Nebulae News

December 3, 2023

Top Headlines

Rocky Planets Can Form in Extreme Environments

Nov. 30, 2023 — Astronomers have provided the first observation of water and other molecules in the highly irradiated inner, rocky-planet-forming regions of a disk in one of the most extreme environments in our galaxy. These results suggest that the conditions for ...

The Crab Nebula Seen in New Light by NASA's Webb

Oct. 30, 2023 — NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has gazed at the Crab Nebula, a supernova remnant located 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Taurus. Since the recording of this energetic event in 1054 CE by 11th-century astronomers, the Crab Nebula has ...

NASA's Webb Captures an Ethereal View of NGC 346

Oct. 11, 2023 — One of the greatest strengths of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is its ability to give astronomers detailed views of areas where new stars are being born. The latest example, showcased here in a new image from Webb's Mid-Infrared Instrument ...

Webb Reveals New Structures Within Iconic Supernova

Aug. 31, 2023 — NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has begun the study of one of the most renowned supernovae, SN 1987A (Supernova 1987A). Located 168,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud, SN 1987A has been a target of intense observations at ...

Latest Headlines

updated 11:04pm EST

James Webb Space Telescope Captures Stunning Images of the Ring Nebula

Aug. 3, 2023 — NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has recorded breath-taking new images of the iconic Ring Nebula, also known as Messier ...

Webb Snaps Highly Detailed Infrared Image of Actively Forming Stars

July 26, 2023 — Young stars are rambunctious! NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has captured the 'antics' of a pair of actively forming young stars, known as Herbig-Haro 46/47, in high-resolution near-infrared ...

Stellar Cradles and Graves Seen in Farthest Galaxy Ever

July 14, 2023 — New observations have distinguished the sites of star formation and a possible site of star death from the surrounding nebula in a galaxy 13.2 billion light-years away. This is the farthest that such ...

Rare, Double-Lobe Nebula Resembles Overflowing Cosmic 'Jug'

July 13, 2023 — A billowing pair of nearly symmetrical loops of dust and gas mark the death throes of an ancient red-giant star. The resulting structure, said to resemble an old style of English jug, is a rarely ...

When the Stars Align: Astronomers Find Answers to Mysterious Action of Ghost Stars in Our Galaxy

July 13, 2023 — Scientists have found a source for the mysterious alignment of stars near the Galactic ...

Webb Locates Dust Reservoirs in Two Supernovae

July 5, 2023 — Researchers have made major strides in confirming the source of dust in early galaxies. Observations of two Type II supernovae, Supernova 2004et (SN 2004et) and Supernova 2017eaw (SN 2017eaw), have ...

First Detection of Crucial Carbon Molecule

June 26, 2023 — Scientists detect a new carbon compound in space for the first time. Known as methyl cation (pronounced cat-eye-on) (CH3+), the molecule is important because it aids the formation of more complex ...

Molecular Filament Shielded Young Solar System from Supernova

June 22, 2023 — Isotope ratios found in meteorites suggest that a supernova exploded nearby while the Sun and Solar System were still forming. But the blast wave from a supernova that close could have potentially ...

Never-Before-Seen Way to Annihilate a Star

June 22, 2023 — Astronomers studying a powerful gamma-ray burst, may have detected a never-before-seen way to destroy a star. Unlike most GRBs, which are caused by exploding massive stars or the chance mergers of ...

Pass the Salt: This Space Rock Holds Clues as to How Earth Got Its Water

June 13, 2023 — The discovery of tiny salt grains in a sample from an asteroid provides strong evidence that liquid water may be more common in the solar system than previously ...

Earlier Headlines

Summaries
Headlines

NASA's Webb Space Telescope Peers Behind Bars

June 5, 2023 — A delicate tracery of dust and bright star clusters threads across this image from the James Webb Space Telescope. The bright tendrils of gas and stars belong to the barred spiral galaxy NGC 5068, ...

Twinkling Stars Fuel Interstellar Dust

Apr. 6, 2023 — Of the many different kinds of stars, asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars, usually slightly larger and older than our own sun, are known producers of interstellar dust. Dusty AGBs are particularly ...

Webb Telescope Captures Rarely Seen Prelude to Supernova

Mar. 14, 2023 — The rare sight of a Wolf-Rayet star -- among the most luminous, most massive, and most briefly detectable stars known -- was one of the first observations made by NASA's James Webb Space ...

Galactic Explosion Offers Astrophysicists New Insight Into the Cosmos

Feb. 28, 2023 — Using data from the James Webb Space Telescope's first year of interstellar observation, an international team of researchers was able to serendipitously view an exploding supernova in a faraway ...

Does Ice in the Universe Contain the Molecules Making Up the Building Blocks of Life in Planetary Systems?

Feb. 16, 2023 — If you want to build a habitable planet, ice is a key ingredient. The ice can be found in enormous clouds in the Universe and it is the main carrier of the necessary elements such as carbon, ...

A Star Is Born: Nearby Galaxies Provide Clues About Star Formation

Feb. 16, 2023 — Researchers have released their findings on polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the interstellar medium of nearby ...

Astronomers Uncover a One-in-Ten-Billion Binary Star System: Kilonova Progenitor System

Feb. 1, 2023 — Astronomers using data from the SMARTS 1.5-meter Telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), have made the first confirmed detection of a star system that will one day form a ...

Solar System Formed from 'Poorly Mixed Cake Batter,' Isotope Research Shows

Jan. 26, 2023 — Earth's potassium arrived by meteoritic delivery service finds new research led by Earth and planetary scientists. Their work shows that some primitive meteorites contain a different mix of ...

Darkest View Ever of Interstellar Ice

Jan. 23, 2023 — Astronomers used observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to achieve the darkest ever view of a dense interstellar cloud. These observations have revealed the composition of a virtual ...

Billions of Celestial Objects Revealed in Gargantuan Survey of the Milky Way

Jan. 18, 2023 — Astronomers have released a gargantuan survey of the galactic plane of the Milky Way. The new dataset contains a staggering 3.32 billion celestial objects -- arguably the largest such catalog so far. ...

The World in Grains of Interstellar Dust

Jan. 13, 2023 — Understanding how dust grains form in interstellar gas could offer significant insights to astronomers and help materials scientists develop useful ...

How Did the Butterfly Nebula Get Its Wings? It's Complicated

Jan. 12, 2023 — Something is amiss in the Butterfly Nebula. When astronomers compared two exposures of this planetary nebula that had been taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2009 and 2020, they saw dramatic ...

A Supernova in Distant Space Allows Us to Understand the Origin of the Elements in the Universe

Nov. 10, 2022 — A supernova is a stellar explosion, which occurs when the lives of some really massive stars come to an end. In this violent epilogue, the star expels the material from its outer layers by means of a ...

Polarized X-Rays Reveal Shape, Orientation of Extremely Hot Matter Around Black Hole

Nov. 3, 2022 — The first observations of a mass-accreting black hole from the Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) mission reveal new details about the configuration of extremely hot matter in the region ...

ESO Captures the Ghost of a Giant Star

Oct. 31, 2022 — A beautiful tapestry of colors, showing the ghostly remains of a gigantic star, was captured in incredible detail with the VLT Survey Telescope, hosted at the European Southern Observatory's ...

NASA's Webb Takes Star-Filled Portrait of Pillars of Creation

Oct. 19, 2022 — NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has captured a lush, highly detailed landscape -- the iconic Pillars of Creation -- where new stars are forming within dense clouds of gas and dust. The ...

Milky Way's Graveyard of Dead Stars Found

Sep. 29, 2022 — The first map of the 'galactic underworld' -- a chart of the corpses of once massive suns that have since collapsed into black holes and neutron stars -- has revealed a graveyard that ...

Potential First Traces of the Universe's Earliest Stars

Sep. 29, 2022 — Astronomers may have discovered the ancient chemical remains of the first stars to light up the Universe. Using an innovative analysis of a distant quasar observed by the 8.1-meter Gemini North ...

ALMA Discovers Birth Cry from a Baby Star in the Small Magellanic Cloud

Aug. 30, 2022 — Researchers have observed 'baby stars' in the Small Magellanic Cloud, having an environment similar to the early universe. Toward one of the baby stars, they found molecular outflow, which ...

Discovery of the Oldest Visible Planetary Nebula Hosted by a 500-Million-Year-Old Galactic Cluster -- A Rare Beauty With a Hot Blue Heart

Aug. 29, 2022 — Astronomers have discovered a rare celestial jewel -- a so-called Planetary Nebula (PN) inside a 500 million-year-old Galactic Open Cluster (OC) called M37 (also known as NGC2099). This is a very ...

Monday, June 5, 2023