Astrophysics Stories

NASA’s Swift Sees ‘Wandering’ Mega Black Hole Shredding Star

NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory captured an “orphan” black hole lighting up as it devoured a star on the outskirts of a faraway galaxy. These phenomena are rare to begin with, and none had ever before been seen so far…

NASA’s Hubble Shows Star Formation in Andromeda Galaxy Winding Down

NASA’s Hubble finds that star formation in the Andromeda galaxy has undergone a 500-million-year decline.

Hubble Spies One-Sided Spiral

This Hubble image features spiral galaxy NGC 4654, located 72 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo (the Maiden).

NASA’s Webb Discovers Hidden Planet in Famous Star System

Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have discovered a giant planet outside our solar system, called an exoplanet, hiding within one of the most intensely studied planetary systems in our Milky Way galaxy. The young, nearby star Beta Pictoris…

NASA’s Hubble Discovers First of Star Cluster’s Missing Black Holes

Astronomers using archival data from Hubble and supportive observations from Webb have located their first stellar-mass black hole in the star cluster Omega Centauri.

NASA Space Telescope Maps Magnetic Fields of ‘Lighthouse’ Pulsar

For the first time, scientists have used NASA’s IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer) to directly measure the magnetic fields of PSR J1101−6101, a pulsar located within what is often referred to as the Lighthouse Nebula. The results provide new insight…

NASA Webb Uncovers Unusual Galaxy Shaped by Cosmic Collision

In new images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to celebrate its fourth science anniversary, a familiar galaxy transforms into something far richer, and far more complex, than ever seen before. Webb’s unprecedented sensitivity across near- and mid-infrared wavelengths cuts…

NASA’s Hubble Spies Stellar Sparkler for July 4th

Red, white, and blue stars glitter like a sparkler being waved on a dark night in this new image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.

NASA’s Hubble Captures Crimson Cloud Sparkling with White, Blue Stars

Blue and white stars shine brightly against crimson gas in this image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.