousand colour’ image of the Sculptor Galaxy

The image revealed around 500 planetary nebulae that can be used as distance markers to their host galaxies

Latest news

Artist's impression of Hakuto-2 lander and rover

Japan’s ispace suffers second lunar landing failure

ispace was attempting to become the first non-US firm to land on the Moon

Artist's impression of Tianwen-2 target asteroid

China launches Tianwen-2 asteroid sample-return mission

The craft will aim to collect about 100 g of material from a “quasi-satellite” of Earth

People
News

Richard Bond and George Efstathiou share the 2025 Shaw Prize in Astronomy

Pair are honoured for their work on the cosmic microwave background

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The Ringed Planet, 2nd Edition — Free Access for a limited time

Explore Saturn’s dynamic system with this essential guide to a beautifully illustrated journey of discovery through the Saturn system.

Research headlines

Two stars orbiting each other in the night sky

Short-lived eclipsing binary pulsar spotted in Milky Way

Black-hole scattering calculations could shed light on gravitational waves

Artistic impression of acoustic waves in a star

New analysis of M67 cluster helps decode the sound of stars

Andromeda galaxy may not collide with the Milky Way after all

Odds of a collision in the next 10 billion years may be only 50/50, according to new simulations

How magnetar flares give birth to gold and platinum

Starquakes and magnetic recombination drive the r-process of nucleosynthesis

New coronagraph pushes exoplanet discovery to the quantum limit

Technique could also give optical communications a boost

This is what an aurora looks like on Mars

Image is the first taken on the surface of another planet, and the first visible-light aurora image from anywhere other than Earth

Plasma physics sets upper limit on the strength of ‘dark electromagnetism’

Result could force a rethink on basic models of dark matter, say researchers

Smartphone sensors and antihydrogen could soon put relativity to the test

Camera components will improve precision of moiré deflectometer

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David Moore speaking at the Helgoland 2025 meeting

Quantum
Blog

Yale researcher says levitated spheres could spot neutrinos ‘within months’

David Moore claims his table-top set-up is on the cusp of detecting ghostly particles, reports Matin Durrani

Graphic showing the images of several celestial bodies encircled by names of missions to those bodies. Many of the names have red X's over them, many others have blue X's, and most of the rest have yellow exclamation points next to them.

There’s an elephant in the room at the Royal Society – and for once, it’s not (just) Elon Musk

A conference on the future of the UK space sector makes stunningly little mention of how proposed cuts to NASA funding might affect it

Cosmology
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Richard Bond and George Efstathiou: meet the astrophysicists who are shaping our understanding of the early universe

Our podcast guests are the 2025 Shaw Prize in Astronomy winners

Artist's impression of a neutron star evaporating. The star is shown as a blue-white glowing ball that bends spacetime around it, and pairs of annihilating particles are shown swirling around it

Universe may end much sooner than predicted, say theorists

New estimate suggests that the most persistent stellar objects may decay away via Hawking radiation within the next 10^78 years

The cosmic microwave background, as imaged by the European Space Agency’s Planck mission

Loop quantum cosmology may explain smoothness of cosmic microwave background

Repulsive gravity at the quantum scale would have flattened out inhomogeneities in the early universe

illustration of an astronomical explosion

Beyond the Big Bang: reopening the doors on how it all began

Emma Chapman reviews Battle of the Big Bang: The New Tales of Our Cosmic Origins by Niayesh Afshordi and Phil Halper

Photo of Jian-Xiang Qiu and Suyang Xua posing with the apparatus they used to detect axion quasiparticles. The apparatus comprises lasers and other components mounted on an optical table. They're wearing laser safety glasses.

Axion quasiparticle appears in a topological antiferromagnet

New finding could aid the search for fundamental axions, say physicists

Exoplanet could be in a perpendicular orbit around two brown dwarfs

Observation expands the diversity of known planetary systems

Artist's image of a black hole, depicted as a dark dip in a blue-lit grid with light streaking towards it

New research suggests gravity might emerge from quantum information theory

Theoretical study offers novel insights into the nature of spacetime and matter interactions

White-to-black heat map of the planet Jupiter superimposed against a photograph of the planet and against a dark, starry background. The planet's north pole is bright white, the equatorial regions tend towards black, and most of the middle latitudes are red except for a wide arc of yellow about 1/3 of the way from north pole to equator. The southernmost latitudes are not included in the heat map. A scale at right indicates that white areas are 700 degrees Celsius, yellow areas are 600, red areas are 500-300, and black areas are 200. A note adds that these temperatures are measured 1000 km above the planet's surface.

Solar wind burst caused a heatwave on Jupiter

New analysis of 2017 data suggest that the Jovian atmosphere is not as self-contained as scientists thought

Spectacular images of the cosmos released to celebrate Hubble’s 35 years in orbit

A series of spectacular images of the cosmos has been released to celebrate the Hubble Space Telescope's 35 years in space

Top-quark pairs at ATLAS could shed light on the early universe

Massive particles reveal properties of the quark–gluon plasma

Photo of the Main Spectrometer at the KATRIN experiment during installation of its inner electrode system. The photo is taken inside the experiment and shows a tunnel-like interior with electronics panels covering every visible surface. At the centre is a metal platform with scaffolding and ladders. Three people in clean-room protective clothing are standing on the platform.

KATRIN sets tighter limit on neutrino mass

New maximum for notoriously shy particle is 0.45 eV – 1 million times less than the electron

Photo of the set-up in the ISAC-II experimental hall at TRIUMF. The room resembles a high-ceilinged warehouse with metal supports and high windows in the background. In the foreground is an experimental apparatus supported by a yellow metal frame.

Helium nanobubble measurements shed light on origins of heavy elements in the universe

Particle-accelerator study focuses on the r-process thought to be responsible for forming elements heavier than iron

Photon collisions in dying stars could create neutrons for heavy elements

Simulations shed light on the r-process of nucleosynthesis

DESI delivers a cosmological bombshell

“Phantom” dark energy existed long ago, observations suggest

Artist's impression of the gravitational wave and electromagnetic radiation signals from a distant binary neutron star merger arriving at Earth. The image shows the Earth floating in space with a telescope hovering above it in the bottom left corner, while in the top right corner a pair of bright spots are emitting ghostly blue waves

AI speeds up detection of neutron star mergers

New approach could aid “multimessenger” astronomy by quickly locating sources of gravitational waves emitted during these cosmic events

Graph showing a neutral current interaction in the NOvA Far Detector

Sterile neutrinos are a no-show (again)

Hypothetical fourth neutrino flavour is absent from new data from Fermilab's NOvA experiment

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