An actively merging galaxy cluster is featured in this image assembled from a total of 28 hours of observations with the 570-megapixel Department of Energy-fabricated Dark Energy Camera, mounted on the U.S. National Science Foundation Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, a Program of NSF NOIRLab. The image gives a tantalizing hint of how intracluster light will be revealed by NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time.
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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.
Astronomers have discovered a companion star in an incredibly tight orbit around Betelgeuse using the NASA and U.S. National Science Foundation-funded ‘Alopeke instrument on Gemini North, one half of the International Gemini Observatory, partly funded by the NSF and operated by NSF NOIRLab. This discovery answers the longstanding mystery of the star’s varying brightness and provides insight into the physical mechanisms behind other variable red supergiants.
Interstellar objects are visitors from solar systems beyond our own, and the third ever such object, known as 3I/ATLAS, has just been discovered. Using the Gemini North telescope, astronomers have captured 3I/ATLAS as it makes its temporary passage through our cosmic neighborhood. These observations will help scientists study the characteristics of this rare object’s origin, orbit, and composition.
STIC Chair University of Southern California James Bullock is the 23rd dean of the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. He holds the Anna H. Bing Dean’s Chair and a faculty appointment in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Before joining USC in 2025, Bullock was Dean of the School of Physical Sciences at […]
It’s the cat’s meow! To celebrate its third year of revealing stunning scenes of the cosmos in infrared light, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has “clawed” back the thick, dusty layers of a section within the Cat’s Paw Nebula (NGC 6334). Focusing Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) on a single “toe bean” within this active star-forming region revealed a subset of mini toe beans, which appear to contain young stars shaping the surrounding gas and dust.
Using a combination of telescopes, including the International Gemini Observatory, funded in part by the U.S. National Science Foundation and operated by NSF NOIRLab, and the SOAR telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, a Program of NSF NOIRLab, astronomers have characterized the closest supernova linked to a fast X-ray transient. The observations reveal that these bright blasts of X-rays may be the result of a ‘failed’ explosive death of a massive star.
University of California, Santa Cruz George Blumenthal is Chancellor Emeritus and Professor Emeritus of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His Ph.D. degree is from UC San Diego, and his research interests include theoretical cosmology, the theory of cold dark matter, and active galactic nuclei. He was the chair of the […]
University of California Santa Cruz Raja GuhaThakurta is a Distinguished Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of California Santa Cruz, He received his Ph.D. from Princeton University, completed postdoctoral stints at the Institute for Advanced Study and Princeton University, and was an Assistant Astronomer at Space Telescope Science Institute, before joining the UCSC […]
KLO International Dr. Olsen earned her Ph.D. in Neuroscience at UC-Irvine and did Postdoctoral research at Harvard-Children’s Hospital before becoming an Asst. Professor at SUNY-Stony Brook. She served over 20 years in the federal government in variety scientific leadership positions beginning as program officer at NSF, and then moved to a Senator’s Office who was a member of the […]
Johns Hopkins University Timothy M. Heckman is the Dr. A. Hermann Pfund Professor in the William H. Miller III Department of Physics & Astronomy at Johns Hopkins University. He was the department Chair from 2015 to 2022. Heckman has served as a member of the NAS Committee on Astronomy & Astrophysics and the Board on […]
Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have captured compelling evidence of a planet with a mass similar to Saturn orbiting the young nearby star TWA 7. If confirmed, this would represent Webb’s first direct image discovery of a planet, and the lightest planet ever seen with this technique outside the solar system.
The NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory, a major new scientific facility jointly funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science, released its first imagery today at an event in Washington, D.C. The imagery shows cosmic phenomena captured at an unprecedented scale. In just over 10 hours of test observations, NSF-DOE Rubin Observatory has already captured millions of galaxies and Milky Way stars and thousands of asteroids. The imagery is a small preview of Rubin Observatory’s upcoming 10-year scientific mission to explore and understand some of the universe’s biggest mysteries.
We invite you to attend the live stream of NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s First Look event, taking place on 23 June 2025 at 11:00 a.m. EDT. At this international celebration the Rubin Observatory team will unveil the observatory’s first spectacular images. The event will be live streamed via YouTube in English and Spanish. Links to the live streams will be made available on rubinobservatory.org.
Using the world’s largest solar telescope, a team of scientists has captured one of the most detailed views ever of a small yet powerful solar explosion—uncovering the complexity of magnetic fields powering the Sun’s smallest outbursts.
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