Category: Galaxies

NASA Installs Key ‘Sunblock’ Shield on Roman Space Telescope

Technicians have successfully installed two sunshields onto NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope’s inner segment. Along with the observatory’s Solar Array Sun Shield and Deployable Aperture Cover, the panels (together called the Lower Instrument Sun Shade), will play a critical role in keeping Roman’s instruments cool and stable as the mission explores the infrared universe. […]

NASA’s Hubble, Chandra Spot Rare Type of Black Hole Eating a Star

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory have teamed up to identify a new possible example of a rare class of black holes. Called NGC 6099 HLX-1, this bright X-ray source seems to reside in a compact star cluster in a giant elliptical galaxy. Just a few years after its 1990 launch, Hubble […]

Hubble Snaps Galaxy Cluster’s Portrait

A massive, spacetime-warping cluster of galaxies is the setting of today’s NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image. The galaxy cluster in question is Abell 209, located 2.8 billion light-years away in the constellation Cetus (the Whale). This Hubble image of Abell 209 shows more than a hundred galaxies, but there’s more to this cluster than even […]

How NASA’s SPHEREx Mission Will Share Its All-Sky Map With the World 

NASA’s newest astrophysics space telescope launched in March on a mission to create an all-sky map of the universe. Now settled into low-Earth orbit, SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization, and Ices Explorer) has begun delivering its sky survey data to a public archive on a weekly basis, allowing anyone […]

3 Years of Science: 10 Cosmic Surprises from NASA’s Webb Telescope

Since July 2022, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has been unwaveringly focused on our universe. With its unprecedented power to detect and analyze otherwise invisible infrared light, Webb is making observations that were once impossible, changing our view of the cosmos from the most distant galaxies to our own solar system. Webb was built with […]

3 Years of Science: 10 Cosmic Surprises from NASA’s Webb Telescope

Since July 2022, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has been unwaveringly focused on our universe. With its unprecedented power to detect and analyze otherwise invisible infrared light, Webb is making observations that were once impossible, changing our view of the cosmos from the most distant galaxies to our own solar system. Webb was built with […]

NASA’s Webb Digs into Structural Origins of Disk Galaxies

Present-day disk galaxies often contain a thick, star-filled outer disk and an embedded thin disk of stars. For instance, our own Milky Way galaxy’s thick disk is approximately 3,000 light-years in height, and its thin disk is roughly 1,000 light-years thick. How and why does this dual disk structure form? By analyzing archival data from […]

NASA’s Chandra Shares a New View of Our Galactic Neighbor

The Andromeda galaxy, also known as Messier 31 (M31), is the closest spiral galaxy to the Milky Way at a distance of about 2.5 million light-years. Astronomers use Andromeda to understand the structure and evolution of our own spiral, which is much harder to do since Earth is embedded inside the Milky Way. The galaxy […]