Highlights from AAS Nova: 20 July – 2 August 2025

AAS Nova provides brief highlights of recently published articles from the AAS journals, i.e., The Astronomical Journal (AJ), The Astrophysical Journal (ApJ), ApJ Letters, ApJ Supplements, The Planetary Science Journal, and Research Notes of the AAS. The website's intent is to gain broader exposure for AAS authors and to provide astronomy researchers and enthusiasts with summaries of recent, interesting research across a wide range of astronomical fields.

The following are the AAS Nova highlights from the past two weeks; follow the links to read more, or visit AAS Nova for more posts. You can also sign up to receive emails each time a new post is published.

1 August 2025
Get a Kick Out of This: Researchers Waited 15 Years to Measure a Neutron Star’s Journey
Worth the wait: using observations separated by 15 years, researchers have clocked the speed of a neutron star flying through space and shed light on how these stellar remnants are launched by supernova explosions.

30 July 2025
Monthly Roundup: Astronomy in the News
Catch up on recent astronomy news: a stellar navigation experiment, a doomed planet, an icy protostar, and a mysterious radio source.

29 July 2025
The Black Hole Tango: Kicks and Spins in Hierarchical Mergers
Astrobites reports on the intricate spin distributions created by recoil kicks from merging black holes.

28 July 2025
Featured Image: Mother’s Day Superstorms
In May 2024, the Sun put on a powerful display of solar storms, and researchers have examined the source of all this activity to understand why.

25 July 2025
Escaping the Dust Trap: Simulations of Dust Dynamics in Protoplanetary Disks
The dust in protoplanetary disks is subject to complicated dynamical processes that impact planet formation. Recent simulations suggest that dust may be more freely moving within disks with planets than previously thought.

23 July 2025
Betelgeuse's Companion Star May Have Been Seen at Last
Finally found: using speckle imaging, researchers have spotted what is likely the predicted 1.6-solar-mass companion to the red supergiant Betelgeuse.

22 July 2025
A GLIMPSE of the First Galaxies?
Astrobites reports on very deep JWST observations and the hunt for the first galaxies in the universe.

21 July 2025
How a Black Hole Collision Could Explain the Milky Way’s S-Stars
What’s responsible for the haphazard orbits of the stars closest to our galaxy’s supermassive black hole? A second black hole, perhaps.

Sign up to be notified of new posts from AAS Nova