NASA has announced that for the first time, it will contract out a private spacecraft to reboost one of its falling satellites: the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory. The observatory has spent the past 20 years searching for gamma-ray bursts. The commercial company will launch a new reboosting spacecraft in spring …
Read More »Rectangular Telescope Design Could Offer the Best Way to Find Earth-Like Planets
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has already captured some incredible images of our universe, with some game-changing insights to boot. But researchers at New York’s Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute believe the observatory would be capable of even more if it had been designed differently. Published Sunday in Frontiers in Astronomy …
Read More »Webb Telescope Spots Evidence of a Distant, Water-Rich 'Steam World'
The James Webb Space Telescope has spotted something steamy. No, not that kind of steamy. Using its spectroscopic instruments, the observatory has found evidence that a distant exoplanet’s atmosphere could be chock-full of water in its gaseous state. If Webb is on the right track, its findings will represent the …
Read More »NASA Space Telescope Spots Record-Breaking Triple Star System
As the name implies, NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) was designed to spot exoplanets, but it’s flexible. A team of professional and amateur astronomers have used the planet hunter to identify an unusual triple star system known as TIC 290061484. The remarkably close orbit of these celestial objects produced …
Read More »The Best Budget Telescope Deals for August 2024
Before we were entranced by the screens that we’ve plastered on every surface and carry around in our pockets, humanity looked to the stars for inspiration and guidance. The infinite majesty of the cosmos is way better than any show you can stream on Netflix, and it doesn’t take much …
Read More »Webb Telescope Spies Stunning Star Formation in Neighboring Galaxy
The James Webb Space Telescope is the most powerful telescope astronomers have at their disposal, but that’s not just because it’s got a big mirror (which it does). Webb’s instruments can see far into the infrared, allowing the observatory to see through clouds of dust and gas to observe the …
Read More »Space Telescope Confirms First Exoplanet
The James Webb Space Telescope was not designed exclusively to hunt for exoplanets like NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), but it can still make vital contributions to our understanding of these distant worlds. NASA has announced that Webb just confirmed its first exoplanet, a world known as LHS 475 …
Read More »Webb Space Telescope’s
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is on the verge of beginning its science operations, so the recent news that it has suffered a micrometeoroid impact is concerning. The space observatory is the long-awaited successor to Hubble, and it could serve as our window to the wider universe for the …
Read More »Nearby Super-Earths
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has been in space for about six months, which is just a fraction of the time NASA spent designing and building it. All that effort is about to pay off, though. Webb will begin science operations this summer, and some of its first …
Read More »NASA Releases Gorgeous Images
Since its launch in 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has knocked out every objective NASA set up for it. It’s fully unfolded, fully aligned, and patrolling the Sun-Earth L2 point at a balmy 6K. Now, NASA has released the first gorgeous, crystal-clear images from Webb. They compare what …
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