Above: NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope recently imaged the Sombrero Galaxy with its MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), resolving the clumpy nature of the dust along the galaxy’s outer ring. The mid-infrared light highlights the gas and dust that are part of star formation taking place within the Sombrero Galaxy’s outer disk. The rings of the Sombrero Galaxy produce less than one solar mass of stars per year, in comparison to the Milky Way’s roughly two solar masses a year. It’s nHi,ot a particular hotbed of star formation. The Sombrero Galaxy is around 30 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo. Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
The most recent issue of Free Astronomy Magazine (July-August 2026) is available for your reading and downloading pleasure in English, Italian, Spanish, French, Arabic, and Chinese at www.astropublishing.com (and facebook).
For the interested but rushed (h/t Claude Sonnet 4.8):
3I/ATLAS formed in a far colder world than our own — ALMA made the first-ever deuterated-water (HDO, "semi-heavy water") measurement in an interstellar object. The comet holds ≥30× the HDO/H₂O of Solar System comets (40× Earth's oceans), fingerprinting a formation environment below ~30 K — chemically unlike our own system. H₂O itself fell below detection; the ratio was inferred via methanol-line excitation, in a narrow window six days after perihelion.
Persistent mismatch in the expansion of the local Universe — The H0 Distance Network (H0DN) collaboration folded decades of independent distance measurements into one framework and pinned the local Hubble constant at 73.50 ± 0.81 km/s/Mpc (~1% precision), versus ~67 from the CMB. Removing any single method barely moves it — effectively ruling out a single overlooked error and strengthening the case that the Hubble tension is real, possibly new physics.
Why does Jupiter have more large moons than Saturn? — NAOJ/Kyoto simulations: young Jupiter's strong magnetic field carved a "cavity" in its circumplanetary disk that kept large moons from spiraling in; Saturn lacked that field, so only Titan survived.
Webb redefines the boundary between planets and stars — JWST NIRCam coronagraphy of 29 Cygni b (~15 Jupiter masses). Metal enrichment (~150 Earths of heavy elements) plus orbit–spin alignment show it formed bottom-up by accretion, not stellar-style disk fragmentation — marking roughly the highest mass a planet can reach by accretion.
TNO 2002 XV93 has an atmosphere but shouldn't — A January 2024 stellar occultation observed from Japan showed gradual dimming consistent with a thin atmosphere on this ~500 km trans-Neptunian object. It should be too cold/low-gravity to hold one, and JWST sees no surface ices — so it must be recently replenished (interior outgassing or a comet impact).
WASP-189 b echoes the composition of its host star — IGRINS on Gemini South measured Mg and Si in this ultra-hot Jupiter's atmosphere simultaneously for the first time; its Mg/Si ratio matches the host star — the first direct observational confirmation of a foundational planet-formation assumption used to model rocky worlds.
VLBA maps turbulent "weather" in the Milky Way — Nearly a decade (2010–2019) of VLBA imaging of blazar TXS 2005+403 through the turbulent Cygnus region: the first clear radio detection of interstellar turbulence distorting a quasar, via refractive scattering on solar-system scales. Relevant to sharpening images like the EHT's.
The more massive star clusters emerge more quickly — Hubble + Webb (FEAST program) surveyed ~9,000 clusters in four galaxies (M51, M83, NGC 628, NGC 4449). The most massive clusters clear their natal gas in ~5 Myr vs. 7–8 Myr for lighter ones — meaning they start driving stellar feedback (and irradiating nearby protoplanetary disks) earlier.
This is how protoplanetary disks form — ALMA detected ENDTRANZ (Envelope–Disk Transition Zone) in protostar L1527 IRS: a ~16 AU zone where chaotic infalling gas gradually settles into ordered Keplerian rotation, seen as a predicted "jump" in specific angular momentum. Fills in the long-missing step of how disk material actually arrives.
DESI completes planned 3D map of the Universe — The five-year survey finished ahead of schedule: 47M+ galaxies/quasars + 20M stars (6× all prior measurements combined), the largest high-res 3D map ever. Early hints that dark energy may be evolving (not a constant) will now be tested on the full dataset; observations continue through 2028.
Rubin Observatory reveals over 11,000 new asteroids — From early-optimization data, the largest single asteroid batch submitted to the Minor Planet Center in a year: 11,000+ new asteroids, 33 near-Earth objects (none hazardous), and ~380 TNOs (two on extreme ~1,000 AU orbits). A preview of LSST, which should eventually triple the known asteroid census.
Sombrero Galaxy revealed like never before — DECam (Blanco 4 m, CTIO) deep image of M104, capturing its ~2,000 globular clusters, extended halo, and a stellar stream hinting at a past merger.
First light for PoET — ESO's Paranal solar ESPRESSO Telescope saw first light; a "solar telescope for planet hunters" that will characterize stellar-activity noise to unmask hidden exoplanets.
XRISM measures the hot wind in M82 — XRISM/Resolve clocked the superheated (~25 M°C) iron-bearing wind in the Cigar galaxy at ~3 million km/h via Doppler-broadened lines — fast enough to drive the galaxy-scale cool wind on its own, though a gas-budget puzzle remains.
ALMA witnesses star birth beyond the Milky Way — First core mass function measured outside our Galaxy (30 Dor-10, LMC): ~70 cores following a Salpeter-like trend despite the LMC's low metallicity, suggesting cloud fragmentation is largely environment-independent.
A Solar System in the making? — VLT/SPHERE + VLTI/GRAVITY+ confirmed a second forming planet (WISPIT 2 c) around young star WISPIT 2 — only the second system after PDS 70 with two directly imaged forming planets, and a likely young-Solar-System analog.
