Space Telescope

From Hubble to the James Webb Space Telescope, this is the latest on the groundbreaking images our greatest observatories capture each day.

Latest in Space Telescope

This artist’s concept visualizes a kilonova – an explosion that happens when two neutron stars or a neutron star and a black hole collide and merge. When these collisions happen, a fraction of the resulting debris is ejected as jets, which move near the speed of light. The remaining debris produces hot, glowing, neutron-rich clouds that forge heavy elements, like gold and platinum. Researchers will mine data from NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which will survey the same areas of the sky every few days, to identify kilonovae. Roman’s extensive data will help astronomers better identify how often these events occur, how much energy they give off, and how near or far they are.
Space Telescope

NASA’s new Roman Space Telescope aims to discover 100,000 cosmic explosions

By Andrew Paul

This is HOPS-315, a baby star where astronomers have observed evidence for the earliest stages of planet formation. These observations show that hot minerals are beginning to solidify. In orange we see the distribution of carbon monoxide, blowing away from the star in a butterfly-shaped wind. In blue we see a narrow jet of silicon monoxide, also beaming away from the star. These gaseous winds and jets are common around baby stars like HOPS-315.
Space Telescope

For the first time, astronomers spot the beginning of a solar system

By Laura Baisas

In this artist's impression we see the planet HIP 67522 b sending a wave of energy down the magnetic field lines towards the surface of its host star. Where the wave meets the end of the magnetic field line at the star's surface, it triggers a massive flare. Credit: Danielle Futselaar (www.artsource.nl/)
Space Telescope

Astronomers detect first known ‘death wish’ planet

By Andrew Paul

Full GOTO-North node under the skies of La Palma.
Space Telescope

Rare cataclysmic exploding star spotted by citizen scientists

By Andrew Paul

Artist illustration of an asteroid in space
Space Telescope

Asteroid 2024 YR4 might smash into the moon

By Andrew Paul

ESA's Flyeye telescope at first light test outside
Space Telescope

Bug-eyed telescope ready to find Earth-smashing asteroids

By Andrew Paul

Image of dozens of galaxies taken by Hubble Space Telescope
Space Telescope

NASA’s new space observatory is mapping the entire sky in 3D

By Andrew Paul

a blue, purple, and white galaxy whose clouds of dust and matter appear shaped like a butterfly
Space Telescope

5 dazzling interstellar images to celebrate Hubble’s 35th birthday

By Laura Baisas

Illustration of planet disintegrating during orbit around star
Space Telescope

Astronomers discover hellscape world crumbling into its host sun

By Andrew Paul

This is an artist’s impression of the exoplanet 2M1510 (AB) b’s unusual orbit around its host stars, a pair of brown dwarfs. The newly discovered planet has a polar orbit, which is perpendicular to the plane in which the two stars are travelling. Polar planets around single stars had been found before, as well as polar discs of gas and dust capable of forming planets around binary stars. But thanks to ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) this is the first time we have strong evidence that such a planet actually exists in a polar orbit around two stars. The two brown dwarfs appear as a single source in the sky, but astronomers know there are two of them because they periodically eclipse each other. Using the UVES spectrograph on the VLT they measured their orbital speed, and noticed that their orbits change over time. After carefully ruling out other explanations, they concluded that the gravitational tug of a planet in a polar orbit was the only way to explain the motion of the brown dwarfs.
Space Telescope

Exoplanet with two ‘suns’ is even more unique than Tatooine

By Andrew Paul

This Hubble image shows Uranus and dynamic aurora activity on 10 October 2022. The centered planet is dominated by a blue hue and a large white region in the lower left. A faint ring is also visible around the planet. Fuzzy blue/purple regions hovering over the planet on the left and ride indicate the presence of aurorae
Space Telescope

Uranus has a longer day than astronomers thought

By Laura Baisas

A collage of three images showing the black expanse of space. Two-thirds of the collage is taken up by the black background sprinkled with small, blurry galaxies in orange, blue, and white. There are two images in a column at the right side of the collage. On the right side of the main image, not far from the top, a very faint dot is outlined with a white square. At the right, there are two zoomed in views of this area. The top box is labeled NIRCam and shows a fuzzy dot at the center of the inset. The bottom box is labeled MIRI and shows a fuzzy pinkish dot.
Space Telescope

JWST snaps first image of asteroid that threatened Earth

By Andrew Paul

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope observed Herbig-Haro 49/50, an outflow from a nearby still-forming star, in high-resolution near- and mid-infrared light.
Space Telescope

JWST spots an energetic ‘Cosmic Tornado’ 625 light-years away

By Andrew Paul

This artist’s concept shows what the isolated planetary-mass object SIMP 0136 could look like based on recent observations from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and previous observations from Hubble, Spitzer, and numerous ground-based telescopes.
Space Telescope

Mysterious cosmic body is a rogue ‘Super-Jupiter’

By Andrew Paul

A colorful, glowing nebula that reaches beyond the top and bottom of the image. It is made of translucent clouds of gas: wispy and thin with hard edges in some places, and puffy and opaque in others. Blue, red and yellow colours mix together, showing light emitted by different types of atoms in the hot gas. Bright and pointlike stars are scattered across the nebula. The background is black
Space Telescope

Candy-colored atoms shine in new image of the Veil Nebula

By Laura Baisas

a large orange circle surrounded by a blue square
Space Telescope

Astrophysicists surprised by light show around the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole

By Laura Baisas

The ring of light surrounding the centre of the galaxy NGC 6505, captured by ESA’s Euclid telescope, is a stunning example of an Einstein ring. NGC 6505 is acting as a gravitational lens, bending light from a galaxy far behind it. The almost perfect alignment of NGC 6505 and the background galaxy has bent and magnified the light from the background galaxy into a spectacular ring. This rare phenomenon was first theorised to exist by Einstein in his general theory of relativity. This wide field shows the extended stellar halo of NGC 6505 and showcases the Einstein ring, surrounded by colourful foreground stars and background galaxies.
Space Telescope

Extremely rare ‘Einstein ring’ discovered close to Earth

By Laura Baisas

A close-in image of a protoplanetary disc around a newly formed star. Many different wavelengths of light are combined and represented by separate and various colours. A dark line across the centre is the disc, made of opaque dust: the star is hidden in here and creates a strong glow in the centre. A band going straight up is a jet, while other outflows form flares above and below the disc, and a tail coming off to one side.
Space Telescope

Newborn stars surround a planet-forming disk 450 million light years away

By Laura Baisas

A Priority Mail stamp featuring spiral galaxy NGC 628 (left). A Priority Mail Express stamp of star cluster IC 348 (right). Both of these new stamps were issued on January 21 and designed by U.S. Postal Service art director Greg Breeding.
Space Telescope

Calling all philatelists: U.S. Postal Services issues two new JWST stamps

By Laura Baisas

The first brown dwarfs outside the Milky Way.
Space Telescope

Swirling galaxy arms, a cosmic sombrero, and a dead supernova: Our favorite JWST images from 2024

By Tom Hawking