Nebulae News

October 3, 2024

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Aug. 27, 2024 — The James Webb Space Telescope has spotted six likely rogue worlds -- objects with planet-like masses but untethered from any star's gravity -- including the lightest ever identified with a dusty disk around it. The elusive objects offer new ...

SwRI-Led Team Finds Evidence of Hydration on Asteroid Psyche

Aug. 13, 2024 — Using data from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have confirmed hydroxyl molecules on the surface of the metallic asteroid Psyche. The presence of hydrated minerals suggests a complex history for Psyche, important context for the NASA ...

JWST Unveils Stunning Ejecta and CO Structures in Cassiopeia A's Young Supernova

July 15, 2024 — Researchers announced the latest findings from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) of the supernova remnant, Cassiopeia A (Cas A). These observations of the youngest known core collapse supernova ...

Scientific Definition of a Planet Says It Must Orbit Our Sun; A New Proposal Would Change That

July 11, 2024 — The International Astronomical Union defines a planet as a celestial body that orbits the sun, is massive enough that gravity has forced it into a spherical shape, and has cleared away other objects ...

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Strong Evidence for Intermediate-Mass Black Hole in Omega Centauri

July 10, 2024 — Most known black holes are either extremely massive, like the supermassive black holes that lie at the cores of large galaxies, or relatively lightweight, with a mass of under 100 times that of the ...

Fresh Wind Blows from Historical Supernova

July 5, 2024 — A mysterious remnant from a rare type of supernova recorded in 1181 has been explained for the first time. Two white dwarf stars collided, creating a temporary 'guest star,' now labeled supernova ...

Pillars of Creation Star in New Visualization from NASA's Hubble and Webb Telescopes

June 26, 2024 — Made famous in 1995 by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, the Pillars of Creation in the heart of the Eagle Nebula have captured imaginations worldwide ...

First of Its Kind Detection Made in Striking New Webb Image

June 24, 2024 — For the first time, a phenomenon astronomers have long hoped to directly image has been captured by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam). In this stunning image of the ...

Investigating the Origins of the Crab Nebula

June 17, 2024 — A team of scientists used NASA's James Webb Space Telescope to parse the composition of the Crab Nebula, a supernova remnant located 6,500 light-years away in the constellation ...

Hubble Views the Dawn of a Sun-Like Star

May 15, 2024 — Looking like a glittering cosmic geode, a trio of dazzling stars blaze from the hollowed-out cavity of a reflection nebula in a new image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The triple-star system is ...

Webb Captures Top of Iconic Horsehead Nebula in Unprecedented Detail

Apr. 30, 2024 — 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 ...

Beautiful Nebula, Violent History: Clash of Stars Solves Stellar Mystery

Apr. 11, 2024 — When astronomers looked at a stellar pair at the heart of a stunning cloud of gas and dust, they were in for a surprise. Star pairs are typically very similar, like twins, but in HD 148937, one star ...

Unlocking Supernova Stardust Secrets

Mar. 28, 2024 — New research has discovered a rare dust particle trapped in an ancient extra-terrestrial meteorite that was formed by a star other than our ...

Peering Into the Tendrils of NGC 604 With NASA's Webb

Mar. 11, 2024 — The formation of stars and the chaotic environments they inhabit is one of the most well-studied, but also mystery-shrouded, areas of cosmic investigation. The intricacies of these processes are now ...

Ultraviolet Radiation from Massive Stars Shapes Planetary Systems

Mar. 1, 2024 — Up to a certain point, very luminous stars can have a positive effect on the formation of planets, but from that point on the radiation they emit can cause the material in protoplanetary discs to ...

Webb Finds Evidence for Neutron Star at Heart of Young Supernova Remnant

Feb. 22, 2024 — NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has found the best evidence yet for emission from a neutron star at the site of a recently observed supernova. The supernova, known as SN 1987A, was a ...

The Metalens Meets the Stars

Jan. 17, 2024 — Researchers have developed a 10-centimeter-diameter glass metalens that can image the sun, the moon and distant nebulae with high resolution. It is the first all-glass, large-scale metalens in the ...

New 1.5-Billion-Pixel Image Shows Running Chicken Nebula in Unprecedented Detail

Dec. 21, 2023 — While many holiday traditions involve feasts of turkey, soba noodles, latkes or Pan de Pascua, this year, the European Southern Observatory is bringing you a holiday chicken. The so-called Running ...

Unexpected Chemistry Reveals Cosmic Star Factories' Secrets

Dec. 14, 2023 — Two galaxies in the early universe, which contain extremely productive star factories, have been studied by a team of scientists. Using powerful telescopes to split the galaxies' light into ...

Ancient Stars Made Extraordinarily Heavy Elements

Dec. 7, 2023 — How heavy can an element be? An international team of researchers has found that ancient stars were capable of producing elements with atomic masses greater than 260, heavier than any element on the ...

Dark Galactic Region Nicknamed 'The Brick' Explained With Webb Telescope Findings

Dec. 4, 2023 — Using the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers spot unexpected source of carbon monoxide ice at galactic region surprisingly devoid of ...

Rocky Planets Can Form in Extreme Environments

Nov. 30, 2023 — Astronomers have provided the first observation of water and other molecules in the highly irradiated inner, rocky-planet-forming regions of a disk in one of the most extreme environments in our ...

The Crab Nebula Seen in New Light by NASA's Webb

Oct. 30, 2023 — NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has gazed at the Crab Nebula, a supernova remnant located 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Taurus. Since the recording of this energetic event in ...

NASA's Webb Captures an Ethereal View of NGC 346

Oct. 11, 2023 — One of the greatest strengths of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is its ability to give astronomers detailed views of areas where new stars are being born. The latest example, showcased here ...

Webb Reveals New Structures Within Iconic Supernova

Aug. 31, 2023 — NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has begun the study of one of the most renowned supernovae, SN 1987A (Supernova 1987A). Located 168,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud, SN 1987A ...

James Webb Space Telescope Captures Stunning Images of the Ring Nebula

Aug. 3, 2023 — NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has recorded breath-taking new images of the iconic Ring Nebula, also known as Messier ...

Webb Snaps Highly Detailed Infrared Image of Actively Forming Stars

July 26, 2023 — Young stars are rambunctious! NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has captured the 'antics' of a pair of actively forming young stars, known as Herbig-Haro 46/47, in high-resolution ...

Stellar Cradles and Graves Seen in Farthest Galaxy Ever

July 14, 2023 — New observations have distinguished the sites of star formation and a possible site of star death from the surrounding nebula in a galaxy 13.2 billion light-years away. This is the farthest that such ...

Rare, Double-Lobe Nebula Resembles Overflowing Cosmic 'Jug'

July 13, 2023 — A billowing pair of nearly symmetrical loops of dust and gas mark the death throes of an ancient red-giant star. The resulting structure, said to resemble an old style of English jug, is a rarely ...

When the Stars Align: Astronomers Find Answers to Mysterious Action of Ghost Stars in Our Galaxy

July 13, 2023 — Scientists have found a source for the mysterious alignment of stars near the Galactic ...

Webb Locates Dust Reservoirs in Two Supernovae

July 5, 2023 — Researchers have made major strides in confirming the source of dust in early galaxies. Observations of two Type II supernovae, Supernova 2004et (SN 2004et) and Supernova 2017eaw (SN 2017eaw), have ...

First Detection of Crucial Carbon Molecule

June 26, 2023 — Scientists detect a new carbon compound in space for the first time. Known as methyl cation (pronounced cat-eye-on) (CH3+), the molecule is important because it aids the formation of more complex ...

Molecular Filament Shielded Young Solar System from Supernova

June 22, 2023 — Isotope ratios found in meteorites suggest that a supernova exploded nearby while the Sun and Solar System were still forming. But the blast wave from a supernova that close could have potentially ...

Never-Before-Seen Way to Annihilate a Star

June 22, 2023 — Astronomers studying a powerful gamma-ray burst, may have detected a never-before-seen way to destroy a star. Unlike most GRBs, which are caused by exploding massive stars or the chance mergers of ...