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Friday, July 3, 2026
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Thursday, July 2, 2026
Inbox Astronomy: NASA=?UTF-8?Q?=E2=80=99s_?=Webb Reveals Stars Sparking to Life in Cosmic Celebration
Outflows reveal characteristics about the region’s protostars and how they influence their environment.
Protostars are often shrouded by the same clouds of dust and gas that they grow in. Astronomers have used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to learn how the protostars that comprise FS Tau, a young star system about 450 light-years away, shape their surroundings. Webb’s high-resolution view also reveals the intricate structures within dense dust clouds, where light scatters and reflects, much like how a fireworks display illuminates the clouds created by these colorful explosions.
Find additional resources at www.stsci.edu
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Wednesday, July 1, 2026
Inbox Astronomy: NASA=?UTF-8?Q?=E2=80=99s_?=Webb Studies How Planet Survived Death of its Star
WD 1856 b likely migrated to its current location billions of years after its star became a white dwarf.
Exoplanet WD 1856 b is a world that shouldn’t exist. It orbits a white dwarf star at a separation of less than 2 million miles – well within the “danger zone” where it should have been engulfed when its host star went through a red giant phase earlier in its life. To understand how it survived and learn more about it, astronomers studied this planet with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Their findings could have implications for the future of our own solar system in 5 billion years.
Find additional resources at www.stsci.edu
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World’s Fastest High-Throughput Homogenizer: Tough Samples in ≤10 Seconds
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Tuesday, June 23, 2026
Inbox Astronomy: NASA=?UTF-8?Q?=E2=80=99s_?=Webb Pinpoints Millions of Stars Within Cigar Galaxy
By piercing through thick dust, new details of galaxy M82 shine through.
The James Webb Space Telescope has provided an in-depth look at edge-on spiral galaxy Messier 82 (M82), a prototypical starburst galaxy that is forming stars 10 times faster than our own Milky Way galaxy. This dynamic environment has previously garnered observations by many observatories, including the Hubble and retired Spitzer space telescopes.
First imaged by Webb in 2024, a team of astronomers has recently revisited the scene with the telescope as part of an imaging survey, seeking to untangle the complex evolutionary history of this one-of-a-kind galaxy. Their observations reveal millions of stars and powerful outflows of gas and dust.
Find additional resources at www.stsci.edu
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Inbox Astronomy: Hubble Details Early Galaxy Transforming Neighborhood
Researchers show that a galaxy’s young, tightly packed stars converted nearby gas from opaque to clear only 1.4 billion years after the big bang.
Astronomers have demonstrated how one galaxy that existed when the cosmos was only 1.4 billion years old transformed the gas in and around itself: Light from its young, massive, closely clustered stars blasted through opaque, electrically neutral gas, causing it to ionize and clear. This galaxy, cataloged MXDFz4.4, lived at a time when a universal event known as the Era of Reionization was wrapping up.
MXDFz4.4 is the earliest of its kind. It is the only galaxy at this distance to date that appears in a deep Hubble Space Telescope survey in a particular visible-light filter that uniquely captures the energetic light escaping from its young stars. “Hubble returned the only view that shows the galaxy’s ionizing photons — light capable of clearing the ‘fog’ in and around the galaxy,” explained Ilias Goovaerts, the first author of a new paper in the Astrophysical Journal and a postdoctoral fellow at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland.
Hubble’s observations are supported by both the James Webb Space Telescope and the European Southern Observatory’s ground-based Very Large Telescope (VLT). Webb helped the team estimate the properties of the galaxy and analyze its older stellar population, which is not responsible for converting the gas. The VLT dated exactly when this galaxy existed.
This rare example helps astronomers pin down the sources of high-energy light that caused the gas in the entire universe to gradually transition — permanently clearing our view.
Find additional resources at www.stsci.edu
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Monday, June 22, 2026
Inbox Astronomy: NASA=?UTF-8?Q?=E2=80=99s_?=Webb Finds Clues to Ancient, Distant Origin of Comet 3I/ATLAS
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.
Find additional resources at www.stsci.edu
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