Press Releases
Showing 1 to 24 of 2043.
NASA’s Webb Maps Weather on Planet 280 Light-Years Away
2024.04.30
An international team of researchers has successfully used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to map the weather on the hot gas-giant exoplanet WASP-43 b.
NASA/JAXA’s XRISM Mission Captures Unmatched Data With Just 36 Pixels
2024.04.30
At a time when phone cameras are capable of taking snapshots with millions of pixels, an instrument on the Japan-led XRISM (X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission) satellite captures revolutionary science with just 36 of them. “That may sound impossible, but it’s actually true,” said Richard Kelley, the U.S. principal investigator for XRISM at NASA’s Goddard […]
Webb Captures Top of Iconic Horsehead Nebula in Unprecedented Detail
2024.04.29
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured the sharpest infrared images to date of a zoomed-in portion of one of the most distinctive objects in our skies, the Horsehead Nebula.
Hubble Spots a Magnificent Barred Galaxy
2024.04.26
The magnificent central bar of NGC 2217 (also known as AM 0619-271) shines bright in the constellation of Canis Major (The Greater Dog), in this image taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Roughly 65 million light-years from Earth, this barred spiral galaxy is a similar size to our Milky Way at 100,000 light-years across. Many stars are concentrated in […]
Hubble Celebrates 34th Anniversary with a Look at the Little Dumbbell Nebula
2024.04.23
In celebration of the 34th anniversary of the launch of NASA’s legendary Hubble Space Telescope on April 24, astronomers took a snapshot of the Little Dumbbell Nebula (also known as Messier 76, M76, or NGC 650/651) located 3,400 light-years away in the northern circumpolar constellation Perseus. The photogenic nebula is a favorite target of amateur astronomers. M76 […]
Explore the Universe with the First E-Book from NASA’s Fermi
2024.04.23
To commemorate a milestone anniversary for NASA’s Fermi spacecraft, the mission team has published an e-book called “Our High-Energy Universe: 15 Years with the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.”
Hubble Captures a Bright Galactic and Stellar Duo
2024.04.19
This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope features NGC 3783, a bright barred spiral galaxy about 130 million light-years from Earth that also lends its name to the eponymous NGC 3783 galaxy group. Like galaxy clusters, galaxy groups are aggregates of gravitationally bound galaxies. Galaxy groups, however, are less massive and contain fewer members than galaxy clusters […]
Hubble Goes Hunting for Small Main Belt Asteroids
2024.04.18
Like boulders, rocks, and pebbles scattered across a landscape, asteroids come in a wide range of sizes. Cataloging asteroids in space is tricky because they are faint and they don’t stop to be photographed as they zip along their orbits around the Sun. Astronomers recently used a trove of archived images taken by NASA’s Hubble […]
NASA’s Roman Space Telescope’s ‘Eyes’ Pass First Vision Test
2024.04.17
Engineers at L3Harris Technologies in Rochester, New York, have combined all 10 mirrors for NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. Preliminary tests show the newly aligned optics, collectively called the IOA (Imaging Optics Assembly), will direct light into Roman’s science instruments extremely precisely. This will yield crisp images of space once the observatory launches. “This […]
NASA’s TESS Returns to Science Operations
2024.04.17
NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) has returned to work after science observations were suspended on April 8, when the spacecraft entered into safe mode. All instruments are powered on and, following the successful download of previously collected science data stored in the mission’s recorder, are now making new science observation
Astronauts To Patch Up NASA’s NICER Telescope
2024.04.17
NASA is planning to repair NICER (Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer), an X-ray telescope on the International Space Station, during a spacewalk later this year. It will be the fourth science observatory in orbit serviced by astronauts.
NASA’s Fermi Mission Sees No Gamma Rays from Nearby Supernova
2024.04.16
A nearby supernova in 2023 offered astrophysicists an excellent opportunity to test ideas about how these types of explosions boost particles, called cosmic rays, to near light-speed. But surprisingly, NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope detected none of the high-energy gamma-ray light those particles should produce. On May 18, 2023, a supernova erupted in the nearby […]
Hubble Spots a Galaxy Hidden in a Dark Cloud
2024.04.12
The subject of this image taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is the spiral galaxy IC 4633, located 100 million light-years away from us in the constellation Apus. IC 4633 is a galaxy rich in star-forming activity and also hosts an active galactic nucleus at its core. From our point of view, the galaxy […]
NASA’s TESS Temporarily Pauses Science Observations
2024.04.11
NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) entered into safe mode April 8, temporarily interrupting science observations. The team is investigating the root cause of the safe mode, which occurred during scheduled engineering activities. The satellite itself remains in good health.
Hubble Peers at Pair of Closely Interacting Galaxies
2024.04.05
This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope features Arp 72, a very selective galaxy group that only includes two galaxies interacting due to gravity: NGC 5996 (the large spiral galaxy) and NGC 5994 (its smaller companion, in the lower left of the image). Both galaxies lie approximately 160 million light-years from Earth, and their […]
How NASA’s Roman Telescope Will Measure Ages of Stars
2024.04.04
Guessing your age might be a popular carnival game, but for astronomers it’s a real challenge to determine the ages of stars. Once a star like our Sun has settled into steady nuclear fusion, or the mature phase of its life, it changes little for billions of years. One exception to that rule is the […]
NASA’s Webb Probes an Extreme Starburst Galaxy
2024.04.03
A team of astronomers has used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to survey the starburst galaxy Messier 82 (M82). Located 12 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major, this galaxy is relatively compact in size but hosts a frenzy of star formation activity.
Hubble Finds a Field of Stars
2024.03.29
This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows a globular cluster called NGC 1651. Like another recent globular cluster image, NGC 1651 is about 162,000 light-years away in the largest and brightest of the Milky Way’s satellite galaxies, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). One notable feature of this image: the roughly 120-light-year diameter globular […]
Three-Year Study of Young Stars with NASA’s Hubble Enters New Chapter
2024.03.28
In the largest and one of the most ambitious Hubble Space Telescope programs ever executed, a team of scientists and engineers collected information on almost 500 stars over a three-year period. This effort offers new insights into the stars’ formation, evolution, and impact on their surroundings. This comprehensive survey, called ULLYSES (Ultraviolet Legacy Library of Young […]
Hubble Sees New Star Proclaiming Presence with Cosmic Lightshow
2024.03.25
Jets emerge from the cocoon of a newly forming star to blast across space, slicing through the gas and dust of a shining nebula in this new image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. FS Tau is a multi-star system made up of FS Tau A, the bright star-like object near the middle of the image, […]
NASA’s Tiny BurstCube Mission Launches to Study Cosmic Blasts
2024.03.22
NASA’s BurstCube, a shoebox-sized satellite designed to study the universe’s most powerful explosions, is on its way to the International Space Station.
Hubble Spots the Spider Galaxy
2024.03.22
NASA’s Hubble Finds that Aging Brown Dwarfs Grow Lonely
2024.03.21
t takes two to tango, but in the case of brown dwarfs that were once paired as binary systems, that relationship doesn't last for very long, according to a recent survey from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.
Hubble Views a Galaxy Under Pressure
2024.03.15
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows LEDA 42160, a galaxy about 52 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo. The dwarf galaxy is one of many forcing its way through the comparatively dense gas in the massive Virgo cluster of galaxies. The pressure exerted by this intergalactic gas, known as ram pressure, has […]
Showing 1 to 24 of 2043.