Astrophysics Stories
NASA’s TESS Returns to Science Operations
NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) returned to science operations May 3 and is once again making observations. The satellite went into safe mode April 23 following a separate period of down time earlier that month. The operations team determined…
Breaking the Scaling Limits: New Ultralow-noise Superconducting Camera for Exoplanet Searches
When imaging faint objects such as distant stars or exoplanets, capturing every last bit of light is crucial to get the most out of a scientific mission. These cameras must be extremely low-noise, and be able to detect the smallest…
How NASA’s Roman Mission Will Hunt for Primordial Black Holes
Astronomers have discovered black holes ranging from a few times the Sun’s mass to tens of billions. Now a group of scientists has predicted that NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope could find a class of “featherweight” black holes that…
New NASA Black Hole Visualization Takes Viewers Beyond the Brink
Ever wonder what happens when you fall into a black hole? Now, thanks to a new, immersive visualization produced on a NASA supercomputer, viewers can plunge into the event horizon, a black hole’s point of no return. “People often ask…
Hubble Views a Galaxy with a Voracious Black Hole
Bright, starry spiral arms surround an active galactic center in this new NASA Hubble Space Telescope image of the galaxy NGC 4951. Located in the Virgo constellation, NGC 4951 is located roughly 50 million light-years away from Earth. It’s classified…
Hubble Hunts Visible Light Sources of X-Rays
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the dwarf galaxy IC 776. This swirling collection of new and old stars is located in the constellation Virgo, in the Virgo galaxy cluster, 100 million light-years from Earth. Although IC 776 is…
NASA Partner Zooniverse Receives White House Open Science Award
Congrats to NASA partner Zooniverse for being named winners in the White House’s Year of Open Science Recognition Challenge! The White House Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP) designated 2023 as the year of Open Science, and invited innovators to submit stories of how…
X-ray Satellite XMM-Newton Sees ‘Space Clover’ in a New Light
Astronomers have discovered enormous circular radio features of unknown origin around some galaxies. Now, new observations of one dubbed the Cloverleaf suggest it was created by clashing groups of galaxies. Studying these structures, collectively called ORCs (odd radio circles), in…
NASA’s Hubble Pauses Science Due to Gyro Issue
Updated April 30, 2024 Editor’s note: On April 30, 2024, NASA announced it restored the agency’s Hubble Space Telescope to science operations April 29. The spacecraft is in good health and once again operating using all three of its gyros. All of Hubble’s instruments…
NASA/JAXA’s XRISM Mission Captures Unmatched Data With Just 36 Pixels
At a time when phone cameras are capable of taking snapshots with millions of pixels, an instrument on the Japan-led XRISM (X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission) satellite captures revolutionary science with just 36 of them. “That may sound impossible, but…