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 […]
Category: Goddard Space Flight Center
NASA Says Farewell to MAVEN Mars Mission, Hosts Media Call Today
The first mission devoted to observing the Martian atmosphere and its evolution, NASA’s MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution), has ended after more than 11 years in orbit at Mars and a decade beyond its primary, one-year mission. The spacecraft was heard last on Dec. 6, when it experienced an unexpected loss of signal after […]
NASA Invites Media to See Roman Space Telescope Arrive at Kennedy
Registration is open for media to cover the arrival of NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in the coming weeks. The observatory will arrive aboard NASA’s Pegasus barge from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, where teams completed its construction, assembly, and testing. Credentialed media […]
NASA’s Roman Space Telescope Primary Mirror Gets Last Look
Engineers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, have completed their final inspection of a key element for the agency’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope: the primary mirror. This 7.9-foot (2.4-meter) mirror will collect and focus light from cosmic objects near and far, helping Roman capture stunning panoramas of space. “The Roman engineering […]
NASA’s Roman Mission Preps to Unveil New Populations of Faraway Worlds
NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is poised to make a major leap in the hunt for worlds outside our solar system, known as exoplanets. Scientists expect the mission to reveal around 100,000 worlds — a staggering leap compared to the nearly 6,300 found so far thanks to NASA missions working in tandem with other […]
NASA’s Webb Reveals Black Hole That Formed Before Its Galaxy
Which comes first, the galaxy or the black hole? We don’t know, but scientists have long thought it could be the galaxy: Large stars within an existing galaxy consume their fuel and collapse to form black holes, which can gobble up surrounding material and merge over time to form more massive entities. But it’s hard […]
NASA’s Webb Reveals Black Hole That Formed Before Its Galaxy
Which comes first, the galaxy or the black hole? We don’t know, but scientists have long thought it could be the galaxy: Large stars within an existing galaxy consume their fuel and collapse to form black holes, which can gobble up surrounding material and merge over time to form more massive entities. But it’s hard […]
Hubble Spies Faint Irregular Galaxy
This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image features the dwarf irregular galaxy ESO 490-017, roughly 12,000 light-years in diameter and some 23 million light-years away in the constellation Canis Major. The galaxy’s low surface brightness makes it appear as a faint, starry swarm behind brighter foreground stars that are easily recognized by their diffraction spikes. Numerous red, […]
Hubble Captures Galaxy Cluster
Look closely at this image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and you’ll see galaxies of various shapes and sizes clustered together toward the center-left of the image. A few foreground stars shine brightly and are easily distinguished by the spikes that appear to extend outward from each star. These spikes, called diffraction spikes, are the […]