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    As puzzling as a platypus: The JWST finds some hard to categorize objects

    January 13, 2026, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    As Puzzling As A Platypus: The JWST Finds Some Hard To Categorize Objects

    The platypus is one of evolution’s lovable, oddball animals. The creature seems to defy well-understood rules of biology by combining physical traits in a bizarre way. They’re egg-laying mammals with duck bills and beaver-like tails, and the males have venomous spurs on their hind feet. In that regard, it’s only fitting that astronomers describe some newly discovered oddball objects as “Astronomy’s Platypus.”

    The discovery consists of nine galaxies that also have unusual properties and seem to defy categorization. The findings were recently presented at the 247th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Phoenix...

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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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