Press Releases

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 […]

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 […]

Hubble Tracks Jupiter’s Stormy Weather

2024.03.14

The giant planet Jupiter, in all its banded glory, is revisited by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope in these latest images, taken on January 5-6, 2024, capturing both sides of the planet. Hubble monitors Jupiter and the other outer solar system planets every year under the Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy program (OPAL). This is because these large […]

NASA Invites Media to 61st Annual Goddard Space Science Symposium

2024.03.14

Media are invited to attend the 61st annual Goddard Space Science Symposium (formerly the Robert H. Goddard Memorial Symposium), which will take place March 20-22, 2024, at the Brendan Iribe Center on the campus of the University of Maryland, College Park. The symposium will also be streamed online.

Cheers! NASA’s Webb Finds Ethanol, Other Icy Ingredients for Worlds

2024.03.13

Editor’s Note: This article was updated March 13, 2024, to clarify the likelihood that chemicals found around IRAS 2A were present in the first stages of development of our solar system. What do margaritas, vinegar, and ant stings have in common? They contain chemical ingredients that NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has identified surrounding two […]

NASA’s Roman Team Selects Survey to Map Our Galaxy’s Far Side

2024.03.12

NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope team has announced plans for an unprecedented survey of the plane of our Milky Way galaxy. It will peer deeper into this region than any other survey, mapping more of our galaxy’s stars than all previous observations combined. “There’s a really broad range of science we can explore with […]

NASA’s Webb, Hubble Telescopes Affirm Universe’s Expansion Rate, Puzzle Persists

2024.03.11

NASA’s Hubble and James Webb Space Telescope have tag-teamed to produce definitive measurements of the universe’s expansion rate.

Peering Into the Tendrils of NGC 604 with NASA’s Webb

2024.03.09

The formation of stars and the chaotic environments they inhabit is one of the most well-studied, but also mystery-shrouded, areas of cosmic investigation. The intricacies of these processes are now being unveiled like never before by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Two new images from Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) showcase star-forming […]

Hubble Sees a Spiral Galaxy Edge-On

2024.03.08

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows NGC 4423, a galaxy that lies about 55 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo. In this image, NGC 4423 appears to have quite an irregular, tubular form, so it might be surprising to find out that it is in fact a spiral galaxy. Knowing this, we can make out the […]

Discovery Alert: a Long Year for a ‘Cold Saturn’

2024.03.07

Two recently discovered exoplanets, gas giants possibly similar to Saturn, could be candidates for further atmospheric investigation.

Webb Unlocks Secrets of One of the Most Distant Galaxies Ever Seen

2024.03.04

Looking deeply into space and time, two teams using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have studied the exceptionally luminous galaxy GN-z11, which existed when our 13.8 billion-year-old universe was only about 430 million years old. Initially detected with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, this galaxy — one of the youngest and most distant ever observed  — […]