Inbox Astronomy: NASA=?UTF-8?Q?=E2=80=99s_?=Webb Telescope Locates Former Star That Exploded as Supernova

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NASA’s Webb Telescope Locates Former Star That Exploded as Supernova

Release date: Monday, February 23, 2026 10:00:00 AM Eastern Standard Time

Webb shows star was surrounded by a vast shell of carbon-rich dust.

What types of stars explode as supernovas? Usually, we have to try to answer that question after the fact. Astronomers will study the composition and amount of gas expelled in the explosion to gain clues about the former star. But on rare occasions, astronomers are able to identify the specific star that exploded in pre-supernova images of the same region of the sky.

For the first time, astronomers have used images from the James Webb Space Telescope to identify a supernova progenitor that could not be seen by any other telescope: a red supergiant that was located in a nearby galaxy. The supergiant’s surroundings were surprisingly dusty – dusty enough to render it invisible to the Hubble Space Telescope.

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Inbox Astronomy: NASA=?UTF-8?Q?=E2=80=99s_?=Hubble Identifies One of Darkest Known Galaxies

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NASA’s Hubble Identifies One of Darkest Known Galaxies

Release date: Wednesday, February 18, 2026 10:00:00 AM Eastern Standard Time

The elusive object dubbed CDG-2 may be composed of 99% dark matter.

Most galaxies in the nearby universe are quite luminous. But some are so faint they’re nearly invisible. Astronomers, using the Hubble Space Telescope in combination with other observatories, identified a galaxy that appears to be almost entirely dominated by dark matter with only a smattering of stars. The galaxy, known as Candidate Dark Galaxy-2 (CDG-2), appears to contain just four globular star clusters (compared to the Milky Way’s 150-plus), and dimly shines with the light of only about 6 million Suns.

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Inbox Astronomy: NASA's Hubble Captures Light Show Around Rapidly Dying Star

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NASA's Hubble Captures Light Show Around Rapidly Dying Star

Release date: Tuesday, February 10, 2026 10:00:00 AM Eastern Standard Time

Interplay of shadow, light, and dust hints at processes shaping enigmatic nebula

Stardust dances with starlight to create the spectacular Egg Nebula—and the Hubble Space Telescope has a front-row seat to the show. The remarkably symmetrical structure is created by a newly dying, Sun-like star casting off its outer layers of dust and gas. About 1,000 light-years away, the enigmatic Egg Nebula is the youngest and closest nebula of its type ever discovered.  

Twin beams of light illuminate polar lobes and nested arcs, hinting at gravitational interactions with one or more hidden companion stars shrouded by the thick dust. Only Hubble’s exquisitely sharp vision can reveal intricate details of the Egg Nebula’s structure and provide scientists with a rare, close-up opportunity to study a dying star. 

 

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Inbox Astronomy: NASA Webb Pushes Boundaries of Observable Universe Closer to Big Bang

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NASA Webb Pushes Boundaries of Observable Universe Closer to Big Bang

Release date: Wednesday, January 28, 2026 10:00:00 AM Eastern Standard Time

In addition to setting a new distance record, galaxy MoM-z14 joins an emerging population of galaxies that are unexpectedly bright, compact, and chemically enriched.

It’s an exciting time to be an astronomer focused on the origins of the universe. How did we get here? It’s one of humanity’s biggest questions, and NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is making it possible to explore that question in completely new ways, revealing galaxies closer to the big bang than we’ve ever seen before.

Webb’s current most-distant galaxy, MoM-z14, existed only 280 million years after the universe began in the big bang. The number, and contents, of bright galaxies in the early universe are defying expectations and demanding new theories of what this period of cosmic history was like, and how it led to us.

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Inbox Astronomy: AI Unlocks Hundreds of Cosmic Anomalies in Hubble Archive

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AI Unlocks Hundreds of Cosmic Anomalies in Hubble Archive

Release date: Tuesday, January 27, 2026 10:00:00 AM Eastern Standard Time

New findings include galaxy mergers and "jellyfish" galaxies.

Neural networks, a form of artificial intelligence (AI), can learn to recognize patterns in data, which makes them useful for tasks like image recognition. They can analyze vast amounts of imaging data in a fraction of the time that a human would take. Thanks to its longevity, the Hubble Space Telescope has accumulated a 35-year archive ripe for harvesting.

A team of astronomers developed an AI tool named AnomalyMatch to comb Hubble’s archives for rare and unusual objects. The results: more than 1,300 objects with an odd appearance, hundreds of which had never been seen before.

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Inbox Astronomy: NASA Webb Finds Young Sun-Like Star Forging, Spewing Common Crystals

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NASA Webb Finds Young Sun-Like Star Forging, Spewing Common Crystals

Release date: Wednesday, January 21, 2026 11:00:00 AM Eastern Standard Time

Before-and-after snapshots show for the first time that crystalline silicates form in the scalding-hot inner portion of a disk around an actively forming star — and could end up in comets at the edge of its system.

Previously incompatible facts: 1. Comets contain crystalline silicates. 2. Crystalline silicates require intense heat to form. 3. Comets spend most of their time in the outer reaches of our solar system, where it is incredibly cold. This leads to a logical question: Where did those crystals form?

Two new mid-infrared observations from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope offer clear evidence to help answer this question. Webb’s observations of the dust-encased, actively forming star EC 53 showed that crystalline silicates form in a super-hot, inner portion of a star’s disk of gas and dust.

Webb captured the “action” with before-and-after datasets. Researchers compared the star’s overall activity — and the minerals around it — during a quieter phase and an outburst. This allowed them to map the movement of the star’s jets, outflows and winds, and track where the crystals are likely moving. They concluded that these crystalline silicates may be “flung” near and far, including to the edges of the star’s system — and could eventually end up in comets. Full details are available on NASA.gov.

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Inbox Astronomy: Intricacies of Helix Nebula Revealed With NASA's Webb

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Intricacies of Helix Nebula Revealed With NASA's Webb

Release date: Tuesday, January 20, 2026 10:00:00 AM Eastern Standard Time

New image offers most detailed infrared view of iconic nebula to date

First spotted in the early 1800s, the Helix Nebula has become one of the most iconic planetary nebulas in the sky, often referred to as the “Eye of God” or the “Eye of Sauron” for its striking, ring-like shape. One of the closest planetary nebulas to Earth, it has become a favorite among astronomers using ground- and space-based telescopes to study the final moments of a dying star in the greatest detail. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has now leveled those studies up, offering the clearest infrared look at this familiar object.

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Inbox Astronomy: NASA=?UTF-8?Q?=E2=80=99s_?=Webb Delivers Unprecedented Look Into Heart of Circinus Galaxy

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NASA’s Webb Delivers Unprecedented Look Into Heart of Circinus Galaxy

Release date: Tuesday, January 13, 2026 5:00:00 AM Eastern Standard Time

A specialized technique may change what scientists thought about how much material black holes eject.

Supermassive black holes are known to both consume and eject matter during their most active periods. Based on previous observations, astronomers theorized that Circinus’ active black hole ejected a much larger amount of matter in the form of outflows than they took in. However, a highly specialized observation mode on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has begun to change what some astronomers think about the amount of matter lost to outflows from some black holes.

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Inbox Astronomy: 2026 Beatrice M. Tinsley Prize Awarded to STScI Astronomer Kailash Sahu

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2026 Beatrice M. Tinsley Prize Awarded to STScI Astronomer Kailash Sahu

Release date: Thursday, January 8, 2026 10:15:00 AM Eastern Standard Time

The award recognizes an outstanding research contribution to astronomy or astrophysics.

Kailash Sahu, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute, will receive the 2026 Beatrice M. Tinsley Prize from the American Astronomical Society (AAS). The prize, which is awarded every two years, recognizes an outstanding research contribution to astronomy or astrophysics of an exceptionally creative or innovative character.

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Inbox Astronomy: Scientists Identify 'Astronomy=?UTF-8?Q?=E2=80=99s_Platypus'_with_NASA=E2=80=99s_?=Webb Telescope

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Scientists Identify 'Astronomy’s Platypus' with NASA’s Webb Telescope

Release date: Tuesday, January 6, 2026 12:16:00 PM Eastern Standard Time

A small sample of galaxies discovered in Webb’s archive exhibit a previously unseen combination of features that hint at a possible new population of galaxies.

At the 247th meeting of the American Astronomical Society, researchers have shared preliminary but tantalizing results after a detailed analysis of James Webb Space Telescope archival data: a small sample of tiny galaxies that don’t fit in existing categories. Principal investigator Haojing Yan compares them to an infamous misfit in another branch of science, biology’s taxonomy-defying platypus. Has the research team discovered a missing link in the cosmos? Full details are on NASA.gov.

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