AAS research shaping the future of astronomy and astrophysics

After a year of ground breaking research in astronomy and astrophysics, we’ve compiled the top-performing articles from across the AAS journals to celebrate and showcase the extraordinary research published by our author community.

For each of the seven AAS Topical Corridors, below you’ll find the five most cited and five most downloaded articles published in 2025, giving you a chance to explore the latest research your peers are reading and referencing most.

Select a Topical Corridor to begin your exploration:

Galaxies and Cosmology
High-Energy Phenomena and Fundamental Physics
Interstellar Matter and the Local Universe
Laboratory Astrophysics, Instrumentation, Software, and Data
Stars and Stellar Physics
The Solar System, Exoplanets, and Astrobiology
The Sun and the Heliosphere

Galaxies and Cosmology

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The Hubble Tension in Our Own Backyard: DESI and the Nearness of the Coma Cluster Daniel Scolnic et al 2025 ApJL 979 L9	The Rise of Faint, Red Active Galactic Nuclei at z > 4: A Sample of Little Red Dots in the JWST Extragalactic Legacy Fields Dale D. Kocevski et al 2025 ApJ 986 126
CAPERS-LRD-z9: A Gas-enshrouded Little Red Dot Hosting a Broad-line Active Galactic Nucleus at z = 9.288 Anthony J. Taylor et al 2025 ApJL 989 L7	Extremely Dense Gas around Little Red Dots and High-redshift Active Galactic Nuclei: A Nonstellar Origin of the Balmer Break and Absorption Features Kohei Inayoshi and Roberto Maiolino 2025 ApJL 980 L27
LAP1-B is the First Observed System Consistent with Theoretical Predictions for Population III Stars Eli Visbal et al 2025 ApJL 993 L17	Status Report on the Chicago-Carnegie Hubble Program (CCHP): Measurement of the Hubble Constant Using the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes Wendy L. Freedman et al 2025 ApJ 985 203
Andromeda XXXV: The Faintest Dwarf Satellite of the Andromeda Galaxy Jose Marco Arias et al 2025 ApJL 982 L3	RUBIES: JWST/NIRSpec Confirmation of an Infrared-luminous, Broad-line Little Red Dot with an Ionized Outflow Bingjie Wang et al 2025 ApJ 984 121
HerS-3: An Exceptional Einstein Cross Reveals a Massive Dark Matter Halo P. Cox et al 2025 ApJ 991 53	JWST, ALMA, and Keck Spectroscopic Constraints on the UV Luminosity Functions at z ∼ 7–14: Clumpiness and Compactness of the Brightest Galaxies in the Early Universe Yuichi Harikane et al 2025 ApJ 980 138

High-Energy Phenomena and Fundamental Physics

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Search for Gravitational Waves Emitted from SN 2023ixf A. G. Abac et al 2025 ApJ 985 183	The Einstein Probe Transient EP240414a: Linking Fast X-Ray Transients, Gamma-Ray Bursts, and Luminous Fast Blue Optical Transients Joyce N. D. van Dalen et al 2025 ApJL 982 L47
FRB 20250316A: A Brilliant and Nearby One-off Fast Radio Burst Localized to 13 pc Precision The CHIME/FRB Collaboration: et al 2025 ApJL 989 L48	Identification of the Optical Counterpart of the Fast X-Ray Transient EP240414a S. Srivastav et al 2025 ApJL 978 L21
Identifying the Secondary Jet in the RadioAstron Image of OJ 287 Mauri J. Valtonen et al 2025 ApJ 992 110	The Massive and Quiescent Elliptical Host Galaxy of the Repeating Fast Radio Burst FRB 20240209A T. Eftekhari et al 2025 ApJL 979 L22
Nonstop Variability of Sgr A* Using JWST at 2.1 and 4.8 μm Wavelengths: Evidence for Distinct Populations of Faint and Bright Variable Emission F. Yusef-Zadeh et al 2025 ApJL 980 L35	Discovery of Quasiperiodic Eruptions in the Tidal Disruption Event and Extreme Coronal Line Emitter AT2022upj: Implications for the QPE/TDE Fraction and a Connection to ECLEs Joheen Chakraborty et al 2025 ApJL 983 L39
Direct Evidence for r-process Nucleosynthesis in Delayed MeV Emission from the SGR 1806–20 Magnetar Giant Flare Anirudh Patel et al 2025 ApJL 984 L29	Elevated Rates of Tidal Disruption Events in Active Galactic Nuclei Karamveer Kaur and Nicholas C. Stone 2025 ApJ 979 172

Interstellar Matter and the Local Universe

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PHAST. The Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Southern Treasury. I. Ultraviolet and Optical Photometry of over 90 Million Stars in M31 Zhuo Chen et al 2025 ApJ 979 35	exoALMA. I. Science Goals, Project Design, and Data Products Richard Teague et al 2025 ApJL 984 L6
The SOFIA Massive (SOMA) Star Formation Survey. V. Clustered Protostars Zoie Telkamp et al 2025 ApJ 986 15	exoALMA. V. Gaseous Emission Surfaces and Temperature Structures Maria Galloway-Sprietsma et al 2025 ApJL 984 L10
Revealing a Main-sequence Star that Consumed a Planet with JWST Ryan M. Lau et al 2025 ApJ 983 87	Water in Protoplanetary Disks with JWST-MIRI: Spectral Excitation Atlas and Radial Distribution from Temperature Diagnostic Diagrams and Doppler Mapping Andrea Banzatti et al 2025 AJ 169 165
Discovery of an Accretion Burst in a Free-floating Planetary-mass Object Victor Almendros-Abad et al 2025 ApJL 992 L2	The First JWST View of a 30-Myr-old Protoplanetary Disk Reveals a Late-stage Carbon-rich Phase Feng Long et al 2025 ApJL 978 L30
JWST Imaging of Edge-on Protoplanetary Disks. IV. Mid-infrared Dust Scattering in the HH 30 Disk Ryo Tazaki et al 2025 ApJ 980 49	The ALMA Survey of Gas Evolution of PROtoplanetary Disks (AGE-PRO). I. Program Overview and Summary of First Results Ke Zhang et al 2025 ApJ 989 1

Laboratory Astrophysics, Instrumentation, Software, and Data

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Real-time Collision-free Motion Planning for Next-generation Fiber Positioners in LAMOST Guifeng Chen et al 2025 AJ 169 237	The James Webb Space Telescope Absolute Flux Calibration. III. Mid-infrared Instrument Medium Resolution Integral Field Unit Spectrometer David R. Law et al 2025 AJ 169 67
ImageMM: Joint Multi-frame Image Restoration and Super-resolution Yashil Sukurdeep et al 2025 AJ 170 233	Performance-portable Binary Neutron Star Mergers with AthenaK Jacob Fields et al 2025 ApJS 276 35
On-sky Demonstration of Subdiffraction-limited Astronomical Measurement Using a Photonic Lantern Yoo Jung Kim et al 2025 ApJL 993 L3	ATClean: A Novel Method for Detecting Low-luminosity Transients and Application to Pre-explosion Counterparts from SN 2023ixf S. Rest et al 2025 ApJ 979 114
First Frequency Phase Transfer from the 3 mm to the 1 mm Band on an Earth-sized Baseline Sara Issaoun et al 2025 AJ 169 229	Assessing the Impact of Binary Systems on Microlensing Using SPISEA and PopSyCLE Population Simulations Natasha S. Abrams et al 2025 ApJ 980 103
A Demonstration of Interstellar Navigation Using New Horizons Tod R. Lauer et al 2025 AJ 170 22	DRAFTS: A Deep-learning-based Radio Fast Transient Search Pipeline Yong-Kun Zhang et al 2025 ApJS 276 20

Stars and Stellar Physics

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The Probable Direct-imaging Detection of the Stellar Companion to Betelgeuse Steve B. Howell et al 2025 ApJL 988 L47	A Repeating Fast Radio Burst Source in the Outskirts of a Quiescent Galaxy Vishwangi Shah et al 2025 ApJL 979 L21
OGLE-2011-BLG-0462: An Isolated Stellar-mass Black Hole Confirmed Using New HST Astrometry and Updated Photometry Kailash C. Sahu et al 2025 ApJ 983 104	Classification of Periodic Variable Stars from TESS Xinyi Gao et al 2025 ApJS 276 57
A Repeating Fast Radio Burst Source in the Outskirts of a Quiescent Galaxy Vishwangi Shah et al 2025 ApJL 979 L21	The JWST Weather Report from the Isolated Exoplanet Analog SIMP 0136+0933: Pressure-dependent Variability Driven by Multiple Mechanisms Allison M. McCarthy et al 2025 ApJL 981 L22
The JWST Weather Report from the Isolated Exoplanet Analog SIMP 0136+0933: Pressure-dependent Variability Driven by Multiple Mechanisms Allison M. McCarthy et al 2025 ApJL 981 L22	Empirical Color Correction to MIST and PARSEC Isochrones on Gaia BR − RP and G − RP with Benchmark Open Clusters Fan Wang et al 2025 ApJ 979 92
Lost Sisters Found: TESS and Gaia Reveal a Dissolving Pleiades Complex Andrew W. Boyle et al 2025 ApJ 994 24	Hydrodynamic Predictions for the Next Outburst of T Coronae Borealis: It Will Be the Brightest Classical or Recurrent Nova Ever Observed in X-Rays S. Starrfield et al 2025 ApJ 982 89

The Solar System, Exoplanets, and Astrobiology

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New Constraints on DMS and DMDS in the Atmosphere of K2-18 b from JWST MIRI Nikku Madhusudhan et al 2025 ApJL 983 L40	Reliable Detections of Atmospheres on Rocky Exoplanets with Photometric JWST Phase Curves Mark Hammond et al 2025 ApJL 978 L40
Hubble Space Telescope Observations of the Interstellar Interloper 3I/ATLAS David Jewitt et al 2025 ApJL 990 L2	TOI-421 b: A Hot Sub-Neptune with a Haze-free, Low Mean Molecular Weight Atmosphere Brian Davenport et al 2025 ApJL 984 L44
A Spiral Structure in the Inner Oort Cloud David Nesvorný et al 2025 ApJ 983 74	exoALMA. VI. Rotating under Pressure: Rotation Curves, Azimuthal Velocity Substructures, and Gas Pressure Variations Jochen Stadler et al 2025 ApJL 984 L11
Meet Arjuna 2025 PN7, the Newest Quasi-satellite of Earth Carlos de la Fuente Marcos and Raúl de la Fuente Marcos 2025 Res. Notes AAS 9 235	Discovery and Preliminary Characterization of a Third Interstellar Object: 3I/ATLAS Darryl Z. Seligman et al 2025 ApJL 989 L36
WIde Separation Planets In Time (WISPIT): A Gap-clearing Planet in a Multi-ringed Disk around the Young Solar-type Star WISPIT 2 Richelle F. van Capelleveen et al 2025 ApJL 990 L8	A Possible Metal-dominated Atmosphere below the Thick Aerosols of GJ 1214 b Suggested by Its JWST Panchromatic Transmission Spectrum Kazumasa Ohno et al 2025 ApJL 979 L7

The Sun and the Heliosphere

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The Sun Reversed Its Decades-long Weakening Trend in 2008 Jamie M. Jasinski and Marco Velli 2025 ApJL 990 L55	High-frequency Coronal Alfvénic Waves Observed with DKIST/Cryo-NIRSP Richard J. Morton et al 2025 ApJ 982 104
The Solar and Geomagnetic Storms in 2024 May: A Flash Data Report Hisashi Hayakawa et al 2025 ApJ 979 49	Latitude Quenching Nonlinearity in the Solar Dynamo Anthony R. Yeates et al 2025 ApJ 978 147
Unveiling Unprecedented Fine Structure in Coronal Flare Loops with the DKIST Cole A. Tamburri et al 2025 ApJL 990 L3	Deconstructing the Properties of Solar Super Active Region 13664 in the Context of the Historic Geomagnetic Storm of 2024 May 10–11 Priyansh Jaswal et al 2025 ApJ 979 31
Supergranulation and Poleward Migration of the Magnetic Field at High Latitudes of the Sun L. P. Chitta et al 2025 ApJL 993 L45	X-Ray/Radio Quasiperiodic Pulsations Associated with Plasmoids in Solar Flare Current Sheets Pankaj Kumar et al 2025 ApJ 980 158
Deconstructing the Properties of Solar Super Active Region 13664 in the Context of the Historic Geomagnetic Storm of 2024 May 10–11 Priyansh Jaswal et al 2025 ApJ 979 31	An Overview of Solar Orbiter Observations of Interplanetary Shocks in Solar Cycle 25 Domenico Trotta et al 2025 ApJS 277 2