Deep Field — Galaxies & CosmologyThe long view: galaxy formation and mergers, redshift records, the cosmic microwave background, and the measurements that keep refusing to agree with each other.https://deepfield.news/feeds/galaxies.xml2026-08-12T21:20:03ZDeep FieldAggregated from the publishers named in each entry. Rights remain with them.https://deepfield.news/icon-180.pngFirst supernovae may have seeded rocky planet building blocks 100 million years after the Big Bangtag:deepfield.news,2026-08-12:story/60108bb1e50beee92026-08-12T21:20:03Z2026-08-12T21:20:03ZPhys.orgPhys.orgThe building blocks of rocky planets may have begun forming just 100 million years after the Big Bang—long before the first galaxies even existed—according to new research from the University of Portsmouth.Headline and summary from Phys.org; follow the link for the full article.This year's 'Masters of the Universe' movie wasn't Hollywood's first attempt at capturing the power of He-Man; they tried back in 1987, and failed then tootag:deepfield.news,2026-08-12:story/8aa1a8bc1fb393af2026-08-12T21:00:00Z2026-08-12T21:00:00ZSpace.comSpace.comHow bad timing, a studio in financial turmoil, and a movie that looked nothing like the cartoon conspired to defeat the most powerful man in the universe.Headline and summary from Space.com; follow the link for the full article.Stellar stream beyond Milky Way offers new tool to map dark mattertag:deepfield.news,2026-08-12:story/e4574a80766f7c912026-08-12T20:20:06Z2026-08-12T20:20:06ZPhys.orgPhys.orgIn the image above, a faint trail of stars can be seen stretching across the galaxy. These structures, known as globular cluster stellar streams, are coherent stellar structures that retain a record of their dynamical history and can provide unique insights into the evolution of…Headline and summary from Phys.org; follow the link for the full article.Farthest 'black hole star' ever found could help solve the James Webb Space Telescope's little red dot mysterytag:deepfield.news,2026-08-12:story/e8887cbf9c2e43812026-08-12T15:05:00Z2026-08-12T15:05:00ZSpace.comSpace.comA distant black hole star is providing strong evidence that these objects lie at the hearts of the mysterious little red dots found shortly after the Big Bang by the James Webb Space Telescope.Headline and summary from Space.com; follow the link for the full article.Knowing through uncertainty: probability and the evolution of our cosmostag:deepfield.news,2026-08-12:story/aacd9ac187955db32026-08-12T14:00:55Z2026-08-12T14:00:55ZPhysics WorldPhysics WorldChrysi Malouchou Kanellopoulou reviews The Random Universe: How Models and Probability Help us Make Sense of the Cosmos by Andrew H JaffeHeadline and summary from Physics World; follow the link for the full article.The Dark Matter Detector in the Scottish Borderstag:deepfield.news,2026-08-11:story/0be29acc499a87ba2026-08-11T21:17:06Z2026-08-11T21:17:06ZUniverse TodayUniverse TodayHunting for dark matter usually means building something enormous and burying it — a tank of liquid xenon in a mine, a magnet the size of a lorry, decades of engineering and a great deal of money. A team in Japan have just done it differently. They realised that the Earth's own…Headline and summary from Universe Today; follow the link for the full article.What Is the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope? (Grades 5-8)tag:deepfield.news,2026-08-11:story/e601bace89d1f8202026-08-11T21:04:39Z2026-08-11T21:04:39ZNASANASAThis article is for students grades 5-8. The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is NASA’s newest astrophysics observatory. The telescope will scan large sections of space. Roman will help astronomers answer questions about dark energy, dark matter, exoplanets, and more…Headline and summary from NASA; follow the link for the full article.A Seriously Dusty Supernovatag:deepfield.news,2026-08-11:story/ea0c5c1ac6d843142026-08-11T21:00:38Z2026-08-11T21:00:38ZAAS NovaAAS NovaA supernova discovered in 2010 appears to have created tens of thousands of Earth masses of dust.Headline and summary from AAS Nova; follow the link for the full article.Scientists create largest 2D map of the universe with 5.6 trillion pixels and nearly 4 billion cosmic objectstag:deepfield.news,2026-08-11:story/4c55a4d35053baf42026-08-11T21:00:00Z2026-08-11T21:00:00ZSpace.comSpace.com"It's part of the fabric of astronomy research now."Headline and summary from Space.com; follow the link for the full article.Scientists find 2 million active black holes, exploding stars and more, nearly doubling our view of the high-energy universetag:deepfield.news,2026-08-11:story/174862e8b73cde392026-08-11T20:00:00Z2026-08-11T20:00:00ZSpace.comSpace.comAstronomers have nearly doubled the number of known cosmic X-ray sources.Headline and summary from Space.com; follow the link for the full article.Black holes older than the Big Bang could explain dark mattertag:deepfield.news,2026-08-11:story/e93d467beef8da8b2026-08-11T10:14:58Z2026-08-11T10:14:58ZScienceDailyScienceDailySome black holes roaming the Universe today may actually be older than the Big Bang. A new cosmic “bounce” model suggests the Universe expanded from an earlier contracting phase, allowing ancient black holes to survive the transition as cosmic fossils. These relics could…Headline and summary from ScienceDaily; follow the link for the full article.The Andromeda galaxy may be getting bullied by a smaller galactic neighbor, scientists findtag:deepfield.news,2026-08-10:story/128b909eb92d71c32026-08-10T18:00:00Z2026-08-10T18:00:00ZSpace.comSpace.comAndromeda has slowed its star-forming rate over the last 40 million years. Scientists think they finally know why.Headline and summary from Space.com; follow the link for the full article.DESI releases biggest 2D map of the universetag:deepfield.news,2026-08-10:story/15658ef63c3fe65f2026-08-10T17:00:05Z2026-08-10T17:00:05ZPhys.orgPhys.orgHold on to your telescopes: The DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys team has released the largest-ever 2D color map of the universe. The 5.6-trillion-pixel map contains nearly 4 billion celestial objects, primarily stars and galaxies. The data is available for all to use and publicly…Headline and summary from Phys.org; follow the link for the full article.Scientists Release Biggest 2D Map of the Universetag:deepfield.news,2026-08-10:story/f460c053f5722a4d2026-08-10T16:10:00Z2026-08-10T16:10:00ZNOIRLabNOIRLabThe newest DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys map, 13 years in the making, covers three-quarters of the sky and catalogs nearly four billion objects. This treasure trove is available to all and contains stars, galaxies, supernovae, gravitational lenses, and much more. Two NSF NOIRLab…Headline and summary from NOIRLab; follow the link for the full article.Smoking-Gun Signatures of Bounce Cosmology from Echoes of Relic Gravitational Wavestag:deepfield.news,2026-08-10:story/a7e50f7c467eba742026-08-10T16:00:22Z2026-08-10T16:00:22ZAAS NovaAAS NovaMian Zhu and Yi-Fu Cai 2026 ApJL 1004 L34 In a cosmology framework that proposes the universe began with a period of contraction before the Big Bang, researchers find that high-frequency gravitational waves oscillate in a way that is potentially detectable.Headline and summary from AAS Nova; follow the link for the full article.Do Galaxies Really Glow in Sync — or Are We Just Tilting Our Heads?tag:deepfield.news,2026-08-10:story/5911552683d202942026-08-10T16:00:01Z2026-08-10T16:00:01ZAAS NovaAAS NovaAstrobites reports on whether the correlation between galactic radio, infrared, and gamma-ray emission is truly a sign that cosmic-ray electrons deposit all their energy before they can escape to intergalactic space.Headline and summary from AAS Nova; follow the link for the full article.Astronomers find a new object from the early universe using Webb datatag:deepfield.news,2026-08-10:story/3d3fe101d71cbdea2026-08-10T11:40:02Z2026-08-10T11:40:02ZPhys.orgPhys.orgSince it became operational in 2022, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has released some truly breathtaking views of the cosmos. These images highlight how advancements since the days of the venerable Hubble Space Telescope are now providing the deepest and clearest views of…Headline and summary from Phys.org; follow the link for the full article.Voyager 2 was running out of power. NASA just bought it more timetag:deepfield.news,2026-08-10:story/f9e44b1bebc5aa452026-08-10T09:45:23Z2026-08-10T09:45:23ZScienceDailyScienceDailyNASA engineers have found a clever way to squeeze more life out of Voyager 2, nearly half a century after it left Earth. In an operation nicknamed the “Big Bang,” the team simultaneously shut down certain power-hungry hardware and switched to lower-power alternatives while…Headline and summary from ScienceDaily; follow the link for the full article.Cosmic filaments help set first limits on dark matter's decay into gravitonstag:deepfield.news,2026-08-09:story/8e9b06fa312c38c22026-08-09T16:00:01Z2026-08-09T16:00:01ZPhys.orgPhys.orgComposing some 85% of the universe's total mass, dark matter betrays its presence only through gravity, unlike ordinary matter. Yet through new research published in Physical Review D, a team led by David Dunsky of New York University has proposed a new way to hunt for the…Headline and summary from Phys.org; follow the link for the full article.Diving into the Darkest Corners of the Universe with Fast Radio Burststag:deepfield.news,2026-08-05:story/6bd584872514b55d2026-08-05T17:25:00Z2026-08-05T17:25:00ZAAS NovaAAS NovaUsing fast radio bursts, researchers have measured just how empty cosmic voids truly are.Headline and summary from AAS Nova; follow the link for the full article.Astronomers Catch Massive Star’s Death From the First Explosive Momenttag:deepfield.news,2026-08-05:story/a4003a7a509f0f282026-08-05T15:00:00Z2026-08-05T15:00:00ZNOIRLabNOIRLabA rare cosmic explosion has given astronomers an unprecedented view of a massive star in its final moments, revealing a previously missing link between ordinary supernovae and the most energetic explosions in the Universe. Several NSF NOIRLab facilities and instruments helped to…Headline and summary from NOIRLab; follow the link for the full article.EXCELlent Work, Detectives! Solving the Murder of Star Formation in Galaxies with JWSTtag:deepfield.news,2026-08-04:story/b71f693b0c48d6412026-08-04T16:00:52Z2026-08-04T16:00:52ZAAS NovaAAS NovaAstrobites reports on a whodunit of cosmic significance: who killed star formation in massive elliptical galaxies?Headline and summary from AAS Nova; follow the link for the full article.A New Way to Map the Universe's Missing Mattertag:deepfield.news,2026-08-04:story/f6199206b4cd126f2026-08-04T13:00:00Z2026-08-04T13:00:00ZSky & TelescopeSky & TelescopeBrief but powerful flashes of radio waves are aiding astronomers' quest to find and map cosmic gas.Headline and summary from Sky & Telescope; follow the link for the full article.Dark matter’s secret force does the opposite of what scientists expectedtag:deepfield.news,2026-08-02:story/07024aa11ab9247d2026-08-02T13:26:11Z2026-08-02T13:26:11ZScienceDailyScienceDailyDark matter particles may exert a hidden force on one another, but its effects are stranger than expected. An extra attraction helps the particles cluster, yet it also makes dark matter effectively lighter as the Universe expands. That weakens its gravitational impact and…Headline and summary from ScienceDaily; follow the link for the full article.Mysterious Milky Way object accelerates protons beyond one quadrillion electron voltstag:deepfield.news,2026-08-02:story/3506039d832da3432026-08-02T02:59:35Z2026-08-02T02:59:35ZScienceDailyScienceDailyScientists have identified LHAASO J1912+1014u as a cosmic accelerator that can push protons beyond one quadrillion electron volts. The finding may help reveal where the Milky Way’s most energetic cosmic rays come from and how they influence the galaxy.Headline and summary from ScienceDaily; follow the link for the full article.NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory Opens Deep Window on Famous Cosmic Fieldtag:deepfield.news,2026-07-31:story/fea2dcffe4cf284d2026-07-31T20:20:00Z2026-07-31T20:20:00ZNOIRLabNOIRLabA new image from NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory offers a spectacularly deep view into a famous region of sky known as the COSMOS field. Located in the constellation Sextans, COSMOS is one of the most observed patches of the Universe — and Rubin’s new image adds a powerful new…Headline and summary from NOIRLab; follow the link for the full article.Discovery of a Featureless Tidal Disruption Event at z ∼ 1 with the Wide Field Survey Telescopetag:deepfield.news,2026-07-31:story/a0cb35cfa4f2d3a32026-07-31T16:00:40Z2026-07-31T16:00:40ZAAS NovaAAS NovaJiazheng Zhu et al 2026 ApJL 1004 L10 Discovered just 6 billion years after the Big Bang, AT2025wet is the highest-redshift non-jetted tidal disruption event known, allowing researchers to probe the missing-energy puzzle.Headline and summary from AAS Nova; follow the link for the full article.First-Generation Stars Provide Better Fit than a Black Hole for Early-Universe Gas Clumptag:deepfield.news,2026-07-27:story/73d50a0edc2f49982026-07-27T16:00:42Z2026-07-27T16:00:42ZAAS NovaAAS NovaWhat powers the prominent helium emission from Hebe, a gas clump seen just 450 million years after the Big Bang?Headline and summary from AAS Nova; follow the link for the full article.Euclid opens a new window on the first billion years of cosmic historytag:deepfield.news,2026-07-25:story/1e415fe2b3c12fbd2026-07-25T17:09:44Z2026-07-25T17:09:44ZAstronomy NowAstronomy NowOne of the biggest mysteries in modern astronomy is how the Universe managed to grow enormous black holes so quickly.Headline and summary from Astronomy Now; follow the link for the full article.The Universe can outrun light without breaking Einstein’s rulestag:deepfield.news,2026-07-25:story/0a2e74eda1bbc4662026-07-25T13:17:03Z2026-07-25T13:17:03ZScienceDailyScienceDailyCosmic expansion allows distant galaxies to move away faster than light, while still letting us see ancient light they emitted when they were much closer. Eventually, accelerating expansion will push nearly every galaxy beyond our Local Group out of sight, making the Universe…Headline and summary from ScienceDaily; follow the link for the full article.New quantum gravity theory links entropy, dark energy, and lifetag:deepfield.news,2026-07-21:story/2c2e1ef531fc8a902026-07-21T02:40:55Z2026-07-21T02:40:55ZScienceDailyScienceDailyA new theoretical study offers a possible explanation for how the Universe can grow more complex without violating the second law of thermodynamics. Using a quantum gravity framework called Gravity from Entropy, mathematician Ginestra Bianconi found that the Universe’s total…Headline and summary from ScienceDaily; follow the link for the full article.Featured Image: A Rare Pair of Galaxies Lacking Dark Mattertag:deepfield.news,2026-07-20:story/dc898f87e1cb3ad42026-07-20T16:00:17Z2026-07-20T16:00:17ZAAS NovaAAS NovaThe galaxies FCC 224 and FCC 240 appear to be a rare example of a dark-matter-poor, globular-cluster-rich pair formed via colliding dwarf galaxies.Headline and summary from AAS Nova; follow the link for the full article.Dating the Dawn of the Milky Way Disktag:deepfield.news,2026-07-17:story/ab33b81a1c1517b72026-07-17T17:56:18Z2026-07-17T17:56:18ZAAS NovaAAS NovaA recent study used the kinematics, chemical composition, and ages of thousands of stars to determine when the Milky Way settled into the spiral disk we know it as today.Headline and summary from AAS Nova; follow the link for the full article.The Starry Night Reduxtag:deepfield.news,2026-07-16:story/8eaa2fad502341a22026-07-16T16:00:00Z2026-07-16T16:00:00ZNOIRLabNOIRLabThe 570-megapixel Department of Energy-fabricated Dark Energy Camera (DECam) captures a vibrant scene, filled with swirls and stars reminiscent of Van Gogh’s The Starry Night. This new cosmic masterpiece features glowing nebula NGC 6729 on the left and globular star cluster NGC…Headline and summary from NOIRLab; follow the link for the full article.Chemical Fingerprints of Accreted Ultrafaint Dwarf Galaxies in the Milky Way Halotag:deepfield.news,2026-07-15:story/9ab77d2c84bacc512026-07-15T16:00:30Z2026-07-15T16:00:30ZAAS NovaAAS NovaDiala M. Taneenah et al 2026 ApJL 1003 L11 Researchers have discovered two chemically distinct populations in a sample of 97 metal-poor stars in the Milky Way halo, potentially providing a way to identify accreted halo stars.Headline and summary from AAS Nova; follow the link for the full article.New dark matter theory could solve multiple cosmic mysteries at oncetag:deepfield.news,2026-07-14:story/7492b3ed654b34442026-07-14T02:30:53Z2026-07-14T02:30:53ZScienceDailyScienceDailyDark matter may be far more complicated than scientists once believed. A new study suggests it could consist of at least two different kinds of particles that slowly separate over time, with heavier particles sinking toward the centers of galaxies and lighter ones drifting…Headline and summary from ScienceDaily; follow the link for the full article.Warped and Hooked: Mapping the Magellanic Clouds in Three Dimensions Using Red Clump Starstag:deepfield.news,2026-07-13:story/fce77f3952e71ef32026-07-13T16:00:43Z2026-07-13T16:00:43ZAAS NovaAAS NovaSlater J. Oden et al 2026 ApJ 1003 9 By constructing a detailed distance map to the Magellanic Clouds, researchers have revealed substructures within this interacting galaxy pair, including an azimuthal warp in the Large Magellanic Cloud.Headline and summary from AAS Nova; follow the link for the full article.Powerful cosmic winds may have destroyed galaxies in the early universetag:deepfield.news,2026-07-10:story/598edc6c9327de392026-07-10T08:00:10Z2026-07-10T08:00:10ZPhysics WorldPhysics WorldAstronomers discover a huge plume of gas streaming out of a galaxy during rapid star formationHeadline and summary from Physics World; follow the link for the full article.The First Systematic Survey of Stellar Halos in High-Inclination Galaxies Reveals Unusually Quiescent Merger Histories of Nearby Galaxiestag:deepfield.news,2026-07-09:story/4717135a7b7d1efd2026-07-09T16:00:24Z2026-07-09T16:00:24ZAAS NovaAAS NovaBojun Tao et al 2026 ApJS 284 31 Analysis of 93 stellar halos detected in a sample of 169 high-inclination galaxies showed that high-mass galaxies have more extended halos and more active merger histories, among other findings.Headline and summary from AAS Nova; follow the link for the full article.Spectroscopic Confirmation of a Large and Luminous Galaxy with Weak Emission Lines at z = 13.53tag:deepfield.news,2026-07-08:story/4e47074423e4e88f2026-07-08T16:00:05Z2026-07-08T16:00:05ZAAS NovaAAS NovaCallum T. Donnan et al 2026 ApJ 1002 134 PAN-z14-1 is the fourth most distant galaxy known to date, and its properties are consistent with the emerging picture of two separate galaxy populations at redshifts greater than 10.Headline and summary from AAS Nova; follow the link for the full article.