The discovery of diverse ices in the darkest regions of a cold molecular cloud measured to date has been announced by an international team of astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. This result allows astronomers to examine the simple icy molecules that will be incorporated into future exoplanets, while opening a new window on the origin of more complex molecules that are the first step in the creation of the building blocks of life.
Astronomers using Hubble have recorded a star getting swallowed by a giant black hole. Hubble didn't observe the mayhem directly, but captured spectral fingerprints that provide clues as to how a star gets shredded as it is devoured.
By peering into a well-known star cluster within the Small Magellanic Cloud, Webb’s NIRCam instrument has revealed many new pockets of star formation that have never been seen. Further, new structures appear in this image that provide a window into the stars feeding within.
These are Hubble Space Telescope images of two massive clusters of galaxies. The artificially added blue color is translated from Hubble data that captured a phenomenon called intracluster light. This extremely faint glow traces a smooth distribution of light from wandering stars scattered across the cluster. Billions of years ago, the stars were shed from their parent galaxies and now drift through intergalactic space alone.
Astronomers have uncovered a pair of planets that are true "water worlds," unlike any planet found in our solar system. Slightly larger than Earth, they have global oceans at least 500 times deeper than the average depth of Earth's oceans.
Wait, how many stars were at this party? It’s likely there were up to five – but only two appear now! A research team recently began digging into Webb’s highly detailed images of the Southern Ring Nebula to reconstruct the scene. It’s possible more than one star interacted with the dimmer of the two central stars, which appears red in this image, before it created this jaw-dropping planetary nebula.
Astronomers pouring over 200,000 Hubble images have made a ghostly discovery. They uncovered an exceedingly tiny glow in the sky—which does not come from planets, stars, or galaxies. It might be from comet dust inside our solar system reflecting sunlight.
Peekaboo! Hubble spotted a tiny galaxy hiding behind a bright star in the nearby universe. Astronomers are intrigued, as the Peekaboo Galaxy looks more like it belongs in the early universe than the local neighborhood.
WASP-39 b is a planet unlike any in our solar system – a Saturn-sized behemoth that orbits its star closer than Mercury is to our Sun. This exoplanet was one of the first examined by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope when it began regular science operations. The results have excited the exoplanet science community. Webb’s exquisitely sensitive instruments have provided a profile of WASP-39 b’s atmospheric constituents and identified a plethora of contents, including water, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, sodium and potassium. The findings bode well for the capability of Webb’s instruments to conduct the broad range of investigations of all types of exoplanets, including small, rocky worlds like those in the TRAPPIST-1 system.
NASA’s powerful James Webb Space Telescope has found an unexpectedly rich “undiscovered country” of early galaxies that has been largely hidden until now. Webb is unveiling a very rich universe where the first forming galaxies look remarkably different from the mature galaxies seen around us today. Researchers found two exceptionally bright galaxies that existed approximately 300 and 400 million years after the big bang. Their extreme brightness is puzzling to astronomers. The young galaxies are transforming gas into stars extremely rapidly. They appear compacted in spherical or disk shapes that are much smaller than our Milky Way galaxy. The onset of stellar birth may have started just 100 million years after the big bang, which happened 13.8 billion years ago.
New details surrounding the dark cloud L1527 and its protostar have been revealed by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. The nebula’s vibrant colors, only visible in infrared light, show the protostar is in the midst of gathering material on its way to becoming a full-fledged star.
Light from a star that exploded over 11 billion years ago was captured by Hubble Space Telescope not just as one postcard from the remote past but three messages that chronicle the fading fireball over a period of one week.
How do you pinpoint titanic collisions that occur millions or billions of light-years away? First, by surveying large areas of the sky. Second, by teaming up with observatories around the world! NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is set to survey the same areas of the sky every few days, which will help researchers follow up on – or even pinpoint – kilonova detections and ideally set off a “gold rush” of new information.
In mid-infrared light, the Pillars of Creation appear otherworldly. NASA’S James Webb Space Telescope has delivered a scene that is large and lofty – and appears lit by flickering lanterns.
This glittering view of the Pillars of Creation was delivered by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s Near-Infrared Camera – and it begs to be examined pixel by pixel. The scene may look both familiar and entirely new – NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope viewed it first in 1995 and followed up in 2014, and many other telescopes have stared deeply at this scene. But this is the first time an observatory has delivered such detailed data in near-infrared light. Newly formed stars pop out in shades of pink, red, and crimson. Still-forming stars that remain hidden deep in dusty pillars resemble molten lava, and fully formed blue and yellow stars sprinkle the scene. Where are the galaxies that “photobomb” many of Webb’s images? The pillars are located directly in front of our Milky Way galaxy’s disk, which blocks our view of most galaxies that lie behind it. It is also lit up by the collective light from the packed “party” of stars. With these new data, researchers will be able to update complex m
On Sept. 26, 2022, NASA conducted a first-of-its-kind experiment, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), designed to intentionally smash a spacecraft into a small asteroid in the world’s first-ever in-space test for planetary defense. NASA declared the mission was successful in altering the orbit of Dimorphos, the asteroid moonlet of Didymos. However, there is still much to learn about the system. Follow-up observations from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope are already revealing the clearest image of a stunning surprise— a newly developed second tail of ejecta.
Astronomers looking into the early universe have made a surprising discovery using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope: a cluster of massive galaxies in the process of forming around an extremely red quasar. The result will expand our understanding of how galaxy clusters in the early universe came together and formed the cosmic web we see today.
Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have made a unique measurement that indicates a jet, plowing through space at speeds greater than 99.97% the speed of light. It was propelled by the titanic collision between two neutron stars. This is an artist's impression of two neutron stars colliding.
Two of NASA’s great observatories had a front row seat to a first of its kind NASA test for defending Earth against potential asteroid or comet hazards.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and Hubble Space Telescope teamed up to collect data before and after NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) intentionally slammed into Dimorphos, the asteroid moonlet in the double-asteroid system of Didymos, at nearly 15,000 miles per hour.
Not only will ground-based telescope observations help determine how successful the test was in altering the asteroid’s orbit, but the combined capabilities of Webb and Hubble together —on the same target, at the same time— will allow scientists to analyze a wide array of data relating to the makeup and history of our solar system.
Researchers have used Hubble and FUSE observations of ultraviolet light from quasars to detect and map the Magellanic Corona, a diffuse halo of hot, supercharged gas surrounding the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds. Shown in purple, the corona stretches more than 100,000 light-years from the main mass of stars, gas, and dust that make up the Magellanic Clouds, intermingling with the hotter and more extensive Milky Way Corona, shown in blue. The corona is thought to act as a buffer protecting the dwarf galaxies’ vital star-forming gas from the gravitational pull of the much larger Milky Way.
Webb's first look at Neptune is certainly a stunner! We're getting the clearest view of Neptune's rings in decades. The faint, dustier bands have never been seen in the infrared like we see now. At near-infrared wavelengths, Neptune's methane gas so strongly absorbs red and infrared light that the planet is quite dark, except where high-altitude clouds are present. These methane-ice clouds are prominent as bright streaks and spots in Webb's view.
Using different methods, two independent teams using Hubble and the VLT found young stars spiraling into the center of a massive star cluster called NGC 346 in the Small Magellanic Cloud. This river-like motion of gas and stars is an efficient way to fuel star birth, and the process is similar to that in our own Milky Way.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope presents a new perspective on 30 Doradus, or the Tarantula Nebula, a region well-known to astronomers studying star formation. Its nickname once came from its resemblance to the spider itself, but in Webb’s view the overall region takes on the appearance of a tarantula’s home—a burrow lined with its own spun silk. The Tarantula Nebula shelters thousands of young and still-forming stars, many revealed by Webb for the first time.
After years of preparation and anticipation, exoplanet researchers are ecstatic. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured an astonishingly detailed rainbow of near-infrared starlight filtered through the atmosphere of a hot gas giant 700 light-years away. The transmission spectrum of exoplanet WASP-39 b, based on a single set of measurements made using Webb’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph and analyzed by dozens of scientists, represents a hat trick of firsts: Webb’s first official scientific observation of an exoplanet; the first detailed exoplanet spectrum covering this range of near-infrared colors; and the first indisputable evidence for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet orbiting a distant star. The results are indicative of Webb’s ability to spot key molecules like carbon dioxide in a wide variety of exoplanets – including smaller, cooler, rocky planets – providing insights into the composition, formation, and evolution of planets across the galaxy.
Bright red star Betelgeuse quite literally blew its top in 2019--losing a substantial part of its visible surface. After analyzing data from Hubble and other observatories, researchers find that the mother star is still slowly recovering from this catastrophic upheaval and doing some very unusual things right now.
The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, is thrilled to announce that retired U.S. Senator Barbara A. Mikulski is donating her space memorabilia collection to STScI. The collection includes framed astronomical images, photos, illustrations, and models.
The Cartwheel Galaxy, a rare ring galaxy once shrouded in dust and mystery, has been unveiled by the imaging capabilities of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Webb’s high-precision instruments resolved individual stars and star-forming regions within the Cartwheel, and revealed the behavior of the black hole within its galactic center. These new details provide a renewed understanding of a galaxy in the midst of a slow transformation.
The first images and spectroscopic data from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope have revealed unprecedented and detailed views of the universe. Webb’s first images and spectra, including downloadable files, can be found at https://webbtelescope.org/news/first-images.
The seemingly three-dimensional “Cosmic Cliffs” showcases Webb’s capabilities to peer through obscuring dust and shed new light on how stars form. Webb reveals emerging stellar nurseries and individual stars that are completely hidden in visible-light pictures. This landscape of “mountains” and “valleys” is actually the edge of a nearby stellar nursery called NGC 3324 at the northwest corner of the Carina Nebula.
So-called mountains — some towering about 7 light-years high — are speckled with glittering, young stars imaged in infrared light. A cavernous area has been carved from the nebula by the intense ultraviolet radiation and stellar winds from extremely massive, hot, young stars located above the area shown in this image. The blistering, ultraviolet radiation from these stars is sculpting the nebula’s wall by slowly eroding it away. Dramatic pillars rise above the glowing wall of gas, resisting this radiation. The “steam” that appears to rise from the celestial “mountains” is
In an enormous new image, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope reveals never-before-seen details of the galaxy group called "Stephan's Quintet." The close proximity of this group gives astronomers a ringside seat to galactic mergers and interactions.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has cast the Southern Ring Nebula in an entirely new light. By observing the nebula in mid-infrared wavelengths, Webb has unveiled the second, dusty star at the center of the nebula in far more detail.
In a dream come true for exoplaneteers, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has demonstrated its unprecedented ability to analyze the atmosphere of a planet more than 1,000 light-years away. Webb has – in a single observation – revealed the unambiguous signature of water, indications of haze, and evidence for clouds that were thought not to exist based on prior observations.
A flurry of bright white galaxies is stirring up this scene – captured in high resolution by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope. Known as galaxy cluster SMACS 0723, the group of galaxies is also bending and warping the light from more distant galaxies behind them, stretching and repeating their appearances. Webb's near- and mid-infrared imaging – and highly detailed data known as spectra – will allow future researchers to finely catalog the precise compositions of galaxies in the early universe, which may ultimately reshape our understanding of how galaxies changed and evolved over billions of years.
President Biden unveiled the image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723, known as Webb’s First Deep Field, during a White House event on Monday, July 11. NASA and its partners will release a series of Webb's first full-color images and data, known as spectra, Tuesday, July 12th during a live NASA TV broadcast.
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, with a field of view 200 times Hubble’s in infrared light, will be able to capture images and spectra from thousands of galaxies in a single observation. Such a bounty of data will help astronomers discover hidden chapters in the universe’s history of stars.
Telescopes have spotted many distant galaxies – but none earlier than 400 million years after the big bang. What were galaxies that existed even earlier like? Two research teams using the James Webb Space Telescope will wield its state-of-the-art instruments to reveal an untold number of details about this early period in the universe for the first time – and revise what we know about some of the earliest chapters of galaxy evolution.
New images using data from ESA (European Space Agency) and NASA missions showcase the gas and dust that fill the space between stars in four of the galaxies closest to our own Milky Way. More than striking, the snapshots are also a scientific trove, lending insight into how dramatically the density of dust clouds can vary within a galaxy.
A star's death throes have so violently disrupted its planetary system that the dead star left behind, called a white dwarf, is siphoning off debris from both the system's inner and outer reaches. This is the first time astronomers have observed a white dwarf star that is consuming both rocky-metallic and icy material, the ingredients of planets.
Astronomers using astrometric microlensing Hubble Space Telescope data have determined the mass, distance, and velocity of a lone stellar-mass black hole plying interstellar space. The black hole cannot be directly observed. Instead, its intense gravity deflects and brightens the light of a background star, providing evidence of the stealthy wanderer.
NASA has announced it will cap a six-month period of testing and preparing the James Webb Space Telescope with the release of the observatory’s first full-color images and additional spectroscopic data on July 12, 2022. The images will mark the beginning of Webb’s science operations, in which eager astronomers will have the opportunity to use Webb to explore the early universe, exoplanet atmospheres, star birth and death, and the evolution of galaxies like never before.
Imagine if Earth were much, much closer to the Sun. So close that an entire year lasts only a few hours. So close that gravity has locked one hemisphere in permanent searing daylight and the other in endless darkness. So close that the oceans boil away, rocks begin to melt, and the clouds rain lava.
While nothing of the sort exists in our own solar system, planets like this—rocky, roughly Earth-sized, extremely hot and close to their stars—are not uncommon in the Milky Way galaxy.
What are the surfaces and atmospheres of these planets really like? NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is about to provide some answers.
Completing a nearly 30-year marathon, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has calibrated more than 40 "milepost markers" of space and time to help scientists measure the expansion rate of the universe to a precision of just over 1%. The measurement is about eight times more precise than Hubble's expected capability.
Happy 32nd birthday, Hubble Space Telescope! This year's anniversary image shows an eclectic and gorgeous galaxy grouping called Hickson Compact Group 40. These five tightly bound galaxies are caught up in a leisurely gravitational dance, and in about 1 billion years, they will collide and merge to form one giant elliptical galaxy. Hubble captured these galaxies at a very special moment in their lifetimes: as they fall together, but before they merge.
Hubble astronomers have uncovered a mysterious red dot among far-flung galaxies that could be a missing link between early galaxies and the birth of supermassive black holes. The object existed when the universe was just 750 million years old.
The Hubble Space Telescope has determined the size of the largest icy comet nucleus ever seen by astronomers. Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein's estimated diameter is about 80 miles across, making it about 50 times larger than found at the heart of most known comets, and twice the width of the state of Rhode Island.
Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope are studying ultra-hot Jupiters, planets with temperatures above 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit (1,649 degrees Celsius). Vaporized rock rains down on one planet, while another planet’s atmosphere is being "sunburned” by intense ultraviolet light.
The Hubble Space Telescope has caught a planet in the act of forming in a surprising way! The protoplanet, AB Aurigae b, is nine times more massive than Jupiter and orbits its host star more than two times farther than Pluto is from our Sun. Instead of growing and building up from a small core—accumulating matter and gas gradually—the protoplanetary disk surrounding AB Aurigae b is cooling, and gravity is causing a violent and intense collapse.
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has established an extraordinary new benchmark: detecting the light of a star that existed within the first billion years after the universe's birth in the big bang—the farthest individual star ever seen to date. The newly detected star is so far away that its light has taken 12.9 billion years to reach Earth, appearing to us as it did when the universe was only 7 percent of its current age, at redshift 6.2.
NASA has selected 24 new Fellows for its prestigious NASA Hubble Fellowship Program (NHFP). The program enables outstanding postdoctoral scientists to pursue independent research in any area of NASA Astrophysics. Nearly 450 applicants vied for the 2022 fellowships.
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