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Artist Illustration of Early-Universe Quasar Cosmic Neighborhood

DECam Confirms that Early-Universe Quasar Neighborhoods are Indeed Cluttered

Observations using the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) confirm astronomers’ expectation that early-Universe quasars formed in regions of space densely populated ...
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At center right is a compact star cluster composed of luminous red, blue, and white points of light. Faint jets with clumpy, diffuse material extend in various directions from the bright cluster. Above and to the right is a smaller cluster of stars. Translucent red wisps of material stretch across the scene, though there are patches and a noticeable gap in the top left corner that reveal the black background of space. Background galaxies are scattered across this swath of space, appearing as small blue-white and orange-white dots or fuzzy, thin disks. There are two noticeably larger points, foreground stars, with diffraction spikes: an orange-white point on the left, and a blue-white point in the top right.

NASA’s Webb Peers into the Extreme Outer Galaxy

Astronomers have directed NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to examine the outskirts of our Milky Way galaxy. Scientists call this region ...
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Purple and yellow image shows flaring off the sun. Actual data is insert in black and white

Groundbreaking Achievement: NSF Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope Produces its First Magnetic Field Maps of the Sun’s Corona

Maui, Hawaii – The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, the world’s most powerful solar telescope, designed, ...
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Artist’s concept of spiral galaxy at the center of a much larger spherical halo of stars, with ground-based photograph pulled out to show details of the central core and spiral arms. View of the galaxy is halfway between face-on and edge-on, with disk oriented 45 degrees counter-clockwise from horizontal. Artist’s Concept: Galaxy core is whitish yellow, circled by a brownish purple disk. Grainy white halo enveloping the disk is dense and bright near the center, becoming more diffuse and fading out with distance from the main disk. Halo is mottled with a wispy cloud-like appearance, suggesting variations in density of stars. Halo covers an area of sky about 250 times greater than main disk. Photo: Telescope zoom into galaxy core and disk, outlined in yellow, shows brown dust lanes tracing spiral arms that wrap clockwise around fuzzy core; cloud-like patches of blue and red; star-like points of light of various size and brightness. Galaxy is 45 times larger in zoom than in illustration.

NASA’s Roman Space Telescope to Investigate Galactic Fossils

The universe is a dynamic, ever-changing place where galaxies are dancing, merging together, and shifting appearance. Unfortunately, because these changes ...
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Hundreds of small galaxies against the black background of space. Several white spiral galaxies are near image center. Most of the galaxies are various shades of orange and red, and many are too tiny to discern a shape. A handful of foreground stars show Webb's six diffraction spikes.

Webb Finds Early Galaxies Weren’t Too Big for Their Britches After All

When astronomers got their first glimpses of galaxies in the early universe from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, they were ...
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A multitude of stars and galaxies on a dark background. In the center are two brighter galaxies with a yellow glow around them.

Queen Berenice II’s Hair Tied Together by Dark Matter

The Dark Energy Camera captures an image of the dazzling Coma Cluster, named after the hair of Queen Berenice II ...
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Pillars of Creation Star in New Visualization from NASA's Hubble and Webb Telescopes

Pillars of Creation Star in New Visualization from NASA’s Hubble and Webb Telescopes

Made famous in 1995 by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, the Pillars of Creation in the heart of the Eagle Nebula ...
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Gemini North Captures Starburst Galaxy Blazing Bright With Newly Forming Stars

Gemini North Captures Starburst Galaxy Blazing Bright With Newly Forming Stars

A festive array of bright pinks and blues makes for a remarkable sight in this image captured with the Gemini ...
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International Gemini Observatory and Subaru Combine Forces to Discover First Ever Pair of Merging Quasars at Cosmic Dawn

International Gemini Observatory and Subaru Combine Forces to Discover First Ever Pair of Merging Quasars at Cosmic Dawn

Since the very first instant after the Big Bang the Universe has been expanding. This means that the early Universe ...
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NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Finds Most Distant Known Galaxy

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Finds Most Distant Known Galaxy

Over the last two years, scientists have used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (also called Webb or JWST) to explore ...
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An illustration of a star being torn apart by a black hole. To the right of center, there is a black sphere representing a black hole, surrounded by many thick wisps of light. To the left of it, there is a fuzzy, bright white object representing a star. The star has a tail of gas coming off its right, which is brightest near the star, but becomes grayer further away. This tail flows into the black hole’s right side and swirls around the black hole in a horizontal disk. The disk is thicker toward its center and more diffuse farther away. Material in the disk also appears to wrap around the top of the black hole. Above and below the black hole, there are purple rays of light that extend upward and downward in two broad cones. This scene sits amid a black backdrop of space with many dim, white stars in the background.

NASA’s Roman Space Telescope Could Help Researchers Detect the Universe’s First Stars

The first stars to form in the universe were very different from our Sun. Known to astronomers (somewhat paradoxically) as ...
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Dark Energy Camera Images Cometary Globule CG 4. Stars in various brightness shine throughout the image which is red and pink on the bottom 2/3 and black along the top.

Dark Energy Camera Spies Cometary Globule Reaching for the Stars

The dark, dusty cometary globule known as CG 4 is spotlighted in this image from the Department of Energy-fabricated Dark ...
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