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    Dark stars could help solve three pressing puzzles of the high-redshift universe

    January 9, 2026, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Dark stars could help solve three pressing puzzles of the high-redshift universe
    UHZ1, a record breaking galaxy 13.2 billion light-years away, seen when the universe was only 3% of its current age. UHZ1 is puzzling in view of it harboring a supermassive black hole that could not have possibly been seeded even by regular stars, in view of its mass and very little time for the BH to grow. As such, UHZ1 is believed to be evidence for supermassive stars that—upon collapse—generate the supermassive black hole powering the quasar at its center. In this study, the authors show how UHZ1 could harbor a supermassive black hole seeded by the collapse of a dark star. The mechanisms identified by the authors are not restricted to UHZ1—it provides a pathway for explaining over massive black hole galaxies, of which UHZ1 is a prominent example...
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    Ultra-hot lava world has thick atmosphere, upending expectations

    December 29, 2025, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    An emission spectrum captured by NIRSpec (the Near-Infrared Spectrograph) on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope in May 2024 shows the brightness of different wavelengths of 3- to 5-micron light coming from the ultra-hot super-Earth exoplanet TOI-561 b. Comparisons of the data to theoretical models suggest that the planet is not a bare rock, but is instead surrounded by a volatile-rich atmosphere. 

    A Carnegie-led team of astronomers detected the strongest evidence yet of an atmosphere around a rocky planet beyond our solar system. Their work, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, used NASA’s JWST to reveal an alien atmosphere in an unexpected place—an ancient, ultra-hot super-Earth that likely hosts a magma ocean.

    TOI-561 b is a rocky world that’s about twice Earth’s ma...

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    Supernova from the dawn of the universe captured by James Webb Space Telescope

    December 26, 2025, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Luminous Fast Blue Optical Transient (Artist’s Concept) Caption: This is an artist’s concept of one of brightest explosions ever seen in space. Credits: Artwork – NASA, ESA, NSF’s NOIRLab, Mark Garlick , Mahdi Zamani

    An international team of astronomers has achieved a first in probing the early universe, using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), detecting a supernova—the explosive death of a massive star—at an unprecedented cosmic distance.

    The explosion, designated SN in GRB 250314A, occurred when the universe was only about 730 million years old, placing it deep in the era of reionization. This remarkable discovery provides a direct look at the final moments of a massive star from a time when the first stars and galaxies were just beginning to form.

    The event, which has ...

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    The monster hiding in plain sight: JWST reveals cosmic shapeshifter in the early universe

    December 14, 2025, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    The monster hiding in plain sight: JWST reveals cosmic shapeshifter in the early universe
    Covering a tiny patch of sky spanning less than a tenth of the full moon, the famous “Hubble eXtreme Deep Field” image revealed thousands of galaxies, including objects from the universe infancy. The James Webb Space Telescope observed the same region over three years. U of A researchers zoomed in on the galaxy reported in this study (inset), captured when the universe was only 800 million years old. The team found that even at its young age, it already harbored a supermassive black hole, shrouded in dust. Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, G. Östlin, P. G. Perez-Gonzalez, J. Melinder, the JADES Collaboration, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb)

    In a glimpse of the early universe, astronomers have observed a galaxy as it appeared just 800 million years after the Big Bang—a cosmic Jekyll and Hyde that loo...

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