An international research team, led by the Italian National Astrophysical Institute (INAF), has used the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to capture an extraordinary event in the distant Universe: the dramatic interaction between a quasar and two massive satellite galaxies in the PJ308-21 system. This remarkable discovery provides new insights into the growth of galaxies … Read more
Map of the line emission from hydrogen (in red and blue) and oxygen (in green) in the PJ308-21 system, shown after masking the light from the central quasar (“QSO”). The different colors of the quasar’s host galaxy and companion galaxies in this map reveal the physical properties of the gas within it. Credit: Decarli/INAF/A&A 2024 … Read more
This infrared image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope was taken by the Near-Infrared Camera for the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey program – Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Brant Robertson (UC Santa Cruz), Ben Johnson (CfA), Sandro Tacchella (Cambridge), Phill Cargile (CfA) For two years, an international team has been studying what astronomers call … Read more
Edward C. Stone, who opened a window to the farthest reaches of the solar system while serving as chief scientist of NASA’s Voyager mission, which oversaw a pair of spindly, plutonium-powered spacecraft that continue to operate billions of miles from Earth, died in June 9 at his home in Pasadena, California. He was 88. His … Read more
A binary black hole system in an active galaxy about 4 billion light-years away has been seen to brighten dramatically as one of the black holes plowed through the accretion disk of the other, briefly creating a double quasar. A quasar is the extremely active core of a distant galaxy. This activity is the product … Read more
Artist’s impression of the first stars, 400 million years after the Big Bang NASA WMAP Science team via Wikipedia Astronomers have discovered the furthest known carbon in the universe, dating from just 350 million years after the Big Bang. The finding – made by NASA’s Webb Space Telescope – used infrared observations from the current … Read more
In a remarkable feat of astronomical research, Kevin Hainline, an astronomer at the University of Arizona, has observed a galaxy that offers a glimpse into the universe’s distant past. Using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), Hainline and his team have identified a galaxy, named JADES-GS-z14-0, that appears as it existed 290 million years after … Read more
The James Webb Space Telescope has discovered the oldest and most distant supernova ever observed: a stellar explosion that occurred when the universe was just 1.8 billion years old. The ancient fireworks explosion was discovered along with 80 others in a patch of sky that, from our perspective on Earth, is about the width of … Read more
When it comes to hunting down the explosive deaths of massive stars in the early universe, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a true cosmic detective. This celestial Sherlock Holmes has found evidence of 80 new early supernovae in a patch of sky as wide as a grain of rice, held at arm’s length. … Read more
An international team of astronomers has announced the detection of two of the earliest and most distant galaxies known. The light from both comes from just 300 million years after the Big Bang and it was only possible to observe them thanks to the power of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The galaxies are … Read more