Inbox Astronomy: NASA=?UTF-8?Q?=E2=80=99s_Hubble=2C_Webb_Find_Far-out_Solar_System_Objects_?= ‘Remember’ Past

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NASA’s Hubble, Webb Find Far-out Solar System Objects ‘Remember’ Past

Release date: Tuesday, September 8, 2026 10:00:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

These telescopes offer best view yet into early stage of planet-building

More than 100 million times dimmer than what can be seen by the naked eye, far-out Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs) are small, faint, icy bodies orbiting the Sun beyond Neptune’s orbit. Now, in the deepest TNO studies to date, researchers analyzed the color, composition, and size distribution of 27 newly discovered TNOs—some of them the smallest and faintest ever directly seen. 

Using NASA’s Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes, the teams measured the objects’ colors, which are like a fingerprint of the surface composition, as well as their sizes, and determined their orbits. What they found was the best view yet into an early stage of planet-building in our solar system. Working together to detect and characterize these TNOs, Hubble and Webb provided more insight into these tiny objects than either could on its own. 

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Inbox Astronomy: NASA's Hubble Tracks New Decagon Encircling Saturn=?UTF-8?Q?=E2=80=99s_?=South Pole

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NASA's Hubble Tracks New Decagon Encircling Saturn’s South Pole

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

10-sided wave appears to strengthen in year-over-year Hubble observations

Stunning portraits of the gas giants in our solar system over the last several decades can make these planets seem like familiar, unchanging worlds. Jupiter’s Great Red Spot and Saturn’s famous northern hexagon are recognizable features that have persisted for years, reinforcing that message.

However, astronomers know that these planets are actually constantly in motion, changing much like our own Earth. The latest major discovery from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope offers a striking example: a newly formed, 10-sided atmospheric wave, called a decagon, encircling Saturn’s south pole.

Researchers are just beginning to piece together the history of this new feature and investigate what its evolution can reveal about the dynamic atmospheres of gas giant planets.

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Inbox Astronomy: Hubble Solves Merger Mystery From Milky Way=?UTF-8?Q?=E2=80=99s_?=Early Years

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Hubble Solves Merger Mystery From Milky Way’s Early Years

Release date: Monday, August 17, 2026 11:00:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Astronomers find strong evidence for a massive merger 1.8 billion years earlier than the oldest previously known significant merger.

The early universe was a chaotic place, crowded with young galaxies that smashed together and agglomerated into larger and larger galaxies over billions of years. Our own Milky Way experienced such collisions, but the details are difficult to tease out since they occurred so long ago. Researchers using the Hubble Space Telescope have now extended our knowledge of the Milky Way’s history 1.8 billion years farther back in time than ever before, finding strong evidence that it merged with another galaxy in the earliest phases of its evolution.

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Inbox Astronomy: Lion Nebula Roars to Life With NASA=?UTF-8?Q?=E2=80=99s_?=Webb

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Lion Nebula Roars to Life With NASA’s Webb

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

It’s the circle of life and it moves us all — even stars.

The James Webb Space Telescope has gazed across the open “plains” of space to capture a snapshot of NGC 2392, also known as the Lion Nebula. This feline-shaped planetary nebula is the “mane” event, at least temporarily. After several thousand years in the making, it’s finally roaring to life before it will eventually disperse in approximately 10,000 years. In infrared light, Webb reveals complex structures of gas and dust that are illuminated by and migrating away from the source that is powering it all: the dying central star.

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Inbox Astronomy: NASA Webb Explores Family Tree of Newly Discovered Distant Objects

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NASA Webb Explores Family Tree of Newly Discovered Distant Objects

Release date: Wednesday, July 29, 2026 10:00:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

What do little red dots become as the universe ages?

It’s been a question since they were discovered in the high-redshift universe by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope in 2022. With each additional observation and analysis, astronomers have gradually learned more about the nature of these mysterious red sources.

A team of scientists is now providing one branch of the little red dot family tree by sifting through multi-mission telescope data to carefully examine a spiral galaxy at lower redshift. The face-on galaxy, dubbed the “Saguaro” for its prominent arms, is reminiscent of the desert plant in another way: Like the ruby red fruit of the Saguaro cactus, this galaxy has a little red dot in its center, making it a scene ripe for study.

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Inbox Astronomy: NASA's Hubble Shows Star Formation in Andromeda Galaxy Winding Down

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NASA's Hubble Shows Star Formation in Andromeda Galaxy Winding Down

Release date: Monday, July 27, 2026 10:00:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Most of the decline is within a prominent star-forming ring 32,000 light-years from the galaxy’s center.

The Andromeda galaxy is one of our Milky Way’s closest neighbors. Its proximity gives astronomers an opportunity to investigate it in great detail. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has conducted two gigantic surveys that combined to image about two-thirds of the galaxy’s disk. Using that data, a team of researchers has measured 200 million individual stars to tease out the history of star formation in Andromeda. They found that star formation has decreased dramatically over the past 500 million years. And they asked: Is Andromeda in the late stages of a longer decline, or is it “running out of gas”?

“This project is the combination of multiple decades worth of experience to really get a holistic picture of the Andromeda galaxy,” said lead author Tobin Wainer of the University of Washington.

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Inbox Astronomy: NASA's Webb Discovers Hidden Planet in Famous Star System

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NASA's Webb Discovers Hidden Planet in Famous Star System

Release date: Wednesday, July 15, 2026 8:00:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Planet found through its atmospheric fingerprint opens new way to uncover worlds hidden in starlight

Few planetary systems have shaped astronomers’ understanding of planet formation as profoundly as Beta Pictoris. Since the discovery of its famous debris disk in 1983, observations with ground- and space-based telescopes, including NASA’s Hubble and James Webb space telescopes, have revealed exocomets, intricate dust structure, giant exoplanets, and evidence of a planetary system still under construction. Now, Webb has uncovered a third giant planet using an entirely new approach: identifying it through the chemical fingerprint of its atmosphere.

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Inbox Astronomy: NASA=?UTF-8?Q?=E2=80=99s_?=Roman Telescope Will Spot Distant Black Holes That Shred Stars

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NASA’s Roman Telescope Will Spot Distant Black Holes That Shred Stars

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

Roman’s large tally will help illuminate the origins of supermassive black holes.

Supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies can be messy eaters. Sometimes when a wandering star gets too close, it will get shredded before it is consumed. In the process, the region around the black hole brightens and may outshine its entire galaxy. In that way, otherwise hidden black holes become detectable.

Once it launches as early as Aug. 30, 2026, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is expected to observe up to 100 of these star-shredding events every year. That data will lead to a new understanding of how supermassive black holes first formed, and how they grow and evolve.

Lee esta historia en español.

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Inbox Astronomy: NASA=?UTF-8?Q?=E2=80=99s_Hubble_Discovers_First_of_Star_Cluster=E2=80=99s_?=Missing Black Holes

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NASA’s Hubble Discovers First of Star Cluster’s Missing Black Holes

Release date: Monday, July 13, 2026 10:00:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Call it the case of the missing black holes.

While models suggest globular star cluster Omega Centauri should contain about 10,000 stellar-mass black holes, none have been detected yet.

Recently a team of astronomers located the first stellar-mass black hole in Omega Centauri as it is orbited by a lower-mass visible star. By tracking this star's motion on the sky using hundreds of images taken over 20 years by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and more recent images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, they were able to weigh the unseen companion and determine it is indeed a black hole. However, its long period and low mass were surprising for a black hole in this massive star cluster.

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Inbox Astronomy: First Completed Rocky Worlds Program Observations Open New Era in Exoplanet Studies

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First Completed Rocky Worlds Program Observations Open New Era in Exoplanet Studies

Release date: Thursday, July 9, 2026 10:00:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Learnings pave way for future, more challenging targets

Ever since the first planets beyond our solar system were discovered, astronomers have hoped to study rocky worlds similar in size to Earth. But detecting and characterizing these planets and their atmospheres has proven extraordinarily difficult. Rocky planets are relatively small, their signals are faint, and possible atmospheres can easily be obscured by fluctuations in the stars they orbit. The Rocky Worlds Director’s Discretionary Time (DDT) program was created to confront those challenges directly, using the combined powers of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and Hubble Space Telescopes, to build a clearer picture of how rocky planets behave across the galaxy. The team’s first completed observations are laying the foundation for the program and for the broader astronomical community’s study of exoplanets.

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