Astronomers have identified a colossal exoplanet, measuring between three and ten times the size of Jupiter, concealed behind the swirling disc of gas and dust encircling a nascent star. Previous investigations of the star MP Mus indicated that it existed in isolation, devoid of any orbiting planets, encircled by a uniform cloud of gas and dust. However, a further analysis of MP Mus using a combination of data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter…

The NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile has unveiled the very first “mega” images of the cosmos obtained thanks to the extraordinary features and wide-field view of its LSST camera—the largest in the world. The camera took nearly two decades to build and involved hundreds of scientists across the globe, including a number of CNRS teams. The world-wide First Look unveiling event is held on 23 June at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C. The impressive, car-sized…

Astronomers have created a galactic masterpiece: an ultra-detailed image that reveals previously unseen features in the Sculptor Galaxy. Using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT), they observed this nearby galaxy in thousands of colours simultaneously. By capturing vast amounts of data at every single location, they created a galaxy-wide snapshot of the lives of stars within Sculptor. “Galaxies are incredibly complex systems that we are still struggling to understand,” says ESO researcher Enrico Congiu, who led a…

NASA spacecraft make progress in final commissioning, preliminary science operations SAN ANTONIO — June 10, 2025 — Southwest Research Institute’s Dr. Craig DeForest discussed the latest accomplishments of NASA’s PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) mission during a media event at the 246th American Astronomical Society meeting in Anchorage, Alaska. As the spacecraft constellation completes commissioning, early PUNCH data showed coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, as they erupted from the Sun and traveled across the inner solar system….