It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
An international team of scientists, led by a PhD researcher from Northumbria University, has made groundbreaking discoveries about a spectacular feature of Jupiter’s northern lights, revealing a never-before-seen temperature structure and dramatic density changes within the top of the giant planet’s atmosphere.
The research, published in Geophysical Research Letters, provides the first detailed spectral measurements of the infrared auroral footprints of Io and Europa – brilliant glowing patterns in Jupiter’s aurora caused by its Galilean moons interacting with Jupiter’s powerful magnetic field.
The images were captured using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), an international partnership between NASA, the European Space Agency, and Canadian Space Agency, which uses infrared radiation to look deep into space.
Speaking about the findings, lead author Katie Knowles, a PhD Researcher in Planetary Physics at Northumbria University, explains: “These emissions have been measured before at ultraviolet and infrared wavelengths, but only how brightly they shine. For the first time, we’ve now been able to describe the physical properties of the auroral footprints – the temperature of the upper atmosphere and the ion density, which has never been reported on before.”
Unlike Earth’s northern lights, which are primarily driven by the solar wind, Jupiter’s aurora includes the impact of its four large Galilean moons – Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto – which create their own ‘mini aurora’ on the planet.
Jupiter’s powerful magnetic field rotates approximately once every 10 hours along with the planet itself, carrying charged particles with it. But its moons orbit much more slowly – Io, the innermost moon, takes around 42.5 hours to complete one orbit.
As Katie explains: “The moons constantly interact with the magnetic field and plasma surrounding the planet, and that interaction leads to highly energetic particles travelling down magnetic field lines and then crashing into the planet’s atmosphere, creating the auroral footprints that map to where the moons orbit around Jupiter. Jupiter’s aurora is the most powerful and constant of any aurora in the Solar System. What we’re seeing with the JWST gives us an unprecedented window into how Jupiter’s moons directly affect the top of the planet’s atmosphere.”
The images captured by JWST were taken during time awarded to Dr Henrik Melin and Professor Tom Stallard (Professor of Planetary Astronomy at Northumbria and Katie’s PhD Supervisor). During a 22-hour window of observation time which took place in September 2023, the research team carried out a scan around the edge of Jupiter, chasing the northern lights as they rotated into view. It was during this observation that they also happened to capture the auroral footprints.
However, the footprints created by Io and Europa, did not have the characteristics expected from Jupiter’s main aurora, which is relatively hot and contains a lot of material. Instead, in one snapshot, they discovered a cold spot within Io’s auroral footprint that registered temperatures much lower than expected with extraordinarily high densities (higher than they have ever measured before).
Jupiter’s moon Io is the most volcanically active body in our solar system, with its volcanoes ejecting about 1,000 kilograms of material into space every second, feeding the dense plasma surrounding Jupiter. This material becomes ionized and forms a doughnut-shaped cloud around Jupiter called the Io plasma torus. As Io moves through this environment, it generates powerful electrical currents that create the brightest spots in Jupiter’s aurora.
The research team found that these auroral footprints contain trihydrogen cation (H₃⁺) densities three times higher than those found in Jupiter’s main aurora, with some regions showing density variations of up to 45 times within the same small area.
“We found extreme variability in both temperature and density within Io’s auroral footprint that happened on the timescale of minutes,” said Katie. “This tells us that the flow of high-energy electrons crashing into Jupiter’s atmosphere is changing incredibly rapidly.
“The cold spot registered temperatures of just 538 Kelvin, or 265°C, compared to 766 Kelvin, or 493°C in the rest of Jupiter’s aurora. The cold spot also contained material three times denser than Jupiter’s main aurora.”
The findings could extend far beyond Jupiter and open questions about other planetary systems. Saturn’s moon, Enceladus, also creates an auroral footprint on the planet, and scientists wonder whether similar phenomena occur there.
“This work opens up entirely new ways of studying not just Jupiter and its other Galilean moons, but potentially other giant planets and their moon systems,” said Katie, who is about to complete her PhD at Northumbria University. “We’re seeing Jupiter’s atmosphere respond to its moons in real-time, which gives us insights into processes that occur throughout our solar system and perhaps further afar.
“We only saw this phenomenon in one of our five snapshots which leave us with questions. How often does this occur? Does it switch on and off? How does it change with different conditions?”
To answer these questions, Katie was awarded over 32 hours of observation time with NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) in Hawaii across six nights in January 2026. This allowed her to watch as the auroral footprint rotated with the planet. She hopes analysis of this data will allow her to determine whether this extreme variability is common or rare.
Katie has presented her findings to international scientists from across the world at the EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting 2025 in Helsinki (Finland) and was also invited to be a Young Scientist Team Member for an International Space Science Institute team meeting in Bern (Switzerland) to further discuss her work.
Friday, January 16, 2026
SPACE/COSMOS
Franco-German space company ArianeGroup to double launches in 2026
dpa 16.01.2026
Photo: Hauke-Christian Dittrich/dpa
Franco-German space company ArianeGroup is intending to double the number of launches of its Ariane 6 rocket carrier this year.
Boss Pierre Godart said on Friday that seven or eight flights are planned after four launches in 2025.
By 2027, the company is expected to boost capacity to around 10 flights per year, he added, with further development possible if the market holds.
"We will invest if it makes economic sense," Godart said.
ArianeGroup currently has around 30 launches under contract, with some slots still available in the coming years.
In February, the company is set to launch the most powerful version of the Ariane 6 rocket with four booster engines, enabling it to carry payloads of up to 20 tonnes.
The launch is expected to carry 32 satellites for Amazon's Leo high-speed internet network into space, in the first of 18 launches commissioned by the US giant.
Godart emphasized that ramping up production would guarantee Europe its own access to space, including for the German military.
ArianeGroup is active in the military sector, manufacturing ballistic missiles for French nuclear weapons.
The chief executive is also calling for European governments and state-financed actors to instigate a preference for European-made rockets.
Godart also commented on whether Ariane is aiming to use reusable rockets. He said the matter is a question of economic efficiency, because in order to enable the rockets to return, more fuel is needed, reducing the payload by 30 to 40%.
(c) 2026 dpa Deutsche Presse Agentur GmbH
ISS crew returns to Earth in first-ever medical evacuation
For the first time in the International Space Station's history, NASA safely returned a crew of four astronauts to Earth ahead of schedule due to medical issues affecting one of the group.
NASA astronaut Zena Cardman is happy to be home after the ISS crew was picked up aboard a SpaceX shipImage: Bill Ingalls/NASA/Anadolu Agency/IMAGO
A SpaceX capsule named Endeavour, carrying a four-member International Space Station (ISS) crew home from orbit splashed down safely in the Pacific Ocean off California early on Thursday.
A joint NASA-SpaceX webcast presented live infrared video showing the deployment of two sets of parachutes from the nose of the free-falling capsule. The parachutes slowed the capsule's descent rate to about 15 miles per hour (25 kilometers per hour) before it gently hit the water.
Four parachutes slowed the capsule's re-entry through the Earth's atmosphereImage: NASA/AFP
During a radio transmission to the SpaceX flight control center near Los Angeles, Endeavour's commander, NASA astronaut Zena Cardman, said, "It's good to be home." Fellow US astronaut Mike Fincke, Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui, and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov joined her on the flight home.
Less than an hour after splashdown, the four astronauts were helped out of the capsule one by one. They were accompanied by the cheers and applause of SpaceX employees aboard a ship.
Just under 11 hours after the astronauts left the International Space Station, SpaceX guided the capsule to splash down in the Pacific Ocean near San DiegoImage: Keegan Barber/NASA/Planet Pix/ZUMA/picture alliance
Why was the mission cut short?
The ISS crew made an early emergency return to Earth due to an undisclosed serious medical condition affecting one of the astronauts.
Last week, NASA announced that it had canceled a spacewalk at the last minute due to health concerns involving one of the crew members. On January 8, the agency announced the decision to bring all four Crew-11 members home early.
Before their return to Earth, NASA astronaut Mike Fincke, Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, NASA astronaut Zena Cardman and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Kimiya Yui posed for a crew portrait (clockwise from bottom left)Image: NASA/AP Photo/picture alliance
According to NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, one of the astronauts was facing a "serious medical condition" that required immediate medical attention on the ground.
NASA officials have not disclosed which crew member was affected or described the nature of the issue, citing privacy concerns. Later, NASA Chief Health and Medical Officer James Polk said the medical emergency was not caused by an injury that occurred during operations.
Having arrived together in August from Florida, the astronauts spent 167 days aboard the International Space Station.
Edited by: Elizabeth Schumacher Dmytro Hubenko Dmytro covers stories in DW's newsroom from around the world with a particular focus on Ukraine.
Born In Brightness, Leading To Darkness
The image of the supernova SN 2022esa (marked by the cross) with its host galaxy, 2MFGC 13525, taken by the Subaru telescope on 2023 June 13. At this late phase (about a year after the discovery), the SN became fainter than its initial brightness by more than a factor of 100. The spectral identity of SNe Ic-CSM can be extracted only in such a late phase in most cases, requiring dedicated observations with 8 meter-class telescope such as the Subaru telescope. CREDIT: KyotoU / Keiichi Maeda
What we know of the birth of a black hole has traditionally aligned with our perception of black holes themselves: dark, mysterious, and eerily quiet, despite their mass and influence. Stellar-mass black holes are born from the final gravitational collapse of massive stars several tens of the mass of our Sun which, unlike less massive stars, do not produce bright, supernova explosions.
Or at least, this is what astronomers had previously thought, because no one had observed in real time the collapse of a massive star leading to a supernova and forming a black hole. That is, until a team of researchers at Kyoto University reported their observations of SN 2022esa.
The Kyoto team had wondered whether all massive stars — those that are at least 30 times the mass of the Sun — die quietly without a supernova explosion, or if in some cases they are accompanied by an energetic and bright, special type of supernova explosion. The astronomers then discovered a type Ic-CSMclass supernova that appeared to be an explosion of a Wolf-Rayet star, which are so incomprehensibly massive and luminous that astronomers believe them to be the progenitors of black hole formation.
To investigate the nature of this peculiar supernova, the research team utilized both the Seimei telescope in Okayama and the Subaru telescope in Hawaii. The team was able to observe and classify SN 2022esa as an Ic-CSM type supernova, demonstrating that the birth of a black hole is not necessarily quiet since this one could be observed with electro-magnetic signals.
They also discovered something else: the supernova shows a clear and stable period of about a month in its light-curve evolution, leading the team to conclude that it had been created by stable periodic eruptions of the star system once each year before the explosion. Such stable periodicity is only possible in a binary system, so the progenitor must have been a Wolf-Rayet star forming a binary with another massive star, or even a black hole. The fate of such a system, they determined, must be a twin of black holes.
“The fates of massive stars, the birth of a black hole, or even a black hole binary, are very important questions in astronomy,” says first author Keiichi Maeda. “Our study provides a new direction to understand the whole evolutional history of massive stars toward the formation of black hole binaries.”
This study also demonstrates the benefits of using two different telescopes that possess different observational properties. In this case, Seimei’s flexibility and promptness combined with Subaru’s high sensitivity proved to be an effective combination. The team plans to continue conducting research utilizing both telescopes in the coming years.
“We expect many interesting discoveries on the nature of astronomical transients and explosions like supernova,” says Maeda.
Naturally Occurring ‘Space Weather Station’ Elucidates New Way To Study Habitability Of Planets Orbiting M Dwarf Stars
Artist's rendition of the space weather around M dwarf TIC 141146667. The torus of ionized gas is sculpted by the star's magnetic field and rotation, with two pinched, dense clumps present on opposing sides of the star. CREDIT: llustration by Navid Marvi, courtesy Carnegie Science.
How does a star affect the makeup of its planets? And what does this mean for the habitability of distant worlds? Carnegie’s Luke Bouma is exploring a new way to probe this critical question—using naturally occurring space weather stations that orbit at least 10 percent of M dwarf stars during their early lives. He is presenting his work at the American Astronomical Society meeting this week.
We know that most M dwarf stars—which are smaller, cooler, and dimmer than our own Sun—host at least one Earth-sized rocky planet. Most of them are inhospitable—too hot for liquid water or atmospheres, or hit with frequent stellar flares and intense radiation. But they could still prove to be interesting laboratories for understanding the many ways that stars shape the surroundings in which their planets exist.
“Stars influence their planets. That’s obvious. They do so both through light, which we’re great at observing, and through particles—or space weather—like solar winds and magnetic storms, which are more challenging to study at great distances,” Bouma explained. “And that’s very frustrating, because we know in our own Solar System that particles can sometimes be more important for what happens to planets.”
But astronomers can’t set up a space weather station around a distant star.
Or can they?
Working with Moira Jardine of the University of St. Andrews, Bouma homed in on a strange type of M dwarf called a complex periodic variable. They are young, rapidly rotating stars that observations show experience recurring dips in brightness. Astronomers weren’t sure if these dips in brightness were caused by starspots or by material orbiting the star.
“For a long time, no one knew quite what to make of these oddball little blips of dimming,” Bouma said. “But we were able to demonstrate that they can tell us something about the environment right above the star’s surface.”
Bouma and Jardine answered that question by creating “spectroscopic movies” of one of these complex periodic variable stars. They were able to demonstrate that they are large clumps of cool plasma that are trapped in the star’s magnetosphere—basically being dragged around with the star by its magnetic field—forming a kind of doughnut shape called a torus.
“Once we understood this, the blips in dimming stopped being weird little mysteries and became a space weather station,” Bouma exclaimed. “The plasma torus gives us a way to know what’s happening to the material near these stars, including where it’s concentrated, how it’s moving, and how strongly it is influenced by the star’s magnetic field.”
Bouma and Jardine estimate that at least 10 percent of M dwarfs could have plasma features like this early in their lives. So, these space weather stations could help astronomers learn a great deal about particles from stars contribute to planetary conditions.
Next, Bouma hopes to reveal where the material in the torus comes from—the star itself or an external source.
“This is a great example of a serendipitous discovery, something we didn’t expect to find but that will give us a new window into understanding planet-star relationships,” Bouma concluded. “We don’t know yet if any planets orbiting M dwarfs are hospitable to life, but I feel confident that space weather is going to be an important part of answering that question.”
Mars, often depicted as a barren red planet, is far from lifeless. With its thin atmosphere and dusty surface, it is an energetic and electrically charged environment where dust storms and dust devils continually reshape the landscape, creating dynamic processes that have intrigued scientists.
Planetary scientist Alian Wang has been shedding light on Mars' electrifying dust activities through a series of papers. Her latest research, published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, explores the isotopic geochemical consequences of these activities.
Imagine powerful dust storms and swirling dust devils racing across the Martian surface. The frictional electrification of dust grains can build up electrical potentials strong enough to cause electrostatic discharges (ESDs) that break down the planet's thin atmosphere. These ESDs, which are more frequent on Mars due to the low atmospheric pressure, manifest as subtle, eerie glows, much like Earth's auroras, leading to various electrochemical processes.
Wang, a research professor of Earth, environmental, and planetary sciences at Washington University in St. Louis and a fellow of the university's McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences, investigates the electrifying world of Martian dust activities, illuminating how these electrochemical reactions give birth to various oxidized chemicals. Supported by NASA’s Solar System Working Program, her team built two planetary simulation chambers, PEACh (Planetary Environment and Analysis Chamber) and SCHILGAR (Simulation Chamber with InLine Gas AnalyzeR), to uncover a fascinating array of reaction products, including volatile chlorine species, activated oxides, airborne carbonates, and (per)chlorates. These chemicals are transformative players in Mars’ geochemical dance.
In a previous study, Wang and her team discovered the crucial role of dust-induced electric discharges in Mars' chlorine cycle. The Martian surface is littered with chloride deposits, residues from ancient saline waters. Using a Martian simulation chamber with various traps to achieve mass balance, her team quantified the resulting reaction products. They concluded that Martian dust activities during the planet’s hot and dry Amazonian period could generate carbonates, (per)chlorates, and volatile chlorine matching observations by recent Mars orbiters, rovers, and lander missions.
Wang’s team, comprising members from six universities in the United States, China, and the United Kingdom, analyzed the isotopic compositions of chlorine, oxygen, and carbon in ESD products. They found substantial and coherent depletion of heavy isotopes.
"Because isotopes are minor constituents in materials, the isotopic ratios can only be affected by the MAJOR process in a system. Therefore, the substantial heavy isotope depletion of three mobile elements is a 'smoking-gun’ that nails down the importance of dust-induced electrochemistry in shaping the contemporary Mars surface-atmosphere system," says Wang.
Each isotopic measurement, along with the previous quantifications, acts as a piece of a larger puzzle. This comprehensive view suggests that electrochemistry induced by Martian dust activities has sculpted the planet’s chemical landscape. These findings reinforce the hypothesis that Martian dust activities have played a crucial role in shaping the contemporary geochemistry of both the surface and the atmosphere.
A conceptual model of Mars’ contemporary global chlorine cycle and airborne carbonate minerals emerges from this isotopic study. This model reveals a fascinating interplay between the electrochemical processes and secondary minerals on Mars’ surface and in its atmosphere. It demonstrates how the heavy isotope depletions in three mobile elements are transferred from the dust-driven ESD products to the atmosphere and then re-deposited onto the surface, even percolating into the subsurface to form the next generation of surface minerals. The on-going dust-driven electrochemistry throughout the Amazonian period has contributed to the progressive depletion of37Cl, leading toward the very negative δ37Cl value (-51‰) observed by NASA’s Curiosity rover.
"Alian’s work is very important. This is the first experimental study to look at how electrostatic discharges can affect isotopes in a Martian environment. Isotopic signatures are like fingerprints, and they can be used to trace the processes that have influenced the chlorine cycle on Mars, which makes this study especially valuable, " notes Kun Wang, an associate professor of Earth, environmental, and planetary sciences at Washington University. " While the experiments did not produce the extremely light Cl isotopic signatures measured by Mars rovers, they clearly show that electrostatic discharges can drive Cl isotopic fractionation in the right direction. This work is therefore an important step toward understanding the origin of these unusually light Cl signatures and the formation of perchlorate minerals on the Martian surface. It also highlights just how different Mars is from Earth, with very different atmospheric and surface processes controlling chemical reactions."
Wang's latest study coincides with new findings from NASA’s Perseverance rover that recorded 55 electric discharges on Mars during two dust devils and the convective front of two dust storms, published in Nature, in which her previous studies were cited as the chemical consequences of electrical discharges, affirming her role as a leading expert in understanding Mars’ electrified environment. Her discoveries about the identification, quantification and isotopic signature of (per)chlorates, amorphous salts, airborne carbonates, and volatile chlorine species all align with observations made from Mars missions, providing compelling evidence of dust-induced electrochemistry on Amazonian Mars.
Wang's research opens doors to new possibilities beyond Mars. Similar electrochemical phenomena might exist on other planets and moons such as Venus, the Moon, and the outer planetary systems. This expands the significance of her work, suggesting that electrochemistry induced by Martian dust, Venusian lightning, and energetic electrons on the Moon and outer planets are essential factors in planetary processes throughout the solar system.
"This research sheds light on an important facet of modern Mars: the interaction of the atmosphere and the surface. But it also tells us about how the chemistry of the surface has, in part, come to be—with valuable lessons for other worlds where triboelectric charging may take place, including Venus and Titan," shares Paul Byrne, an associate professor of Earth, environmental, and planetary sciences at Washington University.
This innovative research direction electrifies our understanding of Mars, uncovering the potent role of dust activities in shaping its chemical landscape. Wang's contributions propel planetary science forward, offering deeper insights into the dynamic forces at play on Mars and beyond. As we continue to explore, her discoveries provide the foundation for a richer understanding of our celestial neighbors, sparking curiosity and inspiring future missions to uncover the secrets held by other worlds in our solar system.
As Mars continues to reveal its secrets, groundbreaking research brings us closer to understanding our planetary neighbor, its history, and its potential to support life. The mysteries of Mars remind us that the Red Planet still holds many wonders, waiting to be fully explored.
Journal
Earth and Planetary Science Letters
Pitt student finds familiar structure just 2 billion years after the Big Bang
The barred spiral galaxy may be the earliest astronomers have seen yet
An unsharp mask overlaid onto the F200W, F277W, and F356W filter composition. The white lines are logarithmic spirals fitted to points along the arm structures and a line segmen fitted to the approximately North to South aligned bar structure.
Research led by Daniel Ivanov, a physics and astronomy graduate student in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences at Pitt, uncovered a contender for one of the earliest observed spiral galaxies containing a stellar bar, a sometimes-striking visual feature that can play an important role in the evolution of a galaxy. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, also has a stellar bar.
This finding helps constrain the timeframe in which bars could have first emerged in the universe. Analysis of light from the galaxy, called COSMOS-74706, places it on the cosmic timeline at about 11.5 billion years ago.
“This galaxy was developing bars 2 billion years after the birth of the universe," Ivanov said. “Two billion years after the big bang.”
The findings are scheduled to be presented at the 247th meeting of the American Astronomical Society on Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026.
The defining feature of these galaxies is right in the name: “A stellar bar is a linear feature at the center of the galaxy,” Ivanov said. The bar isn’t an object itself, but a dense collection of stars and gas that is aligned in such a way that in images taken perpendicular to a galactic plane, there appears to be a bright line bisecting the galaxy.
Stellar bars can play a role shaping their galaxy’s evolution by funneling gas inward from the outer reaches of a galaxy, feeding the supermassive black hole in the center and dampening star formation throughout the stellar disk.
Other researchers have reported earlier barred spiral galaxies, but the analyses of those are less conclusive because the methods used to analyze the lights’ redshifts are not as definitive as spectroscopy, which was used to validate COSMOS-74706. In other cases, the galaxy’s light was distorted as it passed by a massive object, a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing.
In essence, Ivanov said, “It's the highest redshift, spectroscopically confirmed, unlensed barred spiral galaxy.”
He wasn’t necessarily surprised to find a barred spiral galaxy so early in the universe’s evolution. In fact, some simulations suggest bars forming at redshift 5, or about 12.5 billion years ago. But, Ivanov said, “In principle, I think that this is not an epoch in which you expect to find many of these objects. It helps to constrain the timescales of bar formation. And it’s just really interesting.”
This work is based in part on observations made with the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope with data from Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-03127, which is supported by NASA. Work was also supported by the Brinson Foundation.
Method of Research
Data/statistical analysis
Researchers observe gas outflow driven by a jet from an active galactic nucleus
Summary author: Becky Ham
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Morphological structure of the galactic outflow in VV 340a. This artistic rendering illustrates a multi-phase galactic outflow driven by a central active galactic nucleus. The white helix represents a precessing radio jet, a rotating beam of high energy plasma launched from the magnetosphere of the central supermassive black hole. The red filaments represent highly ionized coronal gas which results from the collision of the jet with the ambient gas of the host galaxy. The blue filaments represent ionized gas being ejected from the galaxy at high speeds and extending up to 15 kiloparsecs. As the jet propagates outward, it energizes and propels the galaxy’s gas into a high velocity outflow, altering the galaxy’s future evolution.
Active galactic nuclei, energetic and luminous regions powered by an accreting supermassive black hole at the center of some galaxies, can launch a jet that drives a gas outflow, shaping star formation in their host galaxy. Justin Kader and colleagues have observed this phenomenon in the nearby active galaxy VV 340a. Kader et al. observed the jet and galaxy across infrared, optical, radio, and sub-millimeter wavelengths, using the James Webb Space Telescope, Keck-II telescope, the Jansky Very Large Array and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array. The researchers combined these observations with modeling, to show that the low-power radio jet emitted by VV 340a undergoes a conical wobble, known as precession, as it moves outward. The jet ionizes and ejects gas as it propagates away from the supermassive black hole, driving a gas outflow at a rate of 19.4 ± 7.9 solar masses per year. This outflow rate is large enough to affect the star formation rate of the host galaxy, Kader et al. conclude.
UC Irvine astronomers found an unexpectedly large stream of super-heated gas at nearby galaxy.
The team used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and other observatories.
Project funding was provided by NASA and the National Science Foundation.
Irvine, Calif., Jan. 8, 2026 —University of California, Irvine astronomers have announced the discovery of the largest-known stream of super-heated gas in the universe ejecting from a nearby galaxy called VV 340a. They describe the discovery in Science.
The super-heated gas, detected by the researchers in data provided by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, is erupting from either side of the host galaxy in the form of two elongated nebulae as a result of an active supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy. Each nebula is at least three kiloparsecs long (one parsec equates to roughly 19 trillion miles).
By comparison, the entire disk of the VV 340a galaxy is about three kiloparsecs thick.
“In other galaxies, this type of highly energized gas is almost always confined to several tens of parsecs from a galaxy’s black hole, and our discovery exceeds what is typically seen by a factor of 30 or more,” said lead author Justin Kader, a UC Irvine postdoctoral researcher in physics and astronomy.
The team used radio wave images from the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array radio astronomy observatory near San Agustin, New Mexico, to reveal a pair of large-scale plasma jets emerging from either side of the galaxy. Astronomers know that such jets, which energize super-heated gas and eject it from the galaxy, form as the extreme temperatures and magnetic fields produced in the gas fall into the active supermassive black hole at the galaxy’s center.
At larger scales, these ejecting jets form a helical pattern, indicating something called “jet precession” which describes the change in orientation of the jet over time, similar to the periodic wobble of a spinning top.
“This is the first observation of a precessing kiloparsec-scale radio jet in a disk galaxy,” said Kader. “To our knowledge, this is the first time we have seen a kiloparsec, or galactic-scale, precessing radio jet driving a massive coronal gas outflow.”
The team suggests that as the jets flow outward, they couple with material in the host galaxy, pushing it outward and exciting it to a highly energized state. This forms coronal line gas, a term borrowed from the sun’s outer atmosphere to describe the hot, highly ionized plasma. Crucially, this super-heated coronal gas is almost exclusively associated with the compact inner structure of the active supermassive black hole and rarely extends far into the host galaxy. It is usually not observed outside the galaxy, according to Kader.
The kinetic power of the outflowing coronal gas, Kader said, is equivalent to 10 quintillion hydrogen bombs going off every second.
“We found the most extended and coherent coronal gas structure to date,” said senior co-author Vivian U, a former UC Irvine research astronomer who is now an associate scientist at Caltech’s Infrared Processing and Analysis Center. “We expected JWST to open up the wavelength window where these tools for probing active supermassive black holes would be available to us, but we had not expected to see such highly collimated and extended emission in the first object we looked at. It was a nice surprise.”
The picture of the jets and the coronal line emission they create became clear after Kader and his team combined observations of VV 340a obtained with several different telescopes.
Observations from the University of California-administered Keck II Telescope in Hawaii revealed more gas extending even farther from the galaxy, all the way out to 15 kiloparsecs from the active black hole. The authors believe this cooler gas is a “fossil record” of the jet’s interaction history with the galaxy, debris from previous episodes of the jet ejecting material from the heart of the galaxy.
Observations of the coronal gas came from the Webb telescope, which, as the largest space telescope ever built, orbits the sun one million miles away from the Earth. Its instruments see the universe in the infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum, which means the telescope can detect things that would otherwise be invisible to visible light telescopes.
The Webb telescope’s infrared capabilities were key in helping Kader and his team spot the coronal line emission, he said. VV 340a has a lot of dust, which prevents a visible light telescope like Keck from seeing much of what’s happening in the galaxy’s interior.
However, the dust doesn’t block infrared light, so when the Webb telescope retrieved images of VV 340a, the existence of the coronal line gas erupting out of it became clear. The effects of such a gas jet on a galaxy can be massive. According to the study, the jet is stripping VV 340a of enough gas every year to make 19 of our own suns.
“What it really is doing is significantly limiting the process of star formation in the galaxy by heating and removing star-forming gas,” said Kader.
A jet like this doesn’t seem to exist in our own Milky Way galaxy. Kader explained that there appears to be evidence that suggests the Milky Way’s own supermassive black hole had an active feeding event two million years ago – something Kader said our Homo erectus ancestors may have been able to see in the night sky here on Earth.
Now that the team has found the precessing jet and the associated outflowing gas, Kader and U agree that the next thing to do is to investigate other galaxies to see if they can spot the same phenomenon in order to understand how galaxies like our own Milky Way may turn out in the future.
“We are excited to continue exploring such never-before-seen phenomena at different physical scales of galaxies using observations from these state-of-the-art tools, and we can’t wait to see what else we will find,” U said.
Funding for this project was provided by NASA and the National Science Foundation.
About the University of California, Irvine: Founded in 1965, UC Irvine is a member of the prestigious Association of American Universities and is ranked among the nation’s top 10 public universities by U.S. News & World Report. The campus has produced five Nobel laureates and is known for its academic achievement, premier research, innovation and anteater mascot. Led by Chancellor Howard Gillman, UC Irvine has more than 36,000 students and offers 224 degree programs. It’s located in one of the world’s safest and most economically vibrant communities and is Orange County’s second-largest employer, contributing $7 billion annually to the local economy and $8 billion statewide. For more on UC Irvine, visit www.uci.edu.
Journal
Science
Article Title
UC Irvine astronomers spot largest known stream of super-heated gas in the universe
They’re called ghost particles for a reason. They’re everywhere – trillions of them constantly stream through everything: our bodies, our planet, even the entire cosmos – without us noticing. These so-called neutrinos are elementary particles that are invisible, incredibly light, and interact only rarely with other matter. The weakness of their interactions makes neutrinos extremely difficult to detect. But when scientists do manage to capture them, they can offer extraordinary insights into the universe.
Neutrinos are born in violent cosmic events – including nuclear reactions inside stars. Now, researchers at the University of Copenhagen have produced the most comprehensive model to date, mapping how many neutrinos all the stars in our own Milky Way generate and how many reach Earth – a complete picture that until now existed only in rough outline. The study has just been published in the scientific journal Physical Review D.
The researchers combined advanced stellar models with data from ESA’s Gaia telescope to map where in the Milky Way neutrinos mainly originate.
The study shows that the vast majority come from the region around the galactic centre, where most stars are concentrated – particularly in areas a few thousand light-years from Earth.
This knowledge is a practical tool for scientists attempting to capture neutrinos with enormous detectors, often located deep underground. With this new map, they can increase their chances of “hitting the target.”
A Window into Stellar Interiors – and Possibly New Physics
While traditional astronomy relies on light, X-rays, and gamma rays, neutrinos offer an entirely different way to explore the Universe. Their special advantage is that they can travel enormous distances without being affected, so when we measure them here on Earth, we get a very direct insight into what is happening out there.
Just as neutrinos have told us for decades what goes on inside the Sun’s core, researchers hope the same will become possible for all the other stars much farther away.
“Neutrinos carry information straight from the interior of stars. If we learn to harness them, they can give us new insights into stellar life cycles and the structure of our galaxy in a way no other source can,” says senior author of the study, Professor Irene Tamborra from the Niels Bohr Institute.
Beyond expanding our understanding of stars and our own Galaxy, this knowledge could eventually touch on fundamental questions in physics. Neutrinos interact so weakly with their surroundings that they might reveal new physical laws that traditional experimental techniques could never be sensitive to.
“Because neutrinos are barely affected, we have clear expectations of how they should behave on their long journey to Earth. So even tiny deviations in their behaviour would be a strong clue to new, unknown physics,” says Irene Tamborra, concluding:
“With neutrinos, it’s like dimming the lights in a room and suddenly seeing what was hidden in the dark – and with this new model, we now have both a map and a compass to start navigating it.”
[FACT BOX] WHAT DOES THE MAPPING SHOW
The model is the first complete map of neutrinos from all the stars in the Milky Way.
The new mapping reveals that the neutrino flux spans a wide energy spectrum and includes contributions from light, intermediate and very massive stars.
Stars closer to the galactic center contribute most to the overall neutrino flow towards Earth.
Neutrino production varies with stellar age and mass: younger stars, heavier than the Sun, produce the most neutrinos.
Most neutrinos originate in nuclear reactions, while some are created in thermal processes inside stars.
[FACT BOX] WHAT IS A NEUTRINO
A neutrino is an elementary particle – one of the smallest building blocks of matter.
Neutrinos are invisible, extremely light, electrically neutral and rarely interact with matter.
They are formed in nuclear reactions in stars, in supernova explosions and other high-energy cosmic events.
Billions of neutrinos pass through your body every second without you noticing.
Because they are almost unaffected by other forces, neutrinos can provide direct information about processes deep inside stars and about the origin of the universe.
