Hubble Sees Galaxy with Dark Rings in New Light

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features an uncommon galaxy with a striking appearance. NGC 7722 is a lenticular galaxy located about 187 million light-years away in the constellation Pegasus. A lenticular, meaning “lens-shaped,” galaxy is a type whose classification sits between more familiar spiral galaxies and elliptical galaxies. It is also less common than spirals and ellipticals — partly because […]

Hubble Sees Galaxy with Dark Rings in New Light

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features an uncommon galaxy with a striking appearance. NGC 7722 is a lenticular galaxy located about 187 million light-years away in the constellation Pegasus. A lenticular, meaning “lens-shaped,” galaxy is a type whose classification sits between more familiar spiral galaxies and elliptical galaxies. It is also less common than spirals and ellipticals — partly because […]

NASA Researchers Probe Tangled Magnetospheres of Merging Neutron Stars

New simulations performed on a NASA supercomputer are providing scientists with the most comprehensive look yet into the maelstrom of interacting magnetic structures around city-sized neutron stars in the moments before they crash. The team identified potential signals emitted during the stars’ final moments that may be detectable by future observatories.   “Just before neutron […]

NASA Telescopes Spot Surprisingly Mature Cluster in Early Universe

A new discovery captures the cosmic moment when a galaxy cluster – among the largest structures in the universe – started to assemble only about a billion years after the big bang, one or two billion years earlier than previously thought. This result, made using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and James Webb Space Telescope, will […]

NASA Webb Pushes Boundaries of Observable Universe Closer to Big Bang

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has topped itself once again, delivering on its promise to push the boundaries of the observable universe closer to cosmic dawn with the confirmation of a bright galaxy that existed 280 million years after the big bang. By now Webb has established that it will eventually surpass virtually every benchmark […]

Discovery Alert: An Ice-Cold Earth?

The Discovery A candidate planet that might be remarkably similar to Earth, HD 137010 b, has one potentially big difference: It could be colder than perpetually frozen Mars. Key Facts Scientists continue to mine data gathered by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope, retired in 2018, and continue to turn up surprises. A new paper reveals the […]

NASA, Partners Advance LISA Prototype Hardware

Engineers and scientists at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, completed tests this month on a second early version of a key element of the upcoming LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) mission. The LISA mission, a collaboration between ESA (the European Space Agency) and NASA, will use infrared lasers to detect gravitational waves, […]

AI Unlocks Hundreds of Cosmic Anomalies in Hubble Archive

A team of astronomers has employed a cutting-edge, artificial intelligence-assisted technique to uncover rare astronomical phenomena within archived data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. The team analyzed nearly 100 million image cutouts from the Hubble Legacy Archive, each measuring just a few dozen pixels (7 to 8 arcseconds) on a side. They identified more than […]

AI Unlocks Hundreds of Cosmic Anomalies in Hubble Archive

A team of astronomers has employed a cutting-edge, artificial intelligence-assisted technique to uncover rare astronomical phenomena within archived data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. The team analyzed nearly 100 million image cutouts from the Hubble Legacy Archive, each measuring just a few dozen pixels (7 to 8 arcseconds) on a side. They identified more than […]

Journey to Center of Milky Way With Upcoming NASA Roman Core Survey

At the heart of our own galaxy, there is a dense thicket of stars with a supermassive black hole at the very center. NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will provide the deepest-ever view of this zone, revealing stars, planets, and unique objects that resist definition. Based on the input of astronomers from across the […]