On November 8, 2023, ESA's Science Program Committee (SPC) approved the evolution of the Athena (Advanced Telescope for High-Energy Astrophysics) mission, now named NewAthena, and confirmed its status as the flagship mission of ESA's Cosmic Vision program.

An international team of scientists, including a researcher from Irfu's Astrophysics Department, used several space and ground-based telescopes, including the James Webb Space Telescope and the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope, to observe an exceptionally bright gamma-ray burst detected on March 7, 2023, GRB 230307A, and identify the neutron star merger that generated the explosion responsible for the burst.

For the first time since the XMM launch (1999), a cosmological analysis constraining the density of matter in the universe, from a catalog of 178 galaxy clusters detected by XMM, has been possible and in an autonomous way, i.e.

The dawn of a new era in astronomy has begun as the world discovers for the first time the full capabilities of the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope.

Scientists from the CosmoStat laboratory at CEA have produced within the international science collaboration UNIONS (Ultraviolet Near Infrared Optical Northern Survey) a reference catalogue of 100 million gravitationally lensed distant galaxies, one of the largest datasets ever created.

Rogue planets are elusive cosmic objects that have masses comparable to the largest planets in our Solar System but do not orbit a star, instead roaming freely on their own.

he "cosmic noon", when the universe was 4 to 5 billion years old, marked a very active period of star formation for most galaxies. Paradoxically, about a third of the most massive galaxies at that time were dead and no longer forming stars.

On May 18th 2020, ESO formally closed the preliminary design review of the ELT/METIS thermal infrared instrument.

After the Horizon 2000 programme started in 1983, followed by its extension Horizon 2000 Plus, the European Space Agency (ESA) is committed until 2035 into the Cosmic Vision programme that includes the launches of Athena (2031) and LISA (2034).

A study conducted by astrophysicists of the Department of Astrophysics-AIM Laboratory of CEA-Irfu has revealed a large number of galaxies as massive as the Milky Way in the distant universe, thanks to the large interferometer ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) in Chile.

An international team, led by researchers from the Department of Astrophysics/AIM Laboratory of CEA-Irfu has just highlighted a new population of very remote galaxies, which had so far escaped the deepest observations of the Universe.

Using the ESA's XMM-Newton observatory, an international team, led by Marguerite Pierre of the Astrophysics Department of CEA-Irfu, has revealed the latest results of the XXL survey, the largest observation program X-ray produced to date by the XMM satellite.

The SPICA infrared space telescope has been shortlisted by the European Space Agency (ESA) to participate in the final competition which will see in September 2021 the choice of the next mission of medium size ESA (M5 mission).

The MegaCam camera developed at CEA-Irfu has revealed previously unsuspected structures within the famous Stephan Quintet, a spectacular combination of five galaxies.

By succeeding for the first time to analyze the light of nearly 1000 very distant elliptical galaxies, more than 10 billions light-years away, a team of researchers including three astrophysicists from the Astrophysics Department of CEA-Irfu has just revealed that these galaxies of the beginning of the universe contain a lot of gas but do not form stars.

TO BE TRANSLATED Après une sélection sévère, les premières cibles d'observation du télescope spatial James Web (JWST) qui doit être lancé au printemps 2019, viennent d'être dévoilées.

An international team including two researchers from the Department of Astrophysics-Laboratory AIM of CEA-Irfu detected for the first time the presence of the CH+ molecule in distant galaxies of the young universe, thanks to the large ALMA interferometer.

Using images obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope, an international team of researchers led by Yu-Yen Chang from the Service d’Astrophysique-Laboratoire AIM at CEA–IRFU showed that some galaxies hosting an active nucleus are much more compact than those without nuclear activity.

An international team including a researcher from the AIM Laboratory-Astrophysics Department of CEA-Irfu has just discovered an elliptical galaxy of completely unexpected shape within the galaxy cluster Abell 2670.

The PILOT astrophysics experiment has been launched the 17th April under a stratospheric balloon from Alice Springs in central Australia.

At the center of a small galaxy located about 1.8 billion light-years from Earth, a giant black hole swallowed a star for about a decade, which is exceptionally longer than any observed episode of this kind.

A team of researchers led by Rémi Adam (Laboratoire Lagrange - OCA, UCA, LPSC Grenoble, CNES), Iacopo Bartalucci and Gabriel Pratt (Astrophysics Department- AIM Laboratory at CEA-Irfu) obtained for the first time an image of the gas velocity in colliding clusters of galaxies with NIKA [1], a new generation millimeter camera, at the focus of the 30 m diameter IRAM telescope of Pico Veleta (Spain).

Observations of Malin 1, a nearby galaxy and a perfect prototype of the "giant galaxies with low surface brightness," have allowed scientists from an international team including a researcher from the Astrophysics Laboratory-Service AIM CEA-IRFU to make an unexpected discovery that challenges the assumptions about galaxy formation process of this type.

An international team of astronomers used the Atacama Large  (Sub) Millimeter Array (ALMA) to explore the farthest part of the universe revealed by the Ultra Deep Field of the Hubble satellite (HUDF).

Through a unique combination of observations made by the largest telescopes in the world, an international collaboration led by researchers from the Astrophysics Department- AIM Laboratory of CEA-IRFU has detected the most distant galaxy cluster ever discovered in the Universe .

An international team led by researchers from the “Service d'Astrophysique / Laboratoire AIM” of CEA-IRFU has discovered a giant nebula of ionized gas in the central region of the distant galaxy cluster CL J1449+0856.

A new 3D map of galaxy clusters has just been published by a research team led by Maguerite Pierre from the Astrophysics Department-AIM Laboratory of CEA-IRFU through a survey of two regions of the sky, each covering about 25 square degrees (about 100 times the area of ​​the full moon).

In a review article in "Reports on Progress in Physics", Martin Kilbinger of Astrophysics Department - AIM Laboratory at CEA-IRFU presents a comprehensive assessment of the results obtained from observations of the cosmic shear in the last 15 years.

As part of an observing program carried out with the Hubble Space Telescope, a group of researchers from the “Service d’Astrophysique-Laboratoire AIM” of CEA-IRFU led by Anita Zanella discovered the birth cry of a massive star-forming clump in the disk of a very distant galaxy.

An international collaboration of astrophysicists, led by Martin Kilbinger from the Astrophysics Division - AIM Laboratory AIM at CEA Saclay-Irfu and the Institute of Astrophysics Paris, has obtained the largest survey of galaxy images that are deformed by gravitation.