Press Releases
Showing 1 to 24 of 544.
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 […]
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.
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 […]
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 — […]
Webb Finds Evidence for Neutron Star at Heart of Young Supernova Remnant
2024.02.22
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has found the best evidence yet for emission from a neutron star at the site of a recently observed supernova. The supernova, known as SN 1987A, was a core-collapse supernova, meaning the compacted remains at its core formed either a neutron star or a black hole. Evidence for such a […]
NASA’s Roman to Use Rare Events to Calculate Expansion Rate of Universe
2024.02.07
Astronomers investigating one of the most pressing mysteries of the cosmos – the rate at which the universe is expanding – are readying themselves to study this puzzle in a new way using NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. Once it launches by May 2027, astronomers will mine Roman’s wide swaths of images for gravitationally […]
NASA Puts Next-Gen Exoplanet-Imaging Technology to the Test
2024.01.31
A cutting-edge tool to view planets outside our solar system has passed two key tests ahead of its launch as part of the agency’s Roman Space Telescope by 2027. The Coronagraph Instrument on NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will demonstrate new technologies that could vastly increase the number of planets outside our solar system […]
NASA’s Webb Depicts Staggering Structure in 19 Nearby Spiral Galaxies
2024.01.29
It’s oh-so-easy to be absolutely mesmerized by these spiral galaxies. Follow their clearly defined arms, which are brimming with stars, to their centers, where there may be old star clusters and – sometimes – active supermassive black holes.
NASA’s Roman to Search for Signs of Dark Matter Clumps
2024.01.17
Some of the finest, smallest details in the universe – the gaps between elongated groups of stars – may soon help astronomers reveal dark matter in greater detail than ever before. After NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launches, by May 2027, researchers will use its images to explore what exists between looping tendrils of stars that are pulled […]
Webb Shows Many Early Galaxies Looked Like Pool Noodles, Surfboards
2024.01.17
Researchers analyzing images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have found that galaxies in the early universe are often flat and elongated, like surfboards and pool noodles – and are rarely round, like volleyballs or frisbees. “Roughly 50 to 80% of the galaxies we studied appear to be flattened in two dimensions,” explained lead author […]
NASA’s Webb Discovers Dusty ‘Cat’s Tail’ in Beta Pictoris System
2024.01.10
Beta Pictoris, a young planetary system located just 63 light-years away, continues to intrigue scientists even after decades of in-depth study. It possesses the first dust disk imaged around another star — a disk of debris produced by collisions between asteroids, comets, and planetesimals. Observations from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope revealed
NASA’s Webb Finds Signs of Possible Aurorae on Isolated Brown Dwarf
2024.01.09
Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have found a brown dwarf (an object more massive than Jupiter but smaller than a star) with infrared emission from methane, likely due to energy in its upper atmosphere.
NASA’s Webb Rings in Holidays With Ringed Planet Uranus
2023.12.18
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope recently trained its sights on unusual and enigmatic Uranus, an ice giant that spins on its side. Webb captured this dynamic world with rings, moons, storms, and other atmospheric features – including a seasonal polar cap. The image expands upon a two-color version released earlier this year, adding additional wavelength […]
NASA’s Webb Identifies Tiniest Free-Floating Brown Dwarf
2023.12.13
Brown dwarfs are objects that straddle the dividing line between stars and planets. They form like stars, growing dense enough to collapse under their own gravity, but they never become dense and hot enough to begin fusing hydrogen and turn into a star. At the low end of the scale, some brown dwarfs are comparable […]
NASA’s Webb Stuns With New High-Definition Look at Exploded Star
2023.12.11
Mysterious features hide in near-infrared light Like a shiny, round ornament ready to be placed in the perfect spot on a holiday tree, supernova remnant Cassiopeia A (Cas A) gleams in a new image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. As part of the 2023 Holidays at the White House, First Lady of the United States […]
Webb Study Reveals Rocky Planets Can Form in Extreme Environments
2023.11.30
An international team of astronomers has used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to provide the first observation of water and other molecules in the highly irradiated inner, rocky-planet-forming regions of a disk in one of the most extreme environments in our galaxy.
Webb Telescope: A prominent protostar in Perseus
2023.11.28
This new Picture of the Month from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope reveals intricate details of the Herbig Haro object 797 (HH 797). Herbig-Haro objects are luminous regions surrounding newborn stars (known as protostars), and are formed when stellar winds or jets of gas spewing from these newborn stars form shockwaves colliding with nearby gas and […]
NASA’s Webb Reveals New Features in Heart of Milky Way
2023.11.20
The latest image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope shows a portion of the dense center of our galaxy in unprecedented detail, including never-before-seen features astronomers have yet to explain. The star-forming region, named Sagittarius C (Sgr C), is about 300 light-years from the Milky Way’s central supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*. Image: Sagittarius C […]
Webb Follows Neon Signs Toward New Thinking on Planet Formation
2023.11.15
Scientists are following neon signs in a search for clues to one planetary system’s future and the past of another – our own solar system. Following up on a peculiar reading by NASA’s previous infrared flagship observatory, the now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope, the agency’s James Webb Space Telescope detected distinct traces of the element neon […]
Showing 1 to 24 of 544.