Some planets can survive when their main sequence stars "die" and evolve into red giants. Astronomers have found several of them. One of them in particular is orbiting extremely close to its star, providing an opportunity to study it with the JWST to determine how it got there.
New research shows that repeated impacts on Earth during the Hadean eon prevented thick and stable crustal material from forming. The heat from these impacts penetrated deep into the planet, and along with radiogenic heating, delayed the formation of a solid crust.
Some of the most massive galaxies in the Universe appear to be missing a lot of stars. That seems unusual, since birthing stars is one of a galaxy's main tasks as it grows. According to Xin "Cindy" Xiang of the University of Michigan, something is suppressing or quenching the births of stars in these and she thinks that black holes might be the culprit.
Searching for habitable worlds beyond our solar system consists of more than just having it orbit within its star’s habitable zone, which is the region where temperatures could be just right for liquid water to exist on the surface. On Earth, where water comprises approximately 75 percent of the planet’s surface, life is absurdly abundant. But what about the exoplanet’s star, specifically its activity and rotation? How could this influence how exoplanets are identified for current and future missions?
 *The full trail of galaxies, with an inset image of DF9 taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Credit: Keim et al. (2026)/DECaLS/HST*](https://www.universetoday.com/article_images/YN_DF9-drak-galaxy_20260630_213243.jpg)
Astronomers using W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea, Hawaiʻi Island, have discovered the third known galaxy apparently lacking dark matter, part of a strange linear structure that may have formed during a violent collision between galaxies.
Exoplanet atmospheres have become prima targets for astrobiologists in the search for life beyond Earth. This is because exoplanet surfaces can’t be directly imaged yet, so astronomers must get creative with how to search for signs of life, also called biosignatures. Presently, powerful ground- and space-based telescopes like the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) and NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) are improving in their ability to observe and analyze exoplanet atmospheres. But did these atmospheres form and evolve, and what could this mean for the search for life beyond Earth?
The Vera Rubin Observatory's long-awaited Legacy Survey of Space and Time has begun. This decade-long movie of the cosmos will capture anything that changes brightness, position, or both in the southern night sky. It will study grand subjects like dark energy and dark matter, and important things closer to home like near-Earth objects.
