A wide field of view showing deep space, dotted with many small galaxies and a few foreground stars that display six diffraction spikes. One galaxy is highlighted with a magnified image in a graphic pull-out box in the lower right corner. The galaxy is labeled MoM-z14 and appears as a blurry yellow blob with a small red area at its top.

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 ...
Read More
A black background is filled with stars -small and large glowing white, red, yellow and blue.

Dark Energy Survey Scientists Release Analysis of All Six Years of Survey Data

The Dark Energy Survey Collaboration collected information on hundreds of millions of galaxies across the Universe using the U.S. Department of Energy-fabricated Dark Energy Camera, mounted on the U.S. National Science Foundation Víctor M. Blanco ...
Read More
Artist illustration of a yellow star with rungs around it. to the tight of the star is a orange cloud.

Massive Cloud With Metallic Winds Discovered Orbiting Mystery Object

Astronomers using the Gemini South telescope achieve unprecedented detection of vaporized metals within a dusty, gaseous cloud during rare stellar occultation ...
Read More
This artist’s illustration depicts 2025 MN45 — the fastest-rotating asteroid with a diameter over 500 meters that scientists have ever found. The asteroid is shown surrounded by many other asteroids, depicting its location within the main asteroid belt. The Sun and Jupiter are shown in the distance. 2025 MN45 is 710 meters (0.44 miles) in diameter, and it completes a full rotation every 1.88 minutes. The discovery was made using data from NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory, jointly funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science.

NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory Spots Record-Breaking Asteroid in Pre-Survey Observations

First peer-reviewed paper using LSST Camera data identifies an asteroid, nearly the size of eight football fields, rotating every two minutes ...
Read More
A region of space mostly filled with background galaxies, with one prominent star at upper left. A large blob of purple haze occupies much of the field. Within the purple region, an unremarkable area is outlined with a dashed white circle.

NASA’s Hubble Examines Cloud-9, First of New Type of Object

A team using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has uncovered a new type of astronomical object — a starless, gas-rich, dark-matter cloud considered a “relic” or remnant of early galaxy formation. Nicknamed “Cloud-9,” this is the first confirmed detection of ...
Read More
Image labeled Fomalhaut system, Hubble Space Telescope. A grainy orange oval ring tilts slightly from upper right to lower left. At two o'clock, a white box outlines the ring's edge and white lines extend to a larger pullout box at lower right. Two spots inside the larger box are marked with dashed white circles and labeled cs1 2012 and cs2 2023. Inside the ring is a black circle with a white star symbol in the middle.

NASA’s Hubble Sees Asteroids Colliding at Nearby Star for First Time

Like a game of cosmic bumper cars, scientists think the early days of our solar system were a time of violent turmoil, with planetesimals, asteroids, and comets smashing together and pelting the Earth, Moon, and ...
Read More
Bright reds, yellows and orange points of lights are scattered on a black background Some are obviously galaxies with small pinwheel shape and others are just points of light. In the Center is a bright blue glowing object next to a fainter orange one.

Bright Blue Cosmic Outbursts Likely Caused by Large Black Holes Shredding Massive Companions

In 2024, astronomers discovered the brightest Luminous Fast Blue Optical Transient (LFBOT) ever observed. LFBOTs are extremely bright flashes of blue light that shine for brief periods before fading away. New analysis of this record-breaking ...
Read More
llustration labeled “artist’s concept” at right bottom corner. At left bottom corner, a partially illuminated, lemon-shaped exoplanet appears against a black background. This planet is most brightly illuminated at its elongated tip on its right side. On the left side, which is wider, the planet trails off into the darkness of the background. The planet is colored in varying, mottled shades of red, light pink, and fuchsia. Most of the pink occurs closest to the tip, while most of the fuchsia is at the top and bottom edges. At right top corner, a white beam emanates diagonally, oriented from 10 o’clock to 4 o’clock, from either side of a small, glowing, white star.

NASA’s Webb Observes Exoplanet Whose Composition Defies Explanation

Scientists using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have observed a rare type of exoplanet, or planet outside our solar system, whose atmospheric composition challenges our understanding of how it formed.  ...
Read More
A scattering of white points, each representing a galaxy. Fuzzy circles colored orange, yellow-green, and blue show voids of various sizes where there are few galaxies.

NASA’s Roman Telescope Will Observe Thousands of Newfound Cosmic Voids

Our universe is filled with galaxies, in all directions as far as our instruments can see. Some researchers estimate that there are as many as two trillion galaxies in the observable universe. At first glance, ...
Read More
a bright light is in the center of the image is surrounded by a greenish glow on a dark black background.

Gemini North Color Images Reveal Greenish Glow of Comet 3I/ATLAS

Gemini North captured new images of Comet 3I/ATLAS after it reemerged from behind the Sun on its path out of the Solar System. The data were collected during a Shadow the Scientists session — a ...
Read More
An illustration of the Solar system with the Sun in bright orange and yellow at the center and a light blue Earth in the foreground – all on a blue background.

Two Eyes on the Sun: Unveiling Solar Dynamics with Coordinated Observations

In October 2022, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope and the European Space Agency (ESA) Solar Orbiter carried out their first coordinated campaign, capturing a decaying solar active region from ...
Read More
Gemini South Celebrates 25th Anniversary With Stunning Snapshot of the Butterfly Nebula

Gemini South Celebrates 25th Anniversary With Stunning Snapshot of the Butterfly Nebula

To celebrate 25 years since the completion of the International Gemini Observatory, students in Chile voted for the Gemini South telescope to image NGC 6302 — a billowing planetary nebula that resembles a cosmic butterfly ...
Read More
More