Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers have discovered a supermassive black hole at “cosmic dawn” that appears impossibly massive. The confusion stems from the fact that it doesn’t appear that this gigantic void was feasting on much surrounding matter at the time – but to reach its immense size you would expect it … Read more
A ‘hot Neptune’ exoplanet It has been discovered that there is sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere – an atmosphere that also spews into space as the planet orbits its star in a steeply inclined orbit every three and a third days. The existence of sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere of the exoplanet, named GJ 3470b … Read more
When it comes to hunting down the explosive deaths of massive stars in the early universe, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a true cosmic detective. This celestial Sherlock Holmes has found evidence of 80 new early supernovae in a patch of sky as wide as a grain of rice, held at arm’s length. … Read more
Using the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have discovered the richest ‘menu’ of hydrocarbons ever seen in a planet-forming disk. This observation, which involved the protoplanetary disk around a small star, also revealed the first detection of ethane outside the Solar System. The discovery was made when the James Webb Space Telescope’s (JWST) Mid-Infrared Instrument … Read more
We’ll get an update on NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope tomorrow (June 4), and it could be a pretty big deal. On June 3, the agency announced that the Hubble Space Telescope team will hold a press conference tomorrow at 4:00 PM EDT (2000 GMT) on the status of the observatory. Specifically, officials said the purpose … Read more
When people think about what we get out of the U.S. space program, it might be along the lines of NASA technology spinoffs, like freeze-dried food and emergency space blankets. But space activities do much more that benefits life on Earth. Research in space helps scientists study our environment, develop new technologies, create jobs, grow … Read more
When people think about what we get out of the U.S. space program, it might be along the lines of NASA technology spinoffs, like freeze-dried food and emergency space blankets. But space activities do much more that benefits life on Earth. Research in space helps scientists study our environment, develop new technologies, create jobs, grow … Read more
When I sat down with Jane Rigby last month, in a conference room on the top floor of the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis—a quiet respite from the horde of families sifting through cosmic exhibits and dinosaur bones below—her eyes were warm and measured. She also carried a menagerie of gravitationally lensed galaxies. Her T-shirt was … Read more
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has observed light from stars around some of the universe’s former supermassive black holes – black holes as they appeared less than a billion years after the Big Bang. The observations from a team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) address the question of how these cosmic titans, … Read more
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has made a weather report for a distant planet. The powerful space telescope predicts extreme wind speeds, blistering hot temperatures and blankets of rock clouds for the world, called Wasp-43b. As such, the extrasolar planet, or ‘exoplanet’, shows just how strange alien planets outside the solar system can be. … Read more