Even small asteroids lead complex lives. During its flyby of the asteroid Donaldjohanson last year, NASA’s Lucy spacecraft revealed the asteroid to be a wobbly, peanut-shaped body that has undergone a lot of activity in its relatively short history. Formed as fragments coalesced after a violent collision 155 million years ago, the asteroid was transformed by the […]
Category: Goddard Space Flight Center
NASA’s Lucy Reveals Wobbling, Peanut-Shaped Asteroid
Even small asteroids lead complex lives. During its flyby of the asteroid Donaldjohanson last year, NASA’s Lucy spacecraft revealed the asteroid to be a wobbly, peanut-shaped body that has undergone a lot of activity in its relatively short history. Formed as fragments coalesced after a violent collision 155 million years ago, the asteroid was transformed by the […]
Hubble Glimpses Merging Galaxy Clusters
This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image features a galaxy cluster, called CL0016+1609 or MACS J0018.5+1626, that is very bright at X-ray wavelengths and is one of the most extensively studied clusters at X-ray and radio wavelengths. The X-ray observations of this cluster revealed that it is two clusters merging along our line of sight. Researchers […]
NASA’s Fermi Mission Uncovers Possible Sibling Supernova Remnants
A new study of two supernova remnants, the debris left behind after stars explode, suggests the explosions came from stellar siblings that once orbited each other. The first star’s detonation sent its binary companion hurtling through space, and then, after traveling for thousands of years, the surviving star blew up too.
NASA Webb, Hubble Reveal History of Relic of Milky Way’s Formation
Researchers using two of humanity’s most powerful observatories — NASA’s James Webb and Hubble Space Telescopes — have definitively shown that Terzan 5 is not a globular star cluster as it was once classified, offering new insight into how galaxies like our own form and evolve over time. A globular star cluster typically has only […]
NASA Webb, Hubble Reveal History of Relic of Milky Way’s Formation
Researchers using two of humanity’s most powerful observatories — NASA’s James Webb and Hubble Space Telescopes — have definitively shown that Terzan 5 is not a globular star cluster as it was once classified, offering new insight into how galaxies like our own form and evolve over time. A globular star cluster typically has only […]
NASA to Preview Katalyst Mission to Boost Swift Spacecraft’s Orbit
NASA will host an audio-only media teleconference at 11 a.m. EDT, Wednesday, June 17, to preview the Katalyst Space mission to boost the orbit of NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory. Katalyst’s robotic servicing spacecraft, called LINK, will attempt to rendezvous with Swift and raise its altitude, extending its science mission lifespan and advancing a key […]
NASA Webb Finds Strongest Evidence Yet for ‘Black Hole Stars’
The complex puzzle known as little red dots has become more complete since their initial discovery by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope in 2022. Now a particular little red dot’s spectrum is helping connect many of the pieces. A team of astronomers led by Vasily Kokorev at the University of Texas at Austin identified the […]