Inbox Astronomy: NASA Webb Finds Strongest Evidence Yet for ‘Black Hole Stars’

INBOX ASTRONOMY

NASA Webb Finds Strongest Evidence Yet for ‘Black Hole Stars’

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

Many of the scattered pieces of the little red dot puzzle are coming together. 

Since their initial discovery by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope in 2022, astronomers have been making steady progress in solving the mystery of these small, red objects that populate the early universe. 
 
By combining the power of Webb with a natural “telescope,” a team of scientists recently obtained the deepest spectrum to date of a little red dot. Referred to as GLIMPSE-17775, this compact red source’s abundant spectral lines provide multiple lines of evidence that converge to support the black hole star scenario: Little red dots are black holes enshrouded by cocoons of hot dense gas.

  Read more  

Find additional resources at www.stsci.edu

  Please do not reply to this message.
You are receiving this email because you are subscribed to the Inbox Astronomy mailing list.

 

Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute's Office of Public Outreach

 

Inbox Astronomy: STScI Scientists Surprised to Find Brightness ‘Gap’ in Ancient Star Cluster

INBOX ASTRONOMY

STScI Scientists Surprised to Find Brightness ‘Gap’ in Ancient Star Cluster

Release date: Wednesday, June 3, 2026 10:00:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Tools developed at STScI for the Hubble Space Telescope were critical to this discovery.

In a serendipitous discovery, STScI scientists using the Euclid space telescope have for the first time found a red-dwarf brightness “gap” feature in the population of a globular cluster—an ancient, crowded collection of stars. A similar gap was first identified in data from the Gaia observatory of nearby stellar populations. However, it has never before been detected in a globular cluster. The gap provides clues to processes happening deep within the stars’ interiors.

This finding would not have been possible without the software and techniques originally developed at STScI for NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope over more than two decades. These tools allowed the team to push the limits of Euclid, and in the future, the Roman Space Telescope.

  Read more  

Find additional resources at www.stsci.edu

  Please do not reply to this message.
You are receiving this email because you are subscribed to the Inbox Astronomy mailing list.

 

Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute's Office of Public Outreach

 

Inbox Astronomy: NASA=?UTF-8?Q?=E2=80=99s_?=Webb Reveals Black Hole That Formed Before Its Galaxy

INBOX ASTRONOMY

NASA’s Webb Reveals Black Hole That Formed Before Its Galaxy

Release date: Wednesday, May 27, 2026 11:00:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

The first direct mass measurement from the early universe weighs in on the debate over the origins of supermassive black holes.

How could a supermassive black hole tens of millions of times the mass of the Sun, a black hole that was already enormous just 700 million years after the big bang, begin with the collapse of a single star? Maybe it didn’t.

Using the unprecedented imaging and spectroscopic power of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, researchers have mapped the motion and composition of gas orbiting a black hole in the center of Abell2744-QSO1, a tiny galaxy more than 13 billion light-years away. The results suggest that the 50-million-solar-mass black hole predates its host galaxy, possibly forming within the first second of the big bang, and must have been immense from the start.

  Read more  

Find additional resources at www.stsci.edu

  Please do not reply to this message.
You are receiving this email because you are subscribed to the Inbox Astronomy mailing list.

 

Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute's Office of Public Outreach

 

Inbox Astronomy: Hubble Survey Sets Up Roman=?UTF-8?Q?=E2=80=99s_Future_Look_Near_Milky_Way=E2=80=99s_?=Center

INBOX ASTRONOMY

Hubble Survey Sets Up Roman’s Future Look Near Milky Way’s Center

Release date: Monday, May 11, 2026 10:00:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

This large-scale program provides a springboard to help interpret future Roman data.

One of the core community surveys of NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, the Galactic Bulge Time-Domain Survey, is expected to locate over a thousand exoplanets that orbit far away from their stars, beyond the orbital distance of Earth from the Sun. Although Roman hasn’t launched yet, astronomers already are gathering useful supporting data by utilizing NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, which could assist astronomers in analyzing Roman data.

  Read more  

Find additional resources at www.stsci.edu

  Please do not reply to this message.
You are receiving this email because you are subscribed to the Inbox Astronomy mailing list.

 

Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute's Office of Public Outreach

 

Inbox Astronomy: NASA's Roman Poised to Transform Hunt for Elusive Neutron Stars

INBOX ASTRONOMY

NASA's Roman Poised to Transform Hunt for Elusive Neutron Stars

Release date: Wednesday, May 6, 2026 10:00:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Tiny shifts in starlight could reveal otherwise hidden objects

Although neutron stars were theorized nearly a century ago and later identified through the discovery of pulsars, astronomers have only detected a small, biased sample of what is believed to be a vast population across the Milky Way galaxy. Now, researchers are planning to get creative with NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope to uncover and weigh these elusive objects. By measuring tiny shifts in starlight caused by their gravity, Roman may reveal a hidden population of isolated neutron stars and open a new window on extreme physics. 

  Read more  

Find additional resources at www.stsci.edu

  Please do not reply to this message.
You are receiving this email because you are subscribed to the Inbox Astronomy mailing list.

 

Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute's Office of Public Outreach

 

Inbox Astronomy: STScI Director Jennifer Lotz Elected AAAS Fellow

INBOX ASTRONOMY

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.

  Read more  

Find additional resources at www.stsci.edu

  Please do not reply to this message.
You are receiving this email because you are subscribed to the Inbox Astronomy mailing list.

 

Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute's Office of Public Outreach

 

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

INBOX ASTRONOMY

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. 

  Read more  

Find additional resources at www.stsci.edu

  Please do not reply to this message.
You are receiving this email because you are subscribed to the Inbox Astronomy mailing list.

 

Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute's Office of Public Outreach

 

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

INBOX ASTRONOMY

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.

  Read more  

Find additional resources at www.stsci.edu

  Please do not reply to this message.
You are receiving this email because you are subscribed to the Inbox Astronomy mailing list.

 

Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute's Office of Public Outreach

 

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

INBOX ASTRONOMY

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.

  Read more  

Find additional resources at www.stsci.edu

  Please do not reply to this message.
You are receiving this email because you are subscribed to the Inbox Astronomy mailing list.

 

Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute's Office of Public Outreach

 

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

INBOX ASTRONOMY

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.

  Read more  

Find additional resources at www.stsci.edu

  Please do not reply to this message.
You are receiving this email because you are subscribed to the Inbox Astronomy mailing list.

 

Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute's Office of Public Outreach