Astrophysics Stories
NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory has ended its science mission now that the spacecraft is orbiting less than 171 miles (275 kilometers) above Earth’s surface. The greater atmospheric drag at this height prevents the satellite’s telescopes from steadily gazing at…
This observation is one of many gravitational lensing images taken by Hubble in preparation for science with the new Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.
This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image features the edge-on, intermediate spiral galaxy NGC 1827, located roughly 37 million light-years away in the constellation Columba, the Dove.
NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization, and Ices Explorer) space telescope is shedding light on brown dwarfs, celestial objects that blur the line between stars and exoplanets. New findings published in The Astrophysical Journal…
First discovered in 2007, fast radio bursts are enigmatic, millisecond-long flashes of radio emission from the distant universe. Their origin remains uncertain, particularly since most are seen once and never again. Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have pinpointed…
NASA has taken the next step in the process of developing a new all-glass telescope for the LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) mission, a space observatory designed to detect ripples in space-time called gravitational waves. L3Harris Technologies will design, assemble,…
A cauldron of cosmic creation is being revealed in a new image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Webb has unveiled numerous stars formerly hidden by clouds of dust in a stellar nursery known as NGC 7129, which resides about…
New analysis of archival Hubble data points to the possibility of "dead" white dwarf stars hosting second-generation planetary systems.
In the early history of our solar system, scientists theorize that a Mars-sized object called Theia smashed into the infant Earth, vaporizing massive amounts of rock and blasting it into space. Some of that material coalesced into the Moon, where…
A commercial mission to boost NASA’s Swift observatory concluded without raising the spacecraft’s orbit, but the agency and industry vendor gained valuable experience that will benefit future in-space servicing programs.