Robert Lea

"The surprise that a supposedly quiet, discless system could drive such a spectacular nebula was one of those rare 'wow' moments."

"The combination of extreme disk size, strong asymmetries, winds, and potential planet formation makes it the perfect laboratory for understanding how giant planets can form."

"This is a structure we've never seen before, so it could be a new class of dark object."

"WIMPs are still the leading candidate for dark matter, but billions of dollars of experiments have been done, only getting stronger and stronger upper limits, so alternative scenarios have to be considered."

"Nothing in my professional training as an X-ray astronomer had prepared me for something like this."

"This was many times more energetic than any similar event and more than any known explosion powered by the collapse of a star."

"This is a tale of a failed galaxy."

Bad news for those hoping interstellar invader 3I/ATLAS is an alien spacecraft as technosignature search turns up empty.

"If this interaction between dark matter and neutrinos is confirmed, it would be a fundamental breakthrough."

Using the Hubble space telescope, astronomers have imaged "'Dracula’s Chivito" the largest site of planetary birth ever seen.

2025 was another big year for black holes, and here's our pick of the top black hole stories from the last twelve months.

3I/ATLAS may have moved away from Earth as it makes its way out of the solar system, but this interstellar intruder continues to delight and surprise astronomers.

"I think every astronomer is going to find something of value here, as NASA's missions enable the world to answer fundamental questions about how the universe got its start, and how it changed to eventually create a home for us in it."

"The sheer amount of radiated energy from these bursts is so large that you can't power them with a core collapse stellar explosion — or any other type of normal stellar explosion."

"We do not know with certainty that we found a superkilonova, but the event nevertheless is eye-opening."

"Virgil has two personalities, its 'good' side – a typical young galaxy quietly forming stars. But Virgil transforms into the host of a heavily obscured supermassive black hole, pouring out immense quantities of energy."

3I/ATLAS has now made its closest approach to the sun and Earth and is now heading back out toward the outer solar system.

"It's like looking back in time in a sense, to that violent period of our solar system when it was less than a billion years old."

"The forces that are needed to dislodge such a massive black hole from its home are enormous."

"This was an absolute surprise. It's extremely different from what we expected."

Smooth filaments stretching for many light-years, seen by the powerful space telescope, could indicate what the right "recipe" is for dark matter.

"A bit like dinosaurs on Earth — they were enormous and primitive. And they had short lives, living for just a quarter of a million years."

"This is a real gift for physicists as we confirm predictions made more than a century ago."

"With ALMA, we can now see the atmosphere of a dying star with a level of clarity in a similar way to what we do for the sun."