Inbox Astronomy: STScI Director Jennifer Lotz Elected AAAS Fellow

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STScI Director Jennifer Lotz Elected AAAS Fellow

Release date: Monday, May 4, 2026 10:00:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Dr. Lotz is being honored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for distinguished leadership and scientific contributions to astronomy.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has elected Dr. Jennifer Lotz, director of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, as a 2025 Fellow of the AAAS. She is being honored for distinguished leadership and scientific contributions to astronomy, particularly insights learned about the early universe from gravitational lensing observed by the groundbreaking Hubble Frontier Fields program.

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Inbox Astronomy: Dr. Gagandeep Anand Receives 2026 Maryland Outstanding Young Scientist Award

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Dr. Gagandeep Anand Receives 2026 Maryland Outstanding Young Scientist Award

Release date: Thursday, April 30, 2026 10:00:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Anand was recognized for groundbreaking research that aids in understanding the universe’s structure and evolution.

Space Telescope Science Institute astronomer Dr. Gagandeep Anand received the 2026 Maryland Outstanding Young Scientist award in a ceremony on April 29 at the Maryland Science Center in Baltimore. The Maryland Academy of Sciences recognizes state residents who have distinguished themselves early in their careers for accomplishments in science. An expert in near-field cosmology, Anand uses galaxies in our own cosmic backyard to understand the structure and evolution of the universe as a whole. 

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Inbox Astronomy: NASA's Hubble Dazzles With Young Stars in Trifid Nebula

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NASA's Hubble Dazzles With Young Stars in Trifid Nebula

Release date: Monday, April 20, 2026 10:00:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Actively forming stars are threaded throughout thick dust in this star-forming region.

Hubble is the most enduring space telescope the world has ever known. Many of its findings could not have been predicted when the concept for this telescope was proposed in 1946. Hubble provided the first confirmation that supermassive black holes exist, and that black holes are at the cores of almost all galaxies. This telescope was the first to confirm an atmosphere around a planet outside our solar system — and showed us the first images of asteroids with tails. It has observed a huge number of cosmic objects, from nearby stars and star-forming regions to more distant merging galaxies and galaxy clusters. Its extensive, precise observations are regularly referenced when astronomers calculate (and recalculate) the expansion rate of the universe itself. This great observatory is always “on” — Hubble takes new images and data daily. Its deeply detailed images capture ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared light.

In honor of Hubble’s 36th anniversary, the telescope looked at a scene it first captured in 1997: A small portion of a star-forming region about 5,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius, known as the Trifid Nebula. This before-and-after shows changes over incredibly short timescales — and instills a sense of awe and wonder about our ever-changing universe.

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Inbox Astronomy: Roman Space Telescope Science Platform Will Open New Frontiers in Space Science

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Roman Space Telescope Science Platform Will Open New Frontiers in Space Science

Release date: Thursday, April 16, 2026 10:00:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

With the release of the cloud-hosted Roman Research Nexus, STScI provides astronomers around the world an environment where they can prepare to work with the massive data stream expected from NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.

Preparations for NASA's soon-to-launch Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope have already introduced historic changes to the field of astronomy. Starting in 2027, Roman will deliver an unprecedented volume of complex survey data that will be impractical to download to individual computers for analysis.

Astronomers and engineers at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), working in close collaboration with the mission’s partners at NASA and Caltech/IPAC, have met these new developments head-on by creating and releasing a seamless interface, the Roman Research Nexus, which brings users to the data. This cloud-based science platform, which is live and ready to use, allows researchers to stream, manipulate, and analyze Roman’s currently simulated data, while accessing step-by-step tutorials, built-in tools, and editable algorithms. The Nexus will pave the way for an explosion of scientific discoveries once real Roman data begin flowing into it.

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Inbox Astronomy: NASA's Webb Redefines Dividing Line Between Planets, Stars

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NASA's Webb Redefines Dividing Line Between Planets, Stars

Release date: Tuesday, April 14, 2026 10:00:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Composition and orbit of super-chonky 29 Cygni b point to accretion within a protoplanetary disk.

Where is the dividing line between stars and the most massive planets? Scientists think it may depend on how they formed. Was it from a bottom-up approach, gradually growing larger over time, or a top-down approach in which a large collection of gas and dust fragments into smaller, planet-sized bits?

To answer these questions, astronomers used the James Webb Space Telescope to study an object weighing about 15 times as much as Jupiter, which puts it right on the dividing line between the two processes. They found that the object, called 29 Cygni b, likely formed from the bottom up rather than the top down. In other words, it formed like a planet, not a star.

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Inbox Astronomy: NASA's Hubble Detects First-Ever Spin Reversal of Tiny Comet

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NASA's Hubble Detects First-Ever Spin Reversal of Tiny Comet

Release date: Thursday, March 26, 2026 10:00:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Outgassing jets slowed the comet’s spin and restarted it in the opposite direction

To skywatchers, comets often appear as soft, glowing smudges drifting across the night sky – cosmic cotton balls with faint tails. But behind that fuzzy appearance are surprisingly active worlds. Scientists studying the comet 41P/Tuttle–Giacobini–Kresak with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have found evidence that jets of gas erupting from its surface may have slowed the comet’s spin to a stop and then restarted it in the opposite direction.

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Inbox Astronomy: NASA Webb, Hubble Share Most Comprehensive View of Saturn to Date

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NASA Webb, Hubble Share Most Comprehensive View of Saturn to Date

Release date: Wednesday, March 25, 2026 2:00:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time

Infrared and visible observations show layers and storms in the ringed planet’s atmosphere

For centuries, Saturn has captivated skywatchers, from the first telescopic glimpses of its strange “ears” in the 1600’s to the detailed spacecraft portraits of today. Now, two of NASA’s most powerful observatories – the James Webb Space Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope – are continuing that tradition. By observing the ringed planet in different wavelengths of light, the telescopes are revealing new insights into this gas giant.

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Inbox Astronomy: NASA Awards Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowships for 2026

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NASA Awards Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowships for 2026

Release date: Wednesday, March 25, 2026 12:00:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time

Fellows will work to answer three broad questions about the universe

NASA just named the 2026 class of the NASA Hubble Fellowship Program (NHFP). It includes 24 outstanding astrophysics researchers who will advance NASA’s pursuit of understanding how the universe works, how it evolved over time, and whether we’re alone in it. This highly competitive program received more than 650 applications for this year’s class, representing an oversubscription rate of 27 to 1.

Each fellow is awarded up to three years of support at a U.S. institution to pursue independent astrophysics research. These fellows are divided into three sub-categories based on their work: Einstein Fellows, who will investigate how the universe functions; Hubble Fellows, who will seek to understand how the universe evolved; and Sagan Fellows, who will try to answer the question, “Are we alone?”

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Inbox Astronomy: NASA=?UTF-8?Q?=E2=80=99s_?=Hubble Revisits Crab Nebula to Track 25 Years of Expansion

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NASA’s Hubble Revisits Crab Nebula to Track 25 Years of Expansion

Release date: Monday, March 23, 2026 10:00:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Movement in the Crab Nebula is clearly detectable between Hubble images

In the year 1054, careful observers of the stars noted a new light in the sky, which was so bright it could be seen during the day for 23 days, and remained visible in the night sky for more than a year afterward. It was a supernova, a massive star exploding 6,500 light-years away. The remnant of the supernova was first seen through telescopes in the 1700s. It was eventually, and somewhat puzzlingly, nicknamed the Crab Nebula, likely a result of leggy-looking filaments extending from a central mass as seen through early telescopes.  

In the mid-twentieth century, Edwin Hubble was one of several astronomers who connected the Crab to Chinese astronomical records. On the cusp of a new millennium, the telescope named for Hubble captured an intricately detailed portrait of the full supernova remnant, and 25 years later it has turned again to the ancient site to track the nebula’s expansion and ongoing evolution.

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Inbox Astronomy: NASA=?UTF-8?Q?=E2=80=99s_?=Hubble Unexpectedly Catches Comet Breaking Up

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NASA’s Hubble Unexpectedly Catches Comet Breaking Up

Release date: Wednesday, March 18, 2026 10:00:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Researchers’ long-sought experiment happened serendipitously.

When scientists recently trained the Hubble Space Telescope on a comet, they got much more of a show than they expected—the comet was crumbling before their eyes! Comet K1, whose full name is Comet C/2025 K1 (ATLAS), had just passed its closest approach to the Sun and was heading out of the solar system. Though it had been intact just days before, K1 fragmented into at least four pieces while Hubble was watching. The odds of that happening while Hubble viewed the comet are extraordinarily low.

Each piece looked like a tiny comet, with a fuzzy envelope of gas and dust surrounding it. From its perch in space, Hubble clearly resolved the fragments, though from the ground they appeared only as barely distinguishable blobs. 

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