In 2009 a giant star 25 times more massive than the sun simply vanished. OK, it wasn't quite that simple. It underwent a period of brightening, increasing in luminosity to a million suns, just as if it was ready to explode into a supernova. But then it faded rather than exploding. And when astronomers tried to see the star using...
Southwest Research Institute scientists are using telescopes to observe the asteroid Psyche in the infrared, providing context for NASA's upcoming Psyche mission. Dr. Stephanie Jarmak is using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to look for water signatures on the metallic surface of Psyche, while Dr. Anicia Arredondo is using...
In a solar system called TRAPPIST-1, 40 light years from the sun, seven Earth-sized planets revolve around a cold star.
Astronomers using data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have identified carbon dioxide in a specific region on the icy surface of Jupiters moon Europa.
A new investigation by an international team of astronomers using data from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope into K2-18 b, an exoplanet 8.6 times as massive as Earth, has revealed the presence of carbon-bearing molecules including methane and carbon dioxide. The discovery adds to recent studies suggesting that K2-18 b...
There are more than 5,000 confirmed exoplanets in our galaxy. That number is going to rise significantly in the next decade. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has already cataloged more than 4,000 candidate exoplanets, and the PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars (PLATO) is scheduled to launch in 2026.
A University of Kansas survey of a swath of the cosmos using the James Webb Space Telescope has revealed active galactic nuclei (AGN)—supermassive black holes that are rapidly increasing in size—are rarer than many astronomers had assumed previously.
This could explain how supermassive black holes grew to have masses billions of times that of the sun so quickly in the early universe.
From when its light was emitted, the El Gordo galaxy cluster might be the most massive object in all of existence. Here's how JWST sees it.
Glowing green and gold, NGC 6822, could teach us a lot about the ancient, metal-poor universe.
The James Webb Space Telescope detected water vapor swirling around a planetary system 370 light-years away.
The James Webb Space Telescope has spotted water vapour in an area where planets may be forming, which could present an answer to the debate over how Earth got its water
It's hard to say what these possible 'dark stars' really are.
It's been one year since we saw the first official images taken by the groundbreaking James Webb Space Telescope....
