16 Iconic NASA Photos That Changed Everything
NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft captured this view of Earth—appearing as a speck of light—on February 14, 1980, at a distance of roughly 3.2 billion miles (6 billion km) from the…
Webb Telescope Spots the Second-Most-Distant Galaxy Yet
A recent deep field image from the Webb Space Telescope, showcasing a region of space known as Pandora’s Cluster, or Abell 2744, features two galaxies. These galaxies are remarkable for…
Webb and Hubble Telescopes Team Up to Image ‘Mothra’ and a Massive ‘Christmas Tree’ Cluster
It’s not yet December, but NASA is already in a festive mood: the Webb and Hubble space telescopes recently imaged MACS0416, a pair of colliding galaxy clusters 4.3 billion light-years…
Live Reveal: Euclid Space Telescope’s First Glimpse of the Dark Universe
The European Space Agency’s $1.4 billion Euclid space telescope is charged with revealing the dark universe—the 95% of the cosmos we don’t see. On Tuesday, the telescope’s first images will…
You’ve Never Seen Jupiter Look So Much Like Cotton Candy
You probably know Jupiter, the rotund fifth planet from the Sun, as orange and tan with a big red splotch. But the Hubble Space Telescope recently imaged the gas giant…
Webb Telescope Reveals a High-Speed Jet on Jupiter
In July 2022, the Webb Space Telescope detected an intense jet shooting across the equator of Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system. The jet is traveling at about…
Quasi-Planets Called JuMBOs Are Bopping Around in Space
A team of astronomers have detected over 500 planet-like objects in the inner Orion Nebula and the Trapezium Cluster that they believe could shake up the very definition of a…
The Euclid ‘Dark Universe’ Space Telescope Is Off to a Faltering Start
The European Space Agency’s Euclid space telescope launched from Earth on July 1 and has since been getting set up to begin its investigation of the dark universe. But the…
Webb Telescope Data Suggests Ancient Galaxies Were Metal-Poor and Full of Gas
In the beginning, galaxies were lacking in chemical and metal abundances, according to a team of astronomers that recently used a telescope to study the ancient universe. First Full-Color Images…
Webb Telescope Spots Carbon on Jupiter’s Moon Europa, Boosting Prospects for Alien Life
The Webb Space Telescope has made its latest significant discovery: the observation of carbon dioxide coming from a part of Europa, the frozen moon orbiting Jupiter which harbors a salty…