International Meteor Organization

We received 31 reports about a fireball seen over Aargau, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Île-de-France, Baden-Württemberg, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, Canton of Bern, Centre-Val de Loire, Freiburg, Grand Est, Lombardia, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Pays de la Loire, Piemonte, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, Rheinland-Pfalz, Solothurn and Thur on Monday, April 20th 2026 around 23:37 UT.

NASA CubeSat Begins Mission to Study Radio Waves in Space - NASA

NASA’s latest small satellite mission is now in orbit studying how natural and human-made radio waves travel from Earth’s surface into space, helping

Second Announcement 8th LOFAR Data School (LDS2026) - LOFAR ERIC

Second Announcement We are happy to announce that the 8th LOFAR Data School (LDS2026) will take place at ASTRON, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (Dwingeloo, The Netherlands) from 16 to 23 September 2026.

NSF NRAO to Host Spring 2026 VLA Open House - National Radio Astronomy Observatory

The latest news from the NSF's National Radio Astronomy Observatory.

2026 Lyrid meteor shower: All you need to know

Astronomical surveys and big data

Recent all-sky and large-area astronomical surveys and their catalogued data over the whole range of electromagnetic spectrum, from γ -rays to radio waves, are reviewed, including such as Fermi-GLAST and INTEGRAL in γ -ray, ROSAT, XMM and Chandra in X-ray, GALEX in UV, SDSS and several POSS I and POSS II-based catalogues (APM, MAPS, USNO, GSC) in the optical range, 2MASS in NIR, WISE and AKARI IRC in MIR, IRAS and AKARI FIS in FIR, NVSS and FIRST in radio range, and many others, as well as the most important surveys giving optical images (DSS I and II, SDSS, etc.), proper motions (Tycho, USNO, Gaia), variability (GCVS, NSVS, ASAS, Catalina, Pan-STARRS), and spectroscopic data (FBS, SBS, Case, HQS, HES, SDSS, CALIFA, GAMA). An overall understanding of the coverage along the whole wavelength range and comparisons between various surveys are given: galaxy redshift surveys, QSO/AGN, radio, Galactic structure, and Dark Energy surveys. Astronomy has entered the Big Data era, with Astrophysical Virtual Observatories and Computational Astrophysics playing an important role in using and analyzing big data for new discoveries.

PHANGS-ML: Dissecting Multiphase Gas and Dust in Nearby Galaxies Using Machine Learning

The PHANGS survey uses Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, Hubble Space Telescope, Very Large Telescope, and JWST to obtain an unprecedented high-resolution view of nearby galaxies, covering millions of spatially independent regions. The high dimensionality of such a diverse multiwavelength data set makes it challenging to identify new trends, particularly when they connect observables from different wavelengths. Here, we use unsupervised machine-learning algorithms to mine this information-rich data set to identify novel patterns. We focus on three of the PHANGS-JWST galaxies, for which we extract properties pertaining to their stellar populations; warm ionized and cold molecular gas; and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), as measured over 150 pc scale regions. We show that we can divide the regions into groups with distinct multiphase gas and PAH properties. In the process, we identify previously unknown galaxy-wide correlations between PAH band and optical line ratios and use our identified groups to interpret them. The correlations we measure can be naturally explained in a scenario where the PAHs and the ionized gas are exposed to different parts of the same radiation field that varies spatially across the galaxies. This scenario has several implications for nearby galaxies: (i) The uniform PAH ionized fraction on 150 pc scales suggests significant self-regulation in the interstellar medium, (ii) the PAH 11.3/7.7 μm band ratio may be used to constrain the shape of the non-ionizing far-ultraviolet to optical part of the radiation field, and (iii) the varying radiation field affects line ratios that are commonly used as PAH size diagnostics. Neglecting this effect leads to incorrect or biased PAH sizes.

MeerKAT Telescope Uncovers 60 New Cosmic Structures, Revealing the Hidden Forces Shaping Our Universe

South Africa’s MeerKAT telescope has uncovered 60 new cosmic structures, providing new insights into the energy-filled spaces between galaxies and offering a deeper understanding of the universe’s evolution.

'Reborn' black hole spotted 'erupting like cosmic volcano'

drupal-media[data-view-mode=half_page_width] { display: inline-block; width: 50%; } One of the most vivid portraits of “reborn” black hole activity – likened t...