Artist's impression of a gaseous exoplanet closely orbiting its host star

Astrobites reports on a way to find giant planets so close to their host stars that they’re usually obscured by the star’s glare.

Researchers have identified the optical counterpart to an X-ray binary system, giving us clues about the nature of this extreme star system.

A computer rendering of a brown planet, covered with patches and smears of bright read lava, suspended against a black background.
Features

A Forge Without Iron

If you wanted to know what’s in the air of a lava planet, it wouldn’t be a good idea to go visit in person. Luckily, astronomers don’t have to.

Artist’s impression of a fast radio burst traveling through space and reaching Earth

Researchers take a wide view of an unusual repeating fast radio burst to decode the burst’s dispersed signal.

illustration of a super-Earth exoplanet with a watery atmosphere

Astrobites reports on the prospect of using JWST to detect prebiosignatures: the molecules that indicate not life itself, but the possibility that life might someday form.

Hubble image of a star-forming region in the Small Magellanic Cloud

Why did a small galaxy stop forming stars less than 700 million years after the Big Bang? Cosmological simulations give some clues about why star formation stalled.

elliptical galaxy NGC 4150

Quiescent elliptical galaxies might harbor a new class of rare transients called luminous fast coolers, the physical origins of which remain unknown.

JWST image of the Chamaeleon I molecular cloud

Researchers have detected glycolamide, a chemical cousin to the simplest amino acid necessary for life on Earth, in the interstellar medium for the first time.