Telescopes

Deep-field images from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope revealed 300 unusually energetic early galaxy candidates, offering new insights into how the universe formed and evolved over 13 billion years ago.

NASA's Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) telescope has detected unexpected X-ray polarization from the "heartbeat black hole," formally known as IGR J17091-3624.

Astronomers using the James Webb telescope alongside Canada's CHIME telescope have pinpointed the origin of one of the brightest blasts of radio energy ever detected in Earth's skies.

As missions like Kepler and TESS discovered more rocky exoplanets in recent years, scientists looked forward to the launch of the JWST. The powerful space telescope has the ability to gather infrared spectra of exoplanet atmospheres, a key need in understanding the planets being discovered. It was hoped that these atmospheric characterizations would advance our understanding of habitability.

New data from the James Webb telescope suggests that Bennu and Ryugu — two asteroids recently visited by sample-return missions — are both fragments of a single massive "parent".

In 2022, astronomers announced the discovery of GJ 3929b. It's a rocky planet, similar to Earth in both mass and size. Astronomers have examined the planet with the JWST and concluded that it's a barren world with no atmosphere.

The JWST has found another moon orbiting Uranus. It's the planet's 29th known moon, and it bears the uninspiring, temporary name S/2025 U1. It's too small and faint to be detected by the Hubble, or by Voyager 2, the only spacecraft to visit the ice giant.

JWST images from Feb 2025 revealed a tiny new moon around Uranus, raising its known moon count to 29.

Using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, a team led by the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) has identified a

Hubble’s newest view of the spiral galaxy NGC 2835 adds a stunning twist to a familiar sight. By capturing light in a special wavelength called H-alpha, astronomers have revealed glowing pink nebulae that mark where stars are born and where they fade away.

Uranus' 29th moon was hidden inside the planet's dark inner rings, new observations from the James Webb Space Telescope reveal.

Hubble has taken the clearest image to date of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, which is racing through our solar system at 130,000 miles per hour. Astronomers are using Hubble and other telescopes to better understand its icy nucleus and chemical composition.

Using the powerful James Webb Space Telescope, scientists have spotted a moon nestled near Uranus’s rings that’s so small you could walk around it

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image zooms in on the feathery spiral arms of the galaxy NGC 45, which lies just 22 million light-years away in the constellation Cetus (the Whale).

Astronomers used the James Webb Space Telescope to investigate whether the most distant star identified in the universe is, in fact, a star cluster.

Hubble has captured the faint beauty of NGC 45, a spiral galaxy in Cetus whose glowing pink star-forming clouds reveal hidden activity. It belongs to the rare class of low surface brightness galaxies, dimmer than the night sky yet rich in gas and dark matter.

The exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 d intrigues astronomers looking for possibly habitable worlds beyond our Solar System because it is similar in size to Earth, rocky, and resides in an area around its star where liquid water on its surface is theoretically possible. But according to a new study using data from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, it does not have an Earth-like atmosphere.

Astronomers using the James Webb telescope have zoomed in on a 'Little Red Dot' that existed just 500 million years after the Big Bang, and found that it may contain the earliest known black hole in the universe.

This telescope has revealed the whipped-up dust from the birth of a star—and a shining background galaxy—more clearly than ever before

University of Warwick astronomers, in partnership with institutions in Spain, are showing how astronomy tools, that are usually used to study stars, can be repurposed as climate sensors, helping us track how Earth's atmosphere is changing in the face of global warming.

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image captures incredible details in the dusty clouds of a star-forming factory called the Tarantula Nebula. Most of the nebulae Hubble images are in our galaxy, but this nebula is in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy located about 160,000 light-years away in the constellations Dorado and Mensa.

Hubble’s latest portrait of the Tarantula Nebula reveals a turbulent star-making region far beyond the Milky Way. Located 160,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud, this cosmic expanse is home to some of the most massive stars ever discovered—up to 200 times the Sun’s mass. The image captures intricate dust clouds, intense stellar winds from rare Wolf–Rayet stars, and the extraordinary chaos that fuels the birth of new suns.

Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have observed 3I/ATLAS, only the third known object from outside our solar system to visit our neighborhood. This interstellar interloper is putting on quite a show as it approaches the sun, revealing secrets about visitors from the depths of space.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory will have 13 months to develop a low-orbit telescope that will be part of a space mission expected to launch in 2027 to help select future moon landing sites, map mineral deposits, and eventually identify deep space threats to Earth.

The James Webb telescope's 100-hour reexamination of one of Hubble's most iconic extragalactic images reveals extraordinary new details.

A mysterious visitor from another star system is putting on a spectacular show as it streaks through our Solar System, shedding tons of ancient dust and revealing secrets from the depths of interstellar space. Using the Hubble Space Telescope, a team of astronomers have captured unprecedented details of 3I/ATLAS—only the third confirmed object from beyond our Solar System as it awakens under our Sun's warmth, offering a rare glimpse into alien worlds billions of kilometres away.

Alpha Centauri may have a "disappearing planet', new James Webb Space Telescope observations hint. If confirmed, it could be the closest alien planet to Earth that orbits in its star's habitable zone.

New images from the Hubble telescope show an extrasolar entity as it hurtles through our solar system at speeds of more than 130,000 mph (210,000 km/h).

Astronomers found strong evidence that a gassy Jupiter-size world is orbiting Alpha Centauri A, one of three stars in the solar system closest to our own.

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have found strong evidence of a giant planet orbiting a star in the stellar system closest to our own Sun. At just 4 light-years away from Earth, the Alpha Centauri triple star system has long been a compelling target in the search for worlds beyond our solar system.

The Hubble Space Telescope has captured the best picture yet of a high-speed comet visiting our solar system from another star.

In some of its most ambitious work yet, the James Webb Space Telescope looked to spot a planet in a potentially habitable orbit around Alpha Centauri A, the nearest sunlike star to our solar system

A team of astronomers has taken the sharpest-ever picture of the unexpected interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS using the crisp vision of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Hubble is one of many missions across NASA's fleet of space telescopes slated to observe this comet, together providing more information about its size and physical properties. While the comet poses no threat to Earth, NASA's space telescopes help support the agency's ongoing mission to find, track, and better understand near-Earth objects.

Hubble has helped uncover a white dwarf that’s likely the result of two stars crashing together. Carbon traces in its atmosphere tell a story of a cosmic merger, a rare phenomenon previously invisible in ordinary optical light.

High-speed winds on exoplanet WASP-17b may align quartz crystals in its atmosphere and create dazzling light effects like "sun dogs."

The James Webb Space Telescope’s latest look at a planetary nebula, NGC 6072, provides new insights into the lifecycle of stars. This could help astronomers predict what will happen to our Sun during its final days as well.

Technicians have successfully installed two sunshields onto NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope’s inner segment. Along with the observatory’s Solar Array Sun Shield and Deployable Aperture Cover, the panels (together called the Lower Instrument Sun Shade), will play a critical role in keeping Roman’s instruments cool and stable as the mission explores the infrared universe. […]

Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), an international team of astronomers has observed a distant faint galaxy designated JADES-GS-z14-1. Results of the observational campaign, published July 30 on the arXiv preprint server, provide more insights into the nature and properties of this galaxy.

Rich with detail, the spiral galaxy NGC 1309 shines in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image. NGC 1309 is about 100 million light-years away in the constellation Eridanus.

JWST observations of light sources before the first galaxies should have formed are raising new questions about our galactic origins

Using the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii, astronomers have captured an image of comet 3I/ATLAS, an interstellar object

This image from the James Webb Space Telescope revisits one of the most iconic regions of the sky, the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. The result is a detailed view of thousands of distant galaxies, some dating back to the earliest periods of cosmic history.

Telescopes have come a long way since the first one was invented in 1608. So what's the most powerful telescope operating today, and how far can it see?

Astronomers have long voiced concerns about Starlink's satellite constellation interfering with observations of the universe, and a new survey by Curtin University confirms those fears.

Author(s): Peizhi Du, Rouven Essig, Bernard J. Rauscher, and Hailin XuResearchers have analyzed “blank” calibration images, seeking signs of dark matter moving through the telescope. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 051002] Published Thu Jul 31, 2025

Author(s): Marric StephensResearchers have analyzed “blank” calibration images, seeking signs of dark matter moving through the telescope. [Physics 18, s105] Published Thu Jul 31, 2025

Technicians have successfully installed two sunshields onto NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope's inner segment. Along with the observatory's Solar Array Sun Shield and Deployable Aperture Cover, the panels (together called the Lower Instrument Sun Shade) will play a critical role in keeping Roman's instruments cool and stable as the mission explores the infrared universe.

Gutting the National Science Foundation’s budget would prevent the agency from breaking ground on the Thirty Meter Telescope in Hawaii.

We’ve been talking about sending a radio telescope to the far side of the Moon for awhile now. Now that reality is one step closer with the completion of the design and construction phase of the Lunar Surface Electromagnetics Experiment-Night (LuSEE-Night) radio telescope project. This milestone marks a major step in the development of the system, which is planned to launch on a lunar lander in 2026.

What can carbon dioxide (CO₂) on Saturn’s moons teach scientists about their formation and evolution? This is what a recent study submitted to The Planetary Science Journal hopes to address as a team of researchers investigated the different types of CO₂ that exist on several of Saturn’s mid-sized moons. This study has the potential to help scientists better understand the existence of CO₂ on planetary bodies and what this could mean for their formation and evolution, and potentially whether they could possess life as we know it.

The swirling spiral galaxy in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is NGC 3285B, which resides 137 million light-years away in the constellation Hydra (the Water Snake). Hydra has the largest area of the 88 constellations that cover the entire sky in a celestial patchwork. It's also the longest constellation, stretching 100 degrees across the sky. It would take nearly 200 full moons, placed side by side, to reach from one side of the constellation to the other.

Using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), astronomers have observed a nearby ultra-diffuse galaxy designated F8D1. The new observations, presented July 17 on the pre-print server arXiv, deliver important insights into the star formation history of this galaxy.

The recently discovered comet is the third interstellar object discovered wandering through our solar system.

Captured in infrared light by the James Webb Space Telescope, the peculiar star system Apep consists of two dying stars spewing their innards at each other.

In the sprawling Hydra constellation, 137 million light-years away, lies NGC 3285B—a dazzling spiral galaxy recently spotlighted by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. This cosmic beauty orbits the edges of the massive Hydra I galaxy cluster, home to some of the universe’s largest elliptical galaxies. What drew astronomers’ eyes was a brilliant Type Ia supernova, a cataclysmic stellar explosion bright enough to briefly rival billions of Suns.

The day before my thesis examination, my friend and radio astronomer Joe Callingham showed me an image we'd been awaiting for five long years—an infrared photo of two dying stars we'd requested from the Very Large Telescope in Chile.

Astronomers at MIT, Columbia University, and elsewhere have used NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to peer through the dust of nearby galaxies and into the aftermath of a black hole's stellar feast.

The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory has completed the "major item of equipment" phase for the Lunar Surface Electromagnetics Experiment-Night (LuSEE-Night), a moon-based radio telescope set to make history.

Black holes played a critical role in the formation of the early universe. However, astronomers have been debating for a long time just how critical, as the information we had about early black holes, which exist at high red-shifts, was relatively limited.

Black holes played a critical role in the formation of the early universe. However, astronomers have been debating for a long time just how critical, as the information we had about early black holes, which exist at high red-shifts, was relatively limited. A new paper from a group of researchers led by Sophia Geris at the University of Cambridge combined several spectra from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to add some context to the formation of black holes early in the universe, and found that there are plenty of smaller ones lurking around, and lending credence to the idea that black holes of all sizes contributed to the formation of our modern universe.

Stellar mass black holes are created by core-collapse supernovae. These occur when massive stars near the end of their lives collapse in on themselves and form a black hole. Supermassive black holes form through mergers with other massive black holes. But their could be a third kind, called direct-collapse black holes, and the JWST found evidence of one.

NASA’s Roman Space Telescope is set to embark on a deep-sky survey that could capture nearly 100,000 cosmic explosions, shedding light on everything from dark energy to black hole physics. Its High-Latitude Time-Domain Survey will revisit the same region of the sky every five days for two years, catching transient phenomena like supernovae — particularly type Ia, which are cosmic mileposts for tracking the universe’s expansion. Roman’s simulations suggest it could push the boundary of what we know about the early universe, observing ancient supernovae over 11.5 billion years old.

When the JWST began science observations in July 2022, it flung open a whole new window on the universe. The JWST looked further back in time than any other telescope, and it revealed several surprises. One of them was the Little Red Dots (LRD), ancient, faint objects that the powerful space telescope detected as far back as only 600 million years after the Big Bang.

What are the JWST's Little Red Dots? While they appear to be galaxies, there's no observational certainty. New research examines the idea that they're actually stars, suggesting that they're actually the progenitors for supermassive black holes.

Using data from the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have discovered dormant galaxies with a wide range of masses in the first billion years after the Big Bang, moving one step closer to understanding how early galaxies grow.

Radio telescopes usually have giant dishes, but not these all-sky antenna arrays

New photos, including a striking technicolor timelapse, show off the newly discovered interstellar object 3I/ATLAS as it shoots toward us through the solar system.

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope isn't due to launch until May 2027, but astronomers are preparing for its science operations by running simulated operations. One of those involves supernovae, massive stars the end their lives in gargantuan explosions. Research shows that the Roman could find 100,000 supernovae in one of its surveys.

The Subaru Telescope has made an exciting discovery: a small body beyond Pluto, with implications for the formation, evolution, and current structure of the outer solar system.

Hubble’s crystal-clear look at NGC 1786—an ancient globular cluster tucked inside the Large Magellanic Cloud—pulls us 160,000 light-years from Earth and straight into a cosmic time machine. Packed with stars of several different ages, this glittering sphere helps astronomers test whether layered “generations” of suns are common across galaxies. By comparing NGC 1786 and other dwarf-galaxy clusters with those orbiting the Milky Way, researchers hope to retrace how both the LMC and our own galaxy pieced themselves together in the early universe.

Sometimes, in order to support an idea, you first have to discredit alternative, competing ideas that could take resources away from the one you care about. In the scientific community, one of the most devastating ways you can do that is by making the other methods appear to be too expensive to be feasible, or, better yet, prove they wouldn't work at all due to some fundamental limitation. That is what a recent paper by Dr. Slava Turyshev, the world's most prominent proponent of a solar gravitational lens (SGL) telescope mission, does.

A massive, spacetime-warping cluster of galaxies is the setting of today's NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image. The galaxy cluster in question is Abell 209, located 2.8 billion light-years away in the constellation Cetus (the Whale).

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Sometimes in order to support an idea, you first have to discredit alternative, competing ideas that could take resources away from the one you care about. In the scientific community, one of the most devastating ways you can do that is by making the other methods appear to be too expensive to be feasible, or, better yep, prove they wouldn’t work at all due to some fundamental limitation. That is what a recent paper by Dr. Slava Turyshev, the world’s most prominent proponent of a Solar Gravitational Lens (SGL) telescope mission, does. He examines how effective alternative telescope technologies would be at creating a 10x10 pixel map of an exoplanet about 32 light years away. Unsurprisingly, there’s only one that is able to do so without giant leaps and bounds in technology development - the SGL telescope.

At the 246th American Astronomical Society meeting in Alaska last month, scientists discussed how Trump's budget cuts could affect operations for the Hubble Space Telescope and JWST.

The mighty James Webb and Hubble space telescopes united to reveal stars being born inside the Small Magellanic Cloud, which orbits the Milky Way.

Portrait of a galaxy cluster

It's assumed that our region of the Universe isn't special, and the Hubble Tension, or mismatch of expansion rates of the Universe at different times, is happening everywhere. But what if our place is unusual, for example, if the Milky Way is inside a lower-density region of the Universe, with stronger gravity pulling material away from us in all directions? A new paper suggests we might be in a void that's emptying out towards higher-density regions all around us.

On July 11, 2022, the James Webb Space Telescope finished its commissioning and commenced science operations. In the three years since, the powerful infrared space telescope has delivered on its promise. It's looked back in time and surprised us with the galaxies it found. It's directly-imaged exoplanets and studied the atmospheres of others. Among this and all of its other science, it's delivered a stream of stunning images.

On June 14 and 16, technicians installed solar panels onto NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, one of the final steps in assembling the observatory. Collectively called the Solar Array Sun Shield, these panels will power and shade the observatory, enabling all the mission’s observations and helping keep the instruments cool. “At this point, the […]

It's crazy to think that the JWST has already been working for three years. It's repeatedly impressed us not only with its powerful science observations, but also with stunning images that capture our interest even if we didn't know what we were seeing. Now, the telescope is celebrating its third anniversary with a glorious image of the Cat's Paw Nebula.

On June 14 and 16, technicians installed solar panels onto NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, one of the final steps in assembling the observatory. Collectively called the Solar Array Sun Shield, these panels will power and shade the observatory, enabling all the mission's observations and helping keep the instruments cool.

Cosmic dust does far more than float through space. It's the raw material from which stars, planets and possibly even life emerge. Yet astronomers have long puzzled over where this vast amount of dust comes from and what it's made of.

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The question of how life began has captivated humanity for millennia. Now, a team of scientists are preparing to use NASA's upcoming Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) to test different theories about life's origins by studying planets beyond our solar system.

With options to suit beginners and seasoned astronomers, we've rounded up the 10 best telescope deals that are worth buying this Prime Day.

This 4-inch telescope may not be as cheap as previous deals, but we still think it's worth the investment this Prime Day.

A team of scientists are preparing to use NASA's upcoming Habitable Worlds Observatory to answer one of the most profound questions of all time: How does life begin? Rather than searching for individual signs of life, the team plan to study patterns across dozens of exoplanets to test competing theories about the origins of life; from scenarios where life is so rare we might be alone within 33 light-years, to theories predicting that life emerges wherever basic conditions exist. This approach could transform perhaps our oldest question into testable science, potentially revealing whether our biosphere is an accident or part of a universe teeming with life.

Located billions of light-years away, the "Cosmic Owl" is a pair of colliding ring galaxies spotted by the JWST. It's also an "exceptional natural laboratory" for studying how galaxies evolve.

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured a bright variable star, V 372 Orionis, and its companion in this festive image in this image released on Jan. 27, 2023. The pair lie in the Orion Nebula, a colossal region of star formation roughly 1,450 light-years from Earth.

Astronomers suggest Earth lies in a giant cosmic void, possibly explaining faster local expansion and offering clues to resolve the Hubble tension and date the universe.

Cosmic dust does far more than float through space. It's the raw material from which stars, planets and possibly even life emerge. Yet astronomers have long puzzled over where this vast amount of dust comes from and what it's made of.

Earth and our entire Milky Way galaxy may sit inside a mysterious giant hole which makes the cosmos expand faster here than in neighboring regions of the universe, astronomers say.

The Milky Way and other similar galaxies have two distinct disk sections. One is the thin disk section, and it contains mostly younger stars with higher metallicity. The second is the thick disk, and it contains older stars with lower metallicity. The effort to study these disks in more galaxies and in greater detail has been stymied. But now we have the JWST, and researchers used it to examine more than 100 distant, edge-on galaxies.

Astronomers have achieved a first in exoplanet hunting by using the Hubble Space Telescope images to investigate a mysterious event that could reveal the existence of a "rogue planet" drifting through space without a host star.

This unprecedented view of the Bullet Cluster provided by the James Webb Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory reveals how the dark matter is distributed.

Scientists say that the construction of a vast new radio telescope array in the Utah desert — known as the Deep Synoptic Array 2000 — could uncover some of the biggest outstanding mysteries in astronomy.

A previously unexplored globular cluster glitters with multicolored stars in this NASA Hubble Space Telescope image. Globular clusters like this one, called ESO 591-12 or Palomar 8, are spherical collections of tens of thousands to millions of stars tightly bound together by gravity.