Purple and yellow image shows flaring off the sun. Actual data is insert in black and white

Groundbreaking Achievement: NSF Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope Produces its First Magnetic Field Maps of the Sun’s Corona

Maui, Hawaii – The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, the world’s most powerful solar telescope, designed, built, and operated by the NSF National Solar Observatory (NSO), achieved a major breakthrough in ...
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NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Finds Most Distant Known Galaxy

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Finds Most Distant Known Galaxy

Over the last two years, scientists have used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (also called Webb or JWST) to explore what astronomers refer to as Cosmic Dawn – the period in the first few hundred ...
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An illustration of a star being torn apart by a black hole. To the right of center, there is a black sphere representing a black hole, surrounded by many thick wisps of light. To the left of it, there is a fuzzy, bright white object representing a star. The star has a tail of gas coming off its right, which is brightest near the star, but becomes grayer further away. This tail flows into the black hole’s right side and swirls around the black hole in a horizontal disk. The disk is thicker toward its center and more diffuse farther away. Material in the disk also appears to wrap around the top of the black hole. Above and below the black hole, there are purple rays of light that extend upward and downward in two broad cones. This scene sits amid a black backdrop of space with many dim, white stars in the background.

NASA’s Roman Space Telescope Could Help Researchers Detect the Universe’s First Stars

The first stars to form in the universe were very different from our Sun. Known to astronomers (somewhat paradoxically) as Population III, or Pop III, stars, they were made almost entirely of hydrogen and helium ...
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Dark Energy Camera Images Cometary Globule CG 4. Stars in various brightness shine throughout the image which is red and pink on the bottom 2/3 and black along the top.

Dark Energy Camera Spies Cometary Globule Reaching for the Stars

The dark, dusty cometary globule known as CG 4 is spotlighted in this image from the Department of Energy-fabricated Dark Energy Camera mounted on the U.S. National Science Foundation Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at ...
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Gemini South Reveals Origin of Unexpected Differences in Giant Binary Stars

Gemini South Reveals Origin of Unexpected Differences in Giant Binary Stars

Using the Gemini South telescope a team of astronomers have confirmed for the first time that differences in binary stars’ composition can originate from chemical variations in the cloud of stellar material from which they ...
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A clumpy dome of blueish-gray clouds rises about a third of the way from the bottom. Above it, streaky, translucent red wisps brush upward to about halfway up the image. The top half of the image is the black background of space with one prominent, bright white star with Webb’s 8-point diffraction spikes. Additional stars and galaxies are scattered throughout the image, although very few are seen through the thick clouds at bottom and all are significantly smaller than the largest star.

Webb Captures Top of Iconic Horsehead Nebula in Unprecedented Detail

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured the sharpest infrared images to date of a zoomed-in portion of one of the most distinctive objects in our skies, the Horsehead Nebula. These observations show the top ...
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