Press Releases
Showing 1 to 24 of 2054.
Webb Cracks Case of Inflated Exoplanet
2024.05.20
Why is the warm gas-giant exoplanet WASP-107 b so puffy? Two independent teams of researchers have an answer.
Hubble Views Cosmic Dust Lanes
2024.05.17
Featured in this new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is a nearly edge-on view of the lenticular galaxy NGC 4753. Lenticular galaxies have an elliptical shape and ill-defined spiral arms.
Hubble Views the Dawn of a Sun-like Star
2024.05.15
Looking like a glittering cosmic geode, a trio of dazzling stars blaze from the hollowed-out cavity of a reflection nebula in this new image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. The triple-star system is made up of the variable star HP Tau, HP Tau G2, and HP Tau G3. HP Tau is known as a T […]
Hubble Celebrates the 15th Anniversary of Servicing Mission 4
2024.05.10
Fifteen years ago, human hands touched NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope for the last time. As astronauts performed finishing tasks on the telescope during its final servicing mission in May 2009, they knew they had successfully concluded one of the most challenging and ambitious series of spacewalks ever conducted. But they couldn’t have known at the […]
Hubble Glimpses a Star-Forming Factory
2024.05.10
The celestial object showcased in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope is the spiral galaxy UGC 9684, which lies around 240 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Boötes. This image shows an impressive example of several classic galactic features, including a clear bar in the galaxy’s center, and a halo surrounding its […]
NASA, JAXA XRISM Spots Iron Fingerprints in Nearby Active Galaxy
2024.05.08
After starting science operations in February, Japan-led XRISM (X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission) studied the monster black hole at the center of galaxy NGC 4151.
NASA’s Webb Hints at Possible Atmosphere Surrounding Rocky Exoplanet
2024.05.08
Researchers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope may have detected atmospheric gases surrounding 55 Cancri e, a hot rocky exoplanet 41 light-years from Earth. This is the best evidence to date for the existence of any rocky planet atmosphere outside our solar system.
Ken Carpenter: Ensuring Top-Tier Science from Moon to Stars
2024.05.07
Today, Ken Carpenter is a scientist for NASA’s Hubble and Roman space telescopes, but in 1967 he was just a teenager at his local library out to fact-check a “Star Trek” episode. Name: Kenneth G. CarpenterTitle: Operations Project Scientist for Hubble Space Telescope; Ground System Scientist for Roman Space Telescope; and a NASA Innovative Advanced […]
How NASA’s Roman Mission Will Hunt for Primordial Black Holes
2024.05.07
Astronomers have discovered black holes ranging from a few times the Sun’s mass to tens of billions. Now a group of scientists has predicted that NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope could find a class of “featherweight” black holes that has so far eluded detection. Today, black holes form either when a massive star collapses […]
New NASA Black Hole Visualization Takes Viewers Beyond the Brink
2024.05.06
Ever wonder what happens when you fall into a black hole? Now, thanks to a new, immersive visualization produced on a NASA supercomputer, viewers can plunge into the event horizon, a black hole’s point of no return. “People often ask about this, and simulating these difficult-to-imagine processes helps me connect the mathematics of relativity to […]
Hubble Views a Galaxy with a Voracious Black Hole
2024.05.06
Bright, starry spiral arms surround an active galactic center in this new NASA Hubble Space Telescope image of the galaxy NGC 4951. Located in the Virgo constellation, NGC 4951 is located roughly 50 million light-years away from Earth. It’s classified as a Seyfert galaxy, which means that it’s an extremely energetic type of galaxy with […]
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 […]
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.
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 […]
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 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 […]
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 […]
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 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
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 […]
Showing 1 to 24 of 2054.