Inbox Astronomy: NASA=?UTF-8?Q?=E2=80=99s_?=Webb Finds Clues to Ancient, Distant Origin of Comet 3I/ATLAS

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NASA’s Webb Finds Clues to Ancient, Distant Origin of Comet 3I/ATLAS

Release date: Monday, June 22, 2026 11:00:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

The third identified interstellar comet in human history has a surprising chemical makeup, raising questions as to how common, or unusual, conditions in our own solar system may be. 

Billions of years ago in a nascent planetary system somewhere in the Milky Way galaxy, the icy fragment now known as 3I/ATLAS was getting knocked around as larger planets formed. Powerful gravitational interactions eventually catapulted it out of the system, and it began a journey through our Milky Way galaxy.

In July 2025, the comet was only the third interstellar object ever detected passing through our solar system – the meaning of the ‘3I’ in its name. Objects like 3I/ATLAS offer the unparalleled opportunity for up-close study of something from very far away. Astronomers used the NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) instrument on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to discover surprising details of 3I/ATLAS’s chemical makeup, with ratios of heavy carbon and heavy hydrogen never seen among comets in our solar system. Future study of interstellar objects will build on these findings toward a better understanding of how our solar system fits into the larger picture of our galaxy.

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Inbox Astronomy: NASA's Webb Catches Exoplanet Getting Roasted

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NASA's Webb Catches Exoplanet Getting Roasted

Release date: Tuesday, June 16, 2026 5:15:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time

Webb follows the path laid by the Spitzer Space Telescope to drill down on details of one of the most extreme exoplanets yet discovered.

The extremely elliptical orbit of gas giant exoplanet HD 80606 b results in temperature swings of 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit (600 degrees Celsius) during the course of its 111-day trip around its Sun-like star. Scientists see the exoplanet’s extreme conditions as an ideal opportunity to test current understanding of atmospheric radiation, dynamics, and chemistry. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured the first mid-infrared spectroscopic observations of the exoplanet before, during, and after its closest approach to its star. The research team behind the study is presenting Webb’s observation program, and their preliminary results, at the 248th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Pasadena, California.

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Inbox Astronomy: NASA Webb, Hubble Reveal History of Relic of Milky Way=?UTF-8?Q?=E2=80=99s_?=Formation

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NASA Webb, Hubble Reveal History of Relic of Milky Way’s Formation

Release date: Tuesday, June 16, 2026 1:15:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time

New research shows that Terzan 5 contains four separate generations of stars, confirming it as the prototype of a “bulge fossil fragment.”

Researchers have confirmed a new class of objects within our Milky Way galaxy: survivors called “bulge fossil fragments.” Terzan 5 is the prototype of these remnants of our galaxy's early formation. Billions of years ago, similar primordial clumps spread out and merged to form the Milky Way’s bulge, yet Terzan 5 remained intact until the present day.

A new study that combined recent observations from the James Webb Space Telescope and data taken over 12 years from the Hubble Space Telescope has definitively shown that Terzan 5 experienced up to four distinct episodes of star formation, confirming that it’s not a true globular cluster. Instead, it is something much odder and rarer.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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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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