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American Astronomical Society

The 235th meeting of the American Astronomical Society brought more than 3,500 scientists to Honolulu, Hawaii to unveil the latest discoveries in space and the future of astronomy. See the latest news, images and videos from the AAS 235 meeting here.

Latest Updates

An artist's depiction of zodiacal light at the surface of the planet Kepler-1229 b.

Ghostly glow in alien skies: 'Zodiacal light' possibly spotted on 3 exoplanets

By Meghan Bartels published 21 January 22

Watch the sun set from a particularly dark patch of Earth and you may spot a triangle of what scientists call zodiacal light extending from where our star passed below the horizon.

An artist's depiction of the planet XO-3b on an eccentric orbit around its star.

Scorching alien planet takes seasons to an extreme

By Meghan Bartels published 17 January 22

Scientists have gotten a close look at an extreme case of seasons, thanks to a retired NASA telescope.

An artist's conception of stellar streams orbiting the Milky Way.

Streams of stars orbiting the Milky Way shed light on galaxy’s dark matter

By Samantha Mathewson published 13 January 22

Stellar groupings orbiting the outskirts of the Milky Way shed new light on the elusive dark matter surrounding our galaxy.

A visualization of a superflare on the recurrent nova v2487 Oph.

Powerful superflares discovered erupting from superdense stellar corpse

By Chelsea Gohd published 13 January 22

A rare type of white dwarf star has been erupting in the most extreme superflares of its kind ever seen, researchers find in a new study.

An artists conception comparing a normal supernova to a cow supernova.

'Cow' supernova is brightest ever seen in X-ray observations

By Tereza Pultarova published 13 January 22

Astronomers have spotted the brightest ever 'Ccow' supernova shining in x-rays providing evidence the mysterious phenomenon might be driven by an emerging black hole or a neutron star.

This visualization shows the Local Bubble with star formation happening on its surface.

Giant galactic bubble is driving star formation, new study finds

By Charles Q. Choi published 12 January 22

Earth is surrounded by a vast bubble about 1,000 light-years wide whose borders drive the formation of all nearby young stars, a new study finds.

'Mini' monster black hole discovered hiding in a dwarf galaxy

By Chelsea Gohd published 12 January 22

A newly discovered "mini" supermassive black hole could help reveal some of the secrets behind the biggest black holes in the cosmos.

An artist's depiction of the IXPE observatory in space.

NASA's newly launched X-ray space telescope is ready to start observing the cosmos

By Amy Thompson published 11 January 22

NASA's Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) is set to begin spying on some of the universe's most dramatic objects — black holes and neutron stars.

An artist's depiction of a black hole eating a star, also known as a tidal disruption event, and producing a superfast jet.

Supermassive black hole gobbled up a star in the 1980s, and high schoolers helped discover it

By Meghan Bartels published 11 January 22

Astronomers have found evidence of a black hole snacking on a star in data gathered back in the 1980s, according to new research.

The Hubble Space Telescope has taken pictures of the oldest galaxies it can.

With COVID-19 on the rise again, 'Super Bowl of astronomy' next month canceled

By Meghan Bartels published 30 December 21

As COVID-19 infection rates rise once again, the leaders of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) have canceled the major conference scheduled for early January.

The CHIME telescope is an impressive piece of construction. See the person there at the top?

Huge new catalog of ultrabright 'fast radio bursts' may shed light on the structure of the universe

By Doris Elin Urrutia published 22 June 21

A big new sample of fast radio bursts is allowing scientists to ask big-picture questions about the cosmos.

'Giant arc' stretching 3.3 billion light-years across the cosmos shouldn't exist

By Adam Mann published 22 June 21

Colossal arc of distant galaxies makes astronomers question some of their most cherished principles about the cosmos.

An image captured by the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile shows Betelgeuse in December 2019, at right, early in what would become the dramatic dimming episode that culminated in February 2020.

Scientists still stuck on Betelgeuse antics a year after strange dimming episode

By Meghan Bartels published 4 March 21

A year ago, the bright red star Betelgeuse in the Orion constellation hit the headlines for a stark fading episode that astronomers couldn't explain. They still can't, although they keep trying.

Scientists' predictions for the long-term future of the Voyager Golden Records will blow your mind

By Meghan Bartels published 23 February 21

The future is a slippery thing, but sometimes physics can help. And while human destiny will remain ever unknown, the fate of two of our artifacts can be calculated in staggering detail.

An artistic impression of the Draco C1 symbiotic binary star system showing material flowing off the red giant star onto its white dwarf companion.

'Symbiotic stars' caught snacking on each other outside the Milky Way

By Nola Taylor Tillman published 22 January 21

Stars snacking on their companions outside the Milky Way have been precisely mapped and measured for the first time.

The Interplanetary Network triangulated the location of a gamma-ray burst catalogued as "GRB 200415A" to the center of the nearby Sculptor galaxy, or NGC 253, located about 11.4 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Sculptor.

Powerful cosmic eruptions traced to brilliant 'magnetar' in nearby galaxy

By Charles Q. Choi published 21 January 21

Astronomers may have captured the first good look at giant flares from the strongest magnets in the universe.

A view of a spiral galaxy seen nearly edge-on.

A galactic sideswipe 3 billion years ago warped our Milky Way galaxy

By Elizabeth Howell published 21 January 21

New data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and Europe's Gaia spacecraft suggest that a brush with another galaxy caused the strange, potato chip-like "warp" in our Milky Way galaxy.

An artist's depiction of X-ray emissions forming the last afterglow of the high-energy jets produced by a neutron-star collision.

A neutron-star crash spotted 3 years ago is still pumping out X-rays. But why?

By Meghan Bartels published 18 January 21

Three years ago, two neutron stars collided in a cataclysmic crash, the first such merger ever observed directly. Naturally, scientists kept their eye on it — and now, something strange is happening.

A monster black hole siphons gas off of an orbiting giant star in this illustration.

'Old Faithful' galaxy has brilliant outbursts every 114 days

By Elizabeth Howell published 17 January 21

An "Old Faithful"-like event in space may shed light on the nature of stars nearby supermassive black holes embedded in galaxies.

Is NASA about to get its first female leader?

By Mike Wall published 15 January 21

The incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris may very well make history with their choice to lead the 62-year-old U.S. space agency.