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Latest by G. Torbet

This artist’s concept shows a cutaway of Mars, along with the paths of seismic waves from two separate quakes in 2021. Detected by NASA’s InSight mission, these seismic waves were the first ever identified to enter another planet’s core.

NASA’s InSight lander looks into Mars to study the planet’s core

NASA's Mars InSight may have come to the end of its mission last year, but data from the lander is still being used to contribute to science.
Rubin Observatory network technician Guido Maulen installs fiber optic cables on the Top End Assembly of the telescope mount.

Inside the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, home of the world’s largest digital camera

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory houses the world's largest digital camera. Here's how it'll help astronomers explore the cosmos
Astronomers are celebrating the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s 33rd launch anniversary with an ethereal photo of a nearby star-forming region, NGC 1333. The nebula is in the Perseus molecular cloud, and is located approximately 960 light-years away.

Hubble celebrates its 33rd birthday with stunning nebula image

Nebula NGC 1333 is a busy stellar nursery, with new stars forming among the cloud of dust and gas located 960 light-years away.
spacex starship launch explosion

SpaceX Starship rocket launches in first test flight, but explodes in midair

SpaceX has launched its integrated Starship for the first time, with the spacecraft leaving the launch pad in a test flight. But not everything went to plan.
Shining like a brilliant beacon amidst a sea of galaxies, Arp 220 lights up the night sky in this view from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Actually two spiral galaxies in the process of merging, Arp 220 glows brightest in infrared light, making it an ideal target for Webb. It is an ultra-luminous infrared galaxy (ULIRG) with a luminosity of more than a trillion suns. In comparison, our Milky Way galaxy has a much more modest luminosity of about ten billion suns.

James Webb captures a stunning image of two galaxies merging

The James Webb Space Telescope has captured a gorgeous image of a dramatic cosmic event: two galaxies colliding.
Shortly after launch on 14 April, ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, Juice, captured this stunning view of Earth. The coastline around the Gulf of Aden can be made out to the right of centre, with patchy clouds above land and sea.

JUICE mission to Jupiter sends back first images of Earth from space

The European Space Agency's Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer spacecraft has sent back its first images from space -- and they are some stunning views of the Earth.
SpaceX's Starship rocket on the pad in Boca Chica, Texas.

SpaceX scrubs launch of world’s most powerful rocket due to valve issue

The planned first launch of the SpaceX Super Heavy rocket was called off due to a frozen valve, and the event turned into a wet dress rehearsal instead.
ESA’s latest interplanetary mission, Juice, lifted off on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French 09:14 local time/14:14CEST on 14 April 2023 to begin its eight-year journey to Jupiter, where it will study in detail the gas giant planet’s three large ocean-bearing moons: Ganymede, Callisto and Europa.

See highlights of the launch of the European JUICE spacecraft

See video of an Ariane 5 rocket launching the European Space agency's JUICE mission to Jupiter's icy moons from this morning.
A team of researchers, including an astronomer with NSF’s NOIRLab, has developed a new machine-learning technique to enhance the fidelity and sharpness of radio interferometry images. To demonstrate the power of their new approach, which is called PRIMO, the team created a new, high-fidelity version of the iconic Event Horizon Telescope's image of the supermassive black hole at the center of Messier 87, a giant elliptical galaxy located 55 million light-years from Earth. The image of the M87 supermassive black hole originally published by the EHT collaboration in 2019 (left); and a new image generated by the PRIMO algorithm using the same data set (right).

Machine learning used to sharpen the first image of a black hole

A machine learning technique called PRIMO has sharpened the famous first-ever image of a black hole from 2019.
An Ariane 5 rocket containing the Juice spacecraft on the launchpad at Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, on Thursday April 13 2023.

Launch of Europe’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer delayed by 24 hours

The launch of the European Space Agency's JUICE mission to the icy moons of Jupiter has been delayed by 24 hours due to weather conditions.
Artist's impression of the JUICE spacecraft exploring Jupiter and its giant moon Ganymede.

What the JUICE spacecraft is hoping to learn about Jupiter’s icy moons

Tomorrow sees the launch of the JUICE spacecraft, which will travel to the Jupiter system to investigate whether the moons there could be potentially habitable.
This image of the Crab Nebula combines data from NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) in magenta and NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory in dark purple.

NASA’s IXPE mission gets an X-ray view of the famous Crab Nebula

A NASA X-ray instrument has provided a new view of one of astronomy's most beautiful objects, the Crab Nebula.
Cassiopeia A (Cas A) is a supernova remnant located about 11,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cassiopeia. It spans approximately 10 light-years. This new image uses data from Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) to reveal Cas A in a new light.

James Webb captures stunning image of supernova remnant Cassiopeia A

A stunning new image from the James Webb Space Telescope shows a famous supernova remnant called Cassiopeia A, or Cas A.
Sally Ride NASA

How NASA’s astronaut class of 1978 changed the face of space exploration

NASA's 1978 astronaut class was a turning point for the agency, and it set the stage for the more diverse and inclusive space program we have today
This is an artist's impression of a runaway supermassive black hole that was ejected from its host galaxy as a result of a tussle between it and two other black holes. As the black hole plows through intergalactic space it compresses tenuous gas in front to it. This precipitates the birth of hot blue stars. This illustration is based on Hubble Space Telescope observations of a 200,000-light-year-long contrail of stars behind an escaping black hole.

Unique black hole is trailed by 200,000 light-year-long tail of stars

A strange, lonely supermassive black hole is trailed by a tail of stars that's twice as long as the Milky Way is wide.
This zoomed-in image of Uranus, captured by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) on 6 February 2023, reveals stunning views of the planet’s rings. The planet displays a blue hue in this representative-colour image, made by combining data from two filters (F140M, F300M) at 1.4 and 3.0 microns, shown here as blue and orange, respectively.

James Webb captures the rarely-seen rings around Uranus

Following up on its image of Neptune released last year, astronomers using Webb have just released a brand-new image of Uranus as you've never seen it before.
This artist's concept shows the brilliant glare of two quasars residing in the cores of two galaxies that are in the chaotic process of merging. The gravitational tug-of-war between the two galaxies ignites a firestorm of star birth.

Hubble spots an ancient pair of supermassive black holes about to merge

Recently, astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope spotted two quasars burning brightly in the night sky -- and they're on a collision course.
This is a composite image showing the Saturn Lyman-alpha bulge, an emission from hydrogen which is a persistent and unexpected excess detected by three distinct NASA missions, namely Voyager 1, Cassini, and the Hubble Space Telescope between 1980 and 2017.

Saturn’s rings are raining down particles on its atmosphere

New research using the Hubble Space Telescope shows that Saturn's icy rings actually heat up its upper atmosphere.
The crew of NASA’s Artemis II mission (left to right): NASA astronauts Christina Hammock Koch, Reid Wiseman (seated), Victor Glover, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen.

Here are the 4 astronauts who will travel to the moon for Artemis II

This crew of four will be the first people to leave low-Earth orbit in over 50 years.
This image shows the rocky outcrop the Perseverance science team calls Berea after the NASA Mars rover extracted a rock core and abraded a circular patch. The image was taken by the rover's Mastcam-Z instrument on March 30, 2023.

Perseverance rover collects its first sample from Jezero delta

The sample is rich in carbonate, a chemical compound that is excellent at preserving signs of life.
Perseverance looks towards the Delta on Sol 419, capturing this image with its Right Navigation Camera.

Perseverance and Ingenuity play a game of tag across Mars

The Perseverance rover is trundling across Mars's Jezero Crater, on its way to explore the site of an ancient river delta -- and it's got a friend with it.
The galaxy JW100 (lower right) features prominently in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The streams of star-forming gas dripping from the disk of the galaxy like streaks of fresh paint are formed by a process called ram pressure stripping. Their resemblance to dangling tentacles led astronomers to refer to JW100 as a ‘jellyfish’ galaxy. JW100 is over 800 million light-years away, in the constellation Pegasus.

There’s a cosmic jellyfish in this week’s Hubble image

Jellyfish galaxies have a main body of stars, with tentacle-like structures reaching off away from the body in just one direction.
An artist’s impression of Uranus and its five largest moons (innermost to outermost) Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania and Oberon.

Two of Uranus’ moons could host oceans, new research suggests

Researchers looked through almost 40-year-old data from the NASA Voyager 2 mission and found something unexpected.
Artist's concept of a near-Earth object.

An asteroid is making a close approach to Earth, and scientists are pumped

An asteroid will pass within 100,000 miles of Earth, which is around half the distance between Earth and the moon.
Still from the video of Jezero crater created by merging data from various Mars orbiting spacecraft.

See Mars’s beautiful Jezero Crater from the air in flyover video

Take a virtual flight over the famous Jezero Crater on Mars, thanks to the European Space Agency.
An artist’s depiction of the interstellar comet ‘Oumuamua, as it warmed up in its approach to the sun and outgassed hydrogen (white mist), which slightly altered its orbit. The comet, which is most likely pancake-shaped, is the first known object other than dust grains to visit our solar system from another star.

We now know what caused comet ‘Oumuamua’s strange orbit

It wasn't aliens that sent an interstellar comet to visit our solar system. The explanation is a phenomenon called outgassing.
This artist’s illustration shows the ejection of a cloud of debris after NASA’s DART spacecraft collided with the asteroid Dimorphos. The image was created with the help of the close-up photographs of Dimorphos that the DRACO camera on the DART spacecraft took right before the impact. The DART spacecraft collided with Dimorphos at a speed of over 6 kilometres per second (about 22 000 kilometres per hour). After the impact several telescopes observed the evolution of the cloud of debris, including ESO’s Very Large Telescope.

Scientists observe the aftermath of a spacecraft crashing into asteroid

When NASA crashed a spacecraft into an asteroid, it wasn't only a thrilling test of planetary defense. It was also a unique opportunity for scientists.
This illustration conceptualises the swirling clouds identified by the James Webb Space Telescope in the atmosphere of the exoplanet VHS 1256 b. The planet is about 40 light-years away and orbits two stars that are locked in their own tight rotation. Its clouds, which are filled with silicate dust, are constantly rising, mixing, and moving during its 22-hour day.

James Webb spots exoplanet with gritty clouds of sand floating in its atmosphere

Exoplanet VHS 1256 b, around 40 light-years away, has an unusual atmosphere where clouds of sand float in temperatures of 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit.
[Jupiter: left] - The forecast for Jupiter is for stormy weather at low northern latitudes. A prominent string of alternating storms is visible, forming a ‘vortex street’ as some planetary astronomers call it. [Uranus: right] - Uranus’s north pole shows a thickened photochemical haze that looks similar to the smog over cities. Several little storms can be seen near the edge of the polar haze boundary. Note: The planets do not appear in this image to scale.

Hubble sees the changing seasons on Jupiter and Uranus

Our planet isn't the only place in the solar system with dramatic weather changes - Hubble recently captured seasonal changes to two of the outer planets.
Some exoplanets have one side permanently facing their star while the other side is in perpetual darkness. The ring-shaped border between these permanent day and night regions is called a “terminator zone.” In a new paper in The Astrophysical Journal, physics and astronomy researchers at UC Irvine say this area has the potential to support extraterrestrial life.

Tidally locked exoplanets could be habitable in the ‘terminator zone’

There are exoplanets where one side is always in sunlight and the other is always dark. But a particular region of these planets could be habitable.
This image shows just a portion of M55, the cluster as a whole appears spherical because the stars’ intense gravitational attraction pulls them together. Hubble’s clear view above Earth’s atmosphere resolves individual stars in this cluster. Ground-based telescopes can also resolve individual stars in M55, but fewer stars are visible.

A sparkling field of stars cluster together in Hubble image

A Hubble image of the galaxy Messier 55 shows a stunning sea of stars in an enormous group called a globular cluster.
Using observations from different NASA missions, this map shows where the Moon’s shadow will cross the U.S. during the 2023 annular solar eclipse and 2024 total solar eclipse. The map was developed by NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio (SVS) in collaboration with the NASA Heliophysics Activation Team (NASA HEAT), part of NASA’s Science Activation portfolio.

NASA map shows where you can see a solar eclipse across the U.S.

NASA has created a map of the U.S. showing when and where you can see a solar eclipse in 2023 and 2024.
The SpaceX Dragon Endeavour crew ship is pictured docked to the Harmony module's space-facing international docking adapter. Endeavour carried four Axiom Mission 1 astronauts, Commander Michael Lopez-Alegria, Pilot Larry Connor, and Mission Specialists Eytan Stibbe and Mark Pathy, to the International Space Station for several days of research, education, and commercial activities.

Axiom Space to send third private mission to the International Space Station

Axiom Space will send a third private mission to the International Space Station, scheduled for November this year.
UGCA 307 hangs against an irregular backdrop of distant galaxies in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The small galaxy consists of a diffuse band of stars containing red bubbles of gas that mark regions of recent star formation, and lies roughly 26 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Corvus. Appearing as just a small patch of stars, UGCA 307 is a diminutive dwarf galaxy without a defined structure — resembling nothing more than a hazy patch of passing cloud.

A small, fuzzy dwarf galaxy in our neighborhood captured by Hubble

This week's image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows a galaxy in our backyard, cosmically speaking, taken as part of a project to image nearby galaxies.