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

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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. 

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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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