Inbox Astronomy: NASA's Hubble Uncovers Rare White Dwarf Merger Remnant

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NASA's Hubble Uncovers Rare White Dwarf Merger Remnant

Release date: Wednesday, August 13, 2025 10:00:05 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Forensic evidence comes from dwarf’s unusual spectrum

Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have found forensic evidence, in unique ultraviolet spectral "fingerprints," that a red giant star is merging with a white dwarf companion star. The clue is that the dwarf — a burned-out cinder of a collapsed Sun-like star — has had its outer hydrogen and helium layers stripped down, exposing subsurface carbon. This showed up in the spectrum of the white dwarf. Also, the white dwarf is rare in that it is slightly more massive than our Sun, which is uncommon for dwarfs. Most dwarfs are a fraction our Sun’s mass. This doomed, more massive dwarf is hotter than most other white dwarfs.

Our Sun will run out of fuel and collapse down to a white dwarf in roughly 5 billion years. But there’s nothing lurking out there that will eat it.

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Inbox Astronomy: Webb Narrows Atmospheric Possibilities for Earth-sized Exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 d

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Webb Narrows Atmospheric Possibilities for Earth-sized Exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 d

Release date: Wednesday, August 13, 2025 10:00:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Could planets orbiting red dwarf stars like TRAPPIST-1 be habitable? Webb scientists say the investigation is ongoing.

A protective atmosphere, a friendly Sun, and lots of liquid water — Earth is a special place. Using the unprecedented capabilities of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers are on a mission to determine just how special, and rare, our home planet is. Can this temperate environment exist elsewhere, even around a different type of star? 

The TRAPPIST-1 system provides a tantalizing opportunity to explore this question, as it contains seven Earth-sized worlds orbiting the most common type of star in the galaxy: a red dwarf. 

Webb has studied TRAPPIST-1 d, the “third rock” from the system’s red dwarf sun. Though the planet’s distance from its star puts it on the cusp of a potentially temperate zone, Webb’s initial data do not show an atmosphere. However, one may be present under certain conditions that haven’t yet been tested. Scientists say that this doesn’t mean that all hope is lost for the TRAPPIST-1 system either, with the potential for atmospheres and water remaining on the system’s outer planets.

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Inbox Astronomy: NASA Roman Core Survey Will Trace Cosmic Expansion Over Time

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NASA Roman Core Survey Will Trace Cosmic Expansion Over Time

Release date: Tuesday, August 12, 2025 10:00:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Roman’s High-Latitude Time-Domain Survey will find exploding stars that act as signposts to measure the universe’s expansion and the influence of dark energy.

For thousands of years, humanity viewed the skies as unchanging, except for a few “wandering stars” (that we now know are planets). As we improved our ability to perceive the cosmos with light-gathering telescopes and electronic detectors, we realized that the universe is full of things that change in brightness, whether it be an exploding star or a matter-gulping black hole. NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is poised to deliver an avalanche of such transients, including thousands of “standard candle” supernovae that allow us to measure the expansion history of the universe.

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Inbox Astronomy: NASA's Webb Finds New Evidence for Planet Around Closest Solar Twin

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NASA's Webb Finds New Evidence for Planet Around Closest Solar Twin

Release date: Thursday, August 7, 2025 11:00:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Data shows planet could be a gas giant, orbiting 1 to 2 times the distance between Sun and Earth.

The Alpha Centauri System, the closest star system to our own solar system, has made several appearances in science fiction and pop culture, mostly as a symbol for potential future interstellar travel or even as home to planets teeming with life. However, reality is a little different than what Hollywood has dreamed up.

This chaotic system contains two Sun-like stars, Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B, and a faint red dwarf star, Proxima Centauri, the only star of the system confirmed to host three confirmed planets.

New observations from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope are now providing the strongest evidence to date of a gas giant planet surrounding Alpha Centauri A.

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Inbox Astronomy: As NASA Missions Study Interstellar Comet, Hubble Makes Size Estimate

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As NASA Missions Study Interstellar Comet, Hubble Makes Size Estimate

Release date: Thursday, August 7, 2025 10:00:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Icy Comet Nucleus is No Bigger Than a Few Miles Across  

When an unexpected visitor from deep space was discovered in early July 2025, among the biggest mysteries were: What is it? and How big is it? Hubble observations helped answer these questions. The interstellar vagabond, 3I/ATLAS, behaves like a comet. Hubble sent back crisp pictures of a teardrop-shaped cocoon of dust coming off the comet towards the Sun, then blown back by sunlight. Hubble’s sharp vision shows that the comet’s solid, icy nucleus can’t be much bigger than 3.5 miles across. This ancient, central “snowball” is too small and far away to be directly observed by Hubble, at least for now. Another big question is: Where did it come from? This is completely unknown. Its high velocity is evidence that it took many billions of years to arrive at our solar system from a far corner of our galaxy.

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Inbox Astronomy: NASA's Webb Traces Details of Complex Planetary Nebula

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NASA's Webb Traces Details of Complex Planetary Nebula

Release date: Wednesday, July 30, 2025 10:00:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

More than one star contributes to the irregular shape of NGC 6072.

The lifecycle of stars is one of the most well-studied areas of astronomical study, but is still shrouded in mystery. Stars are essentially the cosmic engines that shape the universe. They populate the universe with elements, some key to life as we know it. Planetary nebulas are spectacular showings of a star, 1 to 8 times the mass of our Sun, as it is dying, casting off a glowing shell of gas and dust. Eventually, our own Sun will go through this phase. However, it’s astronomers’ best guess on specifically what that last hurrah will look like – not that we’ll be around to see. Studying planetary nebulas outside our solar system may provide insights into that, however, more powerful telescopes and detailed studies have shown the process isn’t as straightforward as once thought. Complicated dynamics in systems, including interacting stars, create messy scenes, as seen in NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s newest look at a planetary nebula, NGC 6072.

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Inbox Astronomy: NASA's Hubble, Chandra Spot Rare Type of Black Hole Eating a Star

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NASA's Hubble, Chandra Spot Rare Type of Black Hole Eating a Star

Release date: Thursday, July 24, 2025 10:00:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Hubble Looks at an Intermediate Black Hole Roaming Inside a Galaxy

Black holes, trap doors in space, come in a vast range of sizes. Some are a few times the mass of our Sun. The largest are billions of times the mass of our Sun. There is a curious gap in the range of black hole sizes. A rare class called “intermediate mass” black holes (IMBHs) weigh between a few hundred to a few 100,000 times the mass of our Sun. Unlike their much bigger cousins, monster black holes in the core of galaxies, they’re harder to find. They have to be caught in the act of foraging. When they occasionally devour a hapless bypassing star — in what astronomers call a tidal disruption event  — they pour out a gusher of radiation. This has been captured both by the Hubble and Chandra space telescopes. A recent black hole fishing expedition found an IMBH nestled on the outskirts of a huge elliptical galaxy, NGC 6099, located 450 million light-years away. IMBHs represent a crucial missing link in black hole evolution between stellar mass and supermassive black holes.

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Inbox Astronomy: NASA's Webb Scratches Beyond Surface of Cat’s Paw for 3rd Anniversary

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NASA's Webb Scratches Beyond Surface of Cat’s Paw for 3rd Anniversary

Release date: Thursday, July 10, 2025 10:00:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

What lies within a toe bean? According to NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, mini toe beans composed of gas, dust, and stars.

Since the start of its science operations in July 2022, the James Webb Space Telescope has amazed scientists and the public alike with its ability to peer farther into the cosmos than ever before. With each infrared-light observation, the telescope continues to reveal aspects of the universe previously unknown to us.

To mark its third year of highly productive science, astronomers used Webb to scratch beyond the surface of the Cat’s Paw Nebula (NGC 6334), a massive, local star-forming region. This near-infrared view, which shows a portion of a singular “toe bean,” reveals a subset of mini toe bean-reminiscent structures composed of gas, dust, and young stars.

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