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Astrophysics Science Division (660) Press Releases & Feature Stories

Artist concept of 55 Cancri e

NASA's Spitzer Sees the Light of Alien 'Super Earth'

05.08.2012
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has detected light emanating from a "super-Earth" planet beyond our solar system for the first time.
The center section of the James Webb Space Telescope flight backplane, or Primary Mirror Backplane Support Structure

NASA's Webb Telescope Flight Backplane Section Completed

04.24.2012
The center section of the backplane structure that will fly on NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has been completed, marking an important milestone in the telescope's hardware development.
dwarf spheroidal galaxy in the constellation Fornax

Fermi Observations of Dwarf Galaxies Provide New Insights on Dark Matter

04.02.2012
There's more to the cosmos than meets the eye. About 80 percent of the matter in the universe is invisible to telescopes, yet its gravitational influence is manifest in the orbital speeds of stars around galaxies and in the motions of clusters of galaxies.

NASA's Swift Narrows Down Origin of Important Supernova Class

03.20.2012
Studies using X-ray and ultraviolet observations from NASA's Swift satellite provide new insights into the elusive origins of an important class of exploding star called Type Ia supernovae.
diagram of Extra-Zodiacal Explorer (EZE) mission architecture

NASA's Goddard, Glenn Centers Look to Lift Space Astronomy out of the Fog

03.12.2012
A fogbank is the least useful location for a telescope, yet today's space observatories effectively operate inside one.
This graph based on RXTE data provides an overview of the changing character of T5X2's X-ray emission during outbursts from Oct. 13 to Nov. 19, 2010.

NASA's RXTE Captures Thermonuclear Behavior of Unique Neutron Star

03.09.2012
In October 2010, a neutron star near the center of our galaxy erupted with hundreds of X-ray bursts that were powered by a barrage of thermonuclear explosions on the star's surface.
artist's concept of galaxy and jets of its supermassive black hole

Ultra-fast Outflows Help Monster Black Holes Shape Their Galaxies

02.27.2012
Francesco Tombesi has identified a new type of black-hole-driven outflow that appears to explain the correlation between the mass of a galaxy's central black hole and the velocity of stars in a a galaxy's vast, roughly spherical structure known as its bulge.
ESA release
Artist's concept of Earth measurement with GPS

NASA Pinning Down 'Here' Better Than Ever

02.23.2012
NASA is helping to lead an international effort to upgrade the four systems that supply crucial location information in pinpointing where "here" is.
Photo of NuSTAR being lowered into its shipping container

NASA's NuSTAR Ships to Vandenberg Ahead of March 14 Launch

01.25.2012
NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, shipped to Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., on Tuesday, to be mated to its Pegasus launch vehicle.
Supernova SN Primo

NASA's Hubble Breaks New Ground With Distant Supernova Discovery

01.11.2012
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has looked deep into the distant universe and detected the feeble glow of a star that exploded more than 9 billion years ago.
Fermi reveals the universe above 10 GeV

NASA's Fermi Space Telescope Explores New Energy Extremes

01.10.2012
After more than three years in space, NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope is extending its view of the high-energy sky into a largely unexplored electromagnetic range.
X-ray hot spot in the gas around the black hole produced signals of rising frequency as the spot moved closer to the black hole.

NASA'S RXTE Helps Pinpoint Launch of 'Bullets' in a Black Hole's Jet

01.10.2012
Using observations from the RXTE satellite and the VLBA radio telescope, an international team of astronomers has identified the moment when a black hole in our galaxy launched super-fast knots of gas into space.
photo of nicholas white

Goddard's Nicholas White to Chair American Astronomical Society's High Energy Astrophysics Division

01.09.2012
Nicholas White, director of the Sciences and Exploration Directorate at Goddard Space Flight Center, has been elected chair of the High Energy Astrophysics Division (HEAD) of the American Astronomical Society (AAS).
photograph of RXTE

NASA's Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer Completes Mission Operations

01.09.2012
Over 16 years of operation, he Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) far exceeded its original science goals and has left astronomers with a scientific bounty that will serve them for years to come.
Technician working on Webb mirrors

Cryogenic Testing Completed for NASA's Webb Telescope Mirrors

12.22.2011
Cryogenic testing is complete for the final six primary mirror segments and a secondary mirror that will fly on NASA's James Webb Space Telescope.
Artist's rendering showing the onset of the disk wind, which shuts down the jet.

NASA's RXTE Detects 'Heartbeat' of Smallest Black Hole Candidate

12.15.2011
An international team of astronomers has identified a candidate for the smallest-known black hole using data from NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE).
This portrait of the shattered star includes gamma rays (magenta), X-rays (yellow, green, and blue), infrared (red) and optical data.

NASA's Fermi Shows That Tycho's Star Shines in Gamma Rays

12.13.2011
In early November 1572, observers on Earth witnessed the appearance of a "new star" in the constellation Cassiopeia, an event now recognized as the brightest naked-eye supernova in more than 400 years.
Frame from animation that interprets the Christmas burst as the merger of a red giant and a neutron star.

NASA's Swift Finds a Gamma-Ray Burst With a Dual Personality

11.30.2011
A peculiar cosmic explosion first detected by NASA's Swift observatory on Christmas Day 2010 was caused either by a novel type of supernova located billions of light-years away or an unusual collision much closer to home.
Gamma-ray emission detected by Fermi LAT fills bubbles of hot gas created by the most massive stars in Cygnus X.

In The Heart Of Cygnus, NASA's Fermi Reveals A Cosmic-ray Cocoon

11.28.2011
The constellation Cygnus, now visible in the western sky as twilight deepens after sunset, hosts one of our galaxy's richest-known stellar construction zones.
data visualization of pattern in solar system dust created by a planet

NASA Supercomputer Shows How Dust Rings Point to Exo-Earths

10.10.2008
Supercomputer simulations of dusty disks around sunlike stars show that planets nearly as small as Mars can create patterns that future telescopes may be able to detect.
                                                                                                                                                                                        
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  • Last Updated: 05/11/2012