Press Releases & Feature Stories Archive - Observational Cosmology Laboratory

NASA's Webb to Explore a Neighboring, Dusty Planetary System

07.21.2021

Researchers will take stock of the dust in the debris disk surrounding the nearby star Beta Pictoris.

James Webb Space Telescope Testing Progress Continues

07.15.2021

Engineers have made considerable progress in checking off NASA???s James Webb Space Telescope???s final series of tests.

NASA's Webb Will Use Quasars to Unlock the Secrets of the Early Universe

06.23.2021

Shortly after its launch later this year, a team of scientists will train NASA's James Webb Space Telescope on six of the most distant and luminous quasars. They will study the properties of these quasars and their host galaxies, and how they are interconnected during the first stages of galaxy evolution in the very early universe.

NASA's Webb to Study How Massive Stars' Blasts of Radiation Influence Their Environments

05.19.2021

An international team using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, which is scheduled to launch in October, will study a portion of the radiated cloud called the Orion Bar to learn more about the influence massive stars have on their environments, and even on the formation of our own solar system.

Webb's Golden Mirror Wings Open One Last Time on Earth

05.11.2021

For the last time while it is on Earth, the world???s largest and most powerful space science telescope opened its iconic primary mirror.

NASA's Webb to Study Young Exoplanets on the Edge

04.21.2021

Seeing distant exoplanets isn't easy and trying to detect them is like straining to see a firefly next to a lighthouse. That's why astronomers have identified most of the more than 4,000 exoplanets found so far using indirect techniques

NASA's Webb Telescope Packs Its Sunshield for a Million Mile Trip

04.07.2021

Engineers working on NASA's James Webb Space Telescope have successfully folded and packed its sunshield for its upcoming million-mile (roughly 1.5 million kilometer) journey, which begins later this year.

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope General Observer Scientific Programs Selected

03.30.2021

Selected programs describe what Webb will study for much of its first year in space.

Peering into a Galaxy's Dusty Core to Study an Active Supermassive Black Hole

03.17.2021

Researchers using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope will map and model the core of nearby galaxy Centaurus A.

Hubble Solves Mystery of Monster Star's Dimming

03.04.2021

Last year, astronomers were puzzled when Betelguese, the bright red supergiant star in the constellation Orion, dramatically faded, but then recovered. The dimming lasted for weeks. Now, astronomers have turned their sights toward a monster star in the adjoining constellation Canis Major, the Great Dog.

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope Completes Final Functional Tests to Prepare for Launch

03.01.2021

Testing teams successfully completed two important milestones that confirmed the observatory's internal electronics are all functioning as intended, and that the spacecraft and its four scientific instruments can send and receive data properly through the same network they will use in space.

NASA's Webb Telescope Will Show Us More Stars at Higher Resolution - Here's What That Means for Astronomy

02.22.2021

The combination of high resolution and infrared-detecting instruments on NASA's upcoming James Webb Space Telescope will reveal stars that are currently hidden even from the powerful Hubble Space Telescope.

NASA Summer Intern Combines Data Science and Astronomy - with Stellar Results

02.10.2021

Working with Brian Powell, a data scientist in the High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center at Goddard, Friedman trained a computer system to identify an important class of variable stars without explicitly programming it do so.

Hubble Spots an Interstellar Interaction

01.29.2021

Captured here by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, ESO 455-10 is one such chaotic planetary nebula, located in the constellation of Scorpius (The Scorpion).

Discovery Alert: First Six-star System Where All Six Stars Undergo Eclipses

01.27.2021

TYC 7037-89-1 is the first six-star system ever found where all of the stars participate in eclipses, a discovery made by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). The system is located about 1,900 light-years away in the constellation Eridanus.

Back to the Beginning: Probing the First Galaxies with Webb

01.19.2021

Soon, through the power of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers will look back to that raucous, early period in a deep-sky survey to trace the formation and evolution of the first galaxies.

NASA Missions Help Investigate an "Old Faithful" Active Galaxy

01.12.2021

Yellowstone National Park's Old Faithful geyser regularly blasts a jet of boiling water high in the air. Now, an international team of astronomers has discovered a cosmic equivalent, a distant galaxy that erupts roughly every 114 days.

21 Ways to Celebrate the James Webb Space Telescope Launch in 2021

01.06.2021

A new year brings hope, expectations, and promise. Related to the space science community, this year will also bring the much-anticipated launch of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope.

NASA's Webb Telescope Looks Back on 2020 Engineering Milestones

01.04.2021

2020 was a year of monumental progress for NASA's James Webb Space Telescope. The world's largest and most powerful space observatory advanced through a series of engineering milestones at Northrop Grumman's facilities in Redondo Beach, California, in preparation for its launch in 2021.