This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features a galaxy whose asymmetric appearance may be the result of a galactic tug of war. Located 35 million light-years away in the constellation Leo, the spiral galaxy Messier 96 is the brightest of the galaxies in its group. The gravitational pull of its galactic neighbors may be responsible […]
Category: Galaxies
Hubble Observes Noteworthy Nearby Spiral Galaxy
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image offers a new view of the nearby spiral galaxy NGC 2835, which lies 35 million light-years away in the constellation Hydra (the Water Snake). The galaxy’s spiral arms are dotted with young blue stars sweeping around an oval-shaped center where older stars reside. This image differs from previously released […]
Hubble Examines Low Brightness, High Interest Galaxy
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image zooms in on the feathery spiral arms of the galaxy NGC 45, which lies just 22 million light-years away in the constellation Cetus (the Whale). The portrait uses data drawn from two complementary observing programs. The first took a broad view of 50 nearby galaxies, leveraging Hubble’s ability to […]
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 […]