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NASA’s Next-Gen Near-Earth Asteroid Space Telescope Takes Shape

The Near-Earth Object (NEO) Surveyor — NASA’s first infrared space telescope purposely designed to discover potentially hazardous asteroids and comets — is

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May 5 • 12:30 PM EDT • Science • science.nasa.gov
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Webb space telescope reveals a scorching “super-Earth” that looks like Mercury

A scorching, airless world just 48 light-years away is offering scientists a rare glimpse into the geology of distant planets. Using the James Webb Space Telescope, researchers studied LHS 3844 b—a tidally locked “super-Earth” with a permanent dayside hot enough to melt metal—and discovered it’s a dark, barren rock with no atmosphere.

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May 5 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • sciencedaily.com
Volunteers Help NASA Astronauts Record Lunar Flashes

As NASA’s Artemis II astronauts zipped around the Moon in early April, they observed flashes of light caused by meteoroids hitting the lunar surface. At the same time, volunteers for the NASA-funded Impact Flash project scanned the Moon with their own telescopes and sent their videos to scientists to share what they saw from Earth.

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Apr 27 • 11:01 AM EDT • Science • science.nasa.gov
Scientists Need Your Help to Find Galaxies Bending Light in Space

You don't need a telescope or a physics degree to take part.

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Apr 26 • 9:16 PM EDT • Science • sciencealert.com
Small Antarctic Telescope Makes An Outsized Impact On Exoplanetary Science

ASTEP, the Antarctic Search for Transiting ExoPlanets, a small visible telescope operating at Concordia station, continues making a real impact in characterizing odd new exoplanetary systems.

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Apr 26 • 11:03 AM EDT • Science • universetoday.com
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Hubble revisits stunning Trifid Nebula after 30 years, and spots a growing jet of energy — Space photo of the week

The Hubble Space Telescope revisits a star-forming region 5,000 light-years from Earth, which it first captured in 1997, revealing how the cosmic nursery has changed over human timescales.

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Apr 26 • 6:00 AM EDT • Science • livescience.com
There Are 45 Earth-Like Worlds Where Aliens May Exist, Scientists Say

Scientists identify 45 potentially habitable exoplanets, using exact data and quotes to guide future telescopes in the search for extraterrestrial life.

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Apr 25 • 3:11 AM EDT • Science • forbes.com
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So, You Want to Buy a Telescope?

Are you getting ready to buy your first telescope? Carnegie experts offer some helpful advice for how to begin your backyard astronomy adventure!

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Apr 22 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • carnegiescience.edu
Scientists stunned as JWST finds ice clouds on a giant alien planet

Scientists have discovered unexpected water-ice clouds on a distant, Jupiter-like exoplanet, challenging current atmospheric models. By directly imaging Epsilon Indi Ab with the James Webb Space Telescope, they found less ammonia than expected—likely hidden by thick, patchy clouds. The finding reveals new layers of complexity in giant planets and shows how much we still have to learn.

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Apr 21 • 8:00 PM EDT • Science • sciencedaily.com
Hubble dazzles with young stars in Trifid Nebula for 36th anniversary

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope looked at a scene it first captured in 1997 in honour of 36th anniversary: a small portion of a star-forming region about 5000 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius, known as the Trifid Nebula. The image shows changes over incredibly short timescales and instills a sense of awe and wonder about our ever-changing Universe.

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Apr 20 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • esahubble.org
First-ever SPHEREx images spark hope to finally unlock the Universe’s origin mysteries - Futura-Sciences

SPHEREx Takes Off: A Mission Begins On March 11, a Falcon 9 rocket launched from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base, carrying a particularly precious piece of NASA’s scientific arsenal: the SPHEREx space telescope. Its mission? To map the cosmos with its high-precision instruments and spectacular image quality. No pressure, right?...

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Apr 18 • 1:00 PM EDT • Science • futura-sciences.com
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Roman Space Telescope Science Platform Will Open New Frontiers in Space Science

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

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Apr 16 • 8:55 PM EDT • Science • newswise.com
Roman Space Telescope Science Platform Will Open New Frontiers in Space Science

With the release of the cloud-hosted Roman Research Nexus,

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Apr 16 • 12:00 PM EDT • Science • astrobiology.com
Ocean scientists need to learn a lesson from NASA

My social media this week was full of space. When Artemis I splashed down, the world watched in awe. When the James Webb Space Telescope unrolled its golden mirrors, it felt like a win for humanity…

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Apr 14 • 10:52 AM EDT • Science • southernfriedscience.com
James Webb telescope spots 'stingray' galaxy system that could solve the mystery of 'little red dots'

A study of the fascinating galaxy system nicknamed "The Stingray" suggests that mysterious little red dots could be a phase in the evolution of galaxies powered by actively feeding black holes, rather than a distinct class of objects.

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Apr 9 • 12:49 PM EDT • Science • livescience.com
This “forbidden” exoplanet has an atmosphere scientists can’t explain

A strange “forbidden” planet spotted by the James Webb Space Telescope is turning planetary science on its head. TOI-5205 b, a Jupiter-sized world orbiting a small, cool star, has an atmosphere surprisingly poor in heavy elements—even less enriched than its own star, which defies current theories of how giant planets form.

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Apr 6 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • sciencedaily.com
Found: Most pristine star in the universe

A record-setting pristine star provides a window into the dawn of stars and galaxies in the universe. This groundbreaking find connects the work of two telescopes at Carnegie Science's Las Campanas Observatory—the du Pont, where spectra for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-V are taken, and the state-of-the-art Magellan Clay.

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Apr 2 • 8:00 PM EDT • Science • carnegiescience.edu
How to use your Unistellar smart telescope to track the Artemis 2 rocket light curve in the name of science

Your guide to getting involved in some citizen science by observing the light curve from NASA’s Artemis 2 SLS rocket during launch and return with your Unistellar smart telescope.

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Mar 31 • 2:00 PM EDT • Science • space.com
Swope telescope: five decades of observing and reinvention

Astronomer Nidia Morrell looks back on more than 20 years of observing at the Las Campanas Observatory—an era marked by the transition from manual methods to digital systems—and reflects on the enduring relevance of a telescope that remains central to modern astronomy.

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Mar 31 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • carnegiescience.edu
Webb telescope spots mysterious explosion that defies known physics

Astronomers have spotted a bizarre cosmic explosion that refuses to play by the rules—and it’s leaving scientists scrambling for answers. GRB 250702B, detected by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and a global network of observatories, lasted an astonishing seven hours—far longer than typical gamma-ray bursts, which usually fade in under a minute.

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Mar 30 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • sciencedaily.com
Scientists Solve Decades-Long Mystery About Why Saturn Appears To Change Its Spin

Researchers at Northumbria University have used the most powerful space telescope ever built to answer one of the longest-standing puzzles in planetary science – why does Saturn appear to spin at a...

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Mar 29 • 6:19 PM EDT • Science • eurasiareview.com
Here's the stargazing gear you need for April 2026 — don't miss the Lyrids, two comets and the full moon

These are our top camera, binocular and telescope recommendations for April's stargazing events, including the Lyrid meteor shower and two bright comets.

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Mar 27 • 12:00 PM EDT • Science • livescience.com
NASA spots comet reversing its spin in a first for science

In 2017 NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope zoomed in on a comet as it passed around the sun. And then things took a more unusual turn

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Mar 27 • 7:00 AM EDT • Science • scientificamerican.com
Scientists stunned as Mars dust storms blast water into space

Mars may look like a frozen desert today, but new evidence suggests its watery past didn’t simply fade away quietly—it may have been blasted into space by powerful dust storms. Scientists have discovered that even relatively small, localized storms can hurl water vapor high into the atmosphere, where it breaks apart and escapes.

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Mar 26 • 8:00 PM EDT • Science • sciencedaily.com
Scientists Startled by What Happens When They Point Hubble at Comet

An extraordinary coincidence occurred when astronomers pointed the Hubble Space Telescope at a wayward comet.

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Mar 22 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • futurism.com
Webb Telescope spots “impossible” atmosphere on ancient super Earth

Astronomers have uncovered surprising evidence of a thick atmosphere surrounding TOI-561 b, a scorching, fast-orbiting rocky planet once thought too extreme to hold onto any gas. Using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, researchers found the planet is far cooler than expected for a bare rock, hinting at a heat-distributing atmosphere above a churning magma ocean. This strange world—where a year lasts just over 10 hours and one side is locked in eternal daylight—may even be rich in volatile materials, behaving like a “wet lava ball.”

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Mar 21 • 8:00 PM EDT • Science • sciencedaily.com
NASA’s Hubble accidentally caught a comet breaking apart in real time

In an incredibly lucky cosmic accident, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured a comet breaking apart in real time—something astronomers have long tried and failed to observe. The comet, C/2025 K1 (ATLAS), wasn’t even the original target, but when researchers pivoted to it, they unknowingly caught it mid-disintegration into multiple pieces.

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Mar 21 • 8:00 AM EDT • Science • sciencedaily.com
NASA’s Hubble Unexpectedly Catches Comet Breaking Up

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope witnessed comet K1, whose full name is C/2025 K1 (ATLAS), in the act of breaking apart.

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Mar 18 • 10:00 AM EDT • Science • science.nasa.gov
Webb telescope photos show mysterious little red dots. Astronomers don’t know what they are

Hundreds of mysterious objects have appeared in images captured by the Webb space telescope. The curious dots could reshape scientists’ understanding of the cosmos.

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Mar 17 • 8:30 AM EDT • Science • cnn.com
Mercer students, faculty bring space science to Girl Scouts

A Girl Scout leaned down and peered into the eyepiece of a telescope focused on the moon in the night sky above Mercer University.

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Mar 11 • 6:00 AM EDT • Science • den.mercer.edu
NASA updates odds that 'city killer' asteroid 2024 YR4 will hit the moon

The "city killer" asteroid 2024 YR4 won't hit Earth or the moon when it whizzes by in 2032, the latest James Webb Space Telescope observations confirm.

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Mar 5 • 5:54 PM EST • Science • livescience.com
Mysterious 'little red dots' discovered by James Webb telescope may be the first stars in the universe on the verge of collapse

A new study suggests that "little red dots" spied by the James Webb Space Telescope could be the universe's short-lived first generation of gigantic stars, challenging an existing theory.

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Mar 3 • 5:04 PM EST • Science • livescience.com
James Webb spots a galaxy with tentacles in deep space

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have spotted the most distant “jellyfish galaxy” ever seen — a cosmic oddity streaming long, tentacle-like trails of gas and newborn stars as it speeds through a dense galaxy cluster. The galaxy appears as it was 8.5 billion years ago, revealing that the early universe may have been far more violent than scientists expected.

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Mar 3 • 7:00 AM EST • Science • sciencedaily.com
Vast web of cold gas observed at the heart of the Milky Way

Using the Chile-based ALMA telescope, the researchers examined the dynamics and chemistry of a central region.

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Feb 27 • 10:07 AM EST • Science • detroitnews.com
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New image reveals secrets of Milky Way galaxy in stunning detail

Largest ever image obtained by specialist telescope in Chile represents scientific and aesthetic breakthrough

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Feb 26 • 3:01 PM EST • Science • theguardian.com
Rubin Observatory alerts scientists to 800,000 new asteroids, exploding stars and other cosmic phenomena in just one night

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory sent scientists nearly 1 million astronomy alerts in one night, showing off changes in the sky. Eventually, the telescope is expected to reach 7 million alerts per night.

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Feb 26 • 11:41 AM EST • Science • livescience.com
NASA’s Webb Examines Cranium Nebula

Two heads are better than one in the latest images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, which reveal new detail in a mysterious, little-studied nebula

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Feb 25 • 10:00 AM EST • Science • science.nasa.gov
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'A place of extremes': Scientists unveil the largest-ever map of the galaxy's chaotic center

Scientists using the ALMA telescope have created the most-detailed-ever map of the Milky Way's chaotic center. The observations could open a window to the ancient universe as it appeared shortly after the Big Bang.

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Feb 25 • 8:00 AM EST • Science • livescience.com
The balloon mission raising the bar for exoplanet science

The atmospheres of exoplanets have been a focal point of the field lately, with the James Webb Space Telescope taking a look at as many as it can manage. But time on the world's most powerful space telescope ...

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Feb 15 • 8:00 PM EST • Science • phys.org
'Runaway' black hole detected by the James Webb telescope adds a strange new chapter to our universe's story

Recent observations suggest that 'runaway' black holes are tumbling through the cosmos. Building on decades of theory, the discovery adds a remarkable new chapter to the story of the universe.

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Feb 14 • 11:00 AM EST • Science • theconversation.com
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Twin beams blast from a hidden star in stunning Hubble Space Telescope image

A dazzling new Hubble image peels back the layers of the mysterious Egg Nebula, a rare and fleeting phase in a Sun-like star’s death just 1,000 light-years away. Hidden inside a dense cocoon of dust, the dying star blasts twin beams of light through a polar opening, carving glowing lobes and delicate ripples into the surrounding cloud. These striking, symmetrical arcs hint that unseen companion stars may be shaping the spectacle from within.

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Feb 13 • 7:00 AM EST • Science • sciencedaily.com
NASA telescope spots the building blocks for life spewing out of comet 3I/ATLAS

NASA's SPHEREx space telescope detected organic molecules coming off comet 3I/ATLAS as the interstellar visitor made its closest approach to Earth in December.

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Feb 12 • 5:07 PM EST • Science • livescience.com
Webb: Transforming Our Understanding of Star Formation

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has “supercharged” what astronomers know about star formation with its sharp near- and mid-infrared observations. In this video, learn about some of the most exciting discoveries Webb has made since the start of its science oper...

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Feb 11 • 11:00 AM EST • Science • science.nasa.gov
'Invisible scaffolding of the universe' revealed in ambitious new James Webb telescope images

A team of researchers using the James Webb Space Telescope has produced the most detailed map of dark matter to date.

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Feb 6 • 5:04 PM EST • Science • livescience.com
Scientists just mapped the hidden structure holding the Universe together

Astronomers have produced the most detailed map yet of dark matter, revealing the invisible framework that shaped the Universe long before stars and galaxies formed. Using powerful new observations from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, the research shows how dark matter gathered ordinary matter into dense regions, setting the stage for galaxies like the Milky Way and eventually planets like Earth.

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Feb 2 • 7:00 PM EST • Science • sciencedaily.com
Researchers pinpoint source of black hole's 3,000-light-year-long jet stream using enhanced telescope network

A new study has connected the famous m87 black hole, the first ever imaged, to its powerful cosmic jet, revealing how it launches particles at near light speed.

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Jan 31 • 6:26 PM EST • Science • foxnews.com
Astronomers unveil map of dark matter's distribution in universe

Using observations from the James Webb Space Telescope in a patch of the sky covering almost three times the area of the full moon, scientists have created the most detailed cosmic map to date of the mysterious substance called dark matter that accounts for most of the stuff that populates the universe.

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Jan 26 • 11:01 AM EST • Science • reuters.com
Scientists assemble the most detailed map of dark matter ever

Dark matter is a mysterious substance that glues galaxies together. This map from the James Webb Space Telescope could help scientists finally figure out what it is.

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Jan 25 • 7:00 PM EST • Science • nationalgeographic.com
James Webb telescope peers into 'Eye of God' and finds clues to life's origins — Space photo of the week

A spectacular new image from the James Webb Space Telescope reveals intricate structures inside the Helix Nebula, where a dying sunlike star is enriching the galaxy with the elements needed for life.

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Jan 25 • 6:00 AM EST • Science • livescience.com
James Webb Space Telescope solves a comet crystal mystery

A 'cosmic highway' may explain the journeys of some space silicates.

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Jan 22 • 11:45 AM EST • Science • popsci.com
James Webb telescope reveals sharpest-ever look at the edge of a black hole — and it could solve a major galactic mystery

The James Webb Space Telescope snapped its sharpest image of the area around a black hole, solving a long-standing galactic mystery.

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Jan 19 • 5:00 AM EST • Science • livescience.com
Space Science in 2026: New lunar explorers, Mars missions, and space telescopes

With many missions on the manifest, the new year promises to be packed with space…

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Jan 18 • 3:46 PM EST • Science • nasaspaceflight.com
Hubble Snaps Stellar Baby Pictures

Developing stars shrouded in thick dust get their first baby pictures in these Hubble Space Telescope images.

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Jan 17 • 12:45 PM EST • Science • science.nasa.gov
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What Greenland Sharks Are Teaching Us About Aging Eyes

Greenland sharks' eyes never seem to get old. Plus, exactly how flawless is the greatest eye in the sky, the James Webb Space Telescope?

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Jan 15 • 6:00 AM EST • Science • sciencefriday.com
James Webb telescope saw black holes emerging from 'cocoons' near the dawn of time, new study hints

The gaseous cocoons surrounding "little red dots" hint at their true nature, a new James Webb telescope study hints.

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Jan 14 • 12:04 PM EST • Science • livescience.com
5 major entertainment options coming to metro Phoenix in 2026

From a travel center and the largest telescope to a theme park and a multi-room bar, here are major openings coming to metro Phoenix in 2026.

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Jan 14 • 7:00 AM EST • Entertainment • azcentral.com
Scientists study 100 possible alien radio signals from collapsed Arecibo Observatory, ending groundbreaking 21-year search

A crowd-sourced search for alien intelligence called SETI@Home is in its final stages, analyzing 100 'signals of interest' with the world's largest radio telescope.

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Jan 13 • 4:58 PM EST • Science • livescience.com
Rural areas have darker skies but fewer resources for students interested in astronomy – telescopes in schools can help

Stargazing can stimulate an interest in space in kids and lead to a passion for science. But rural schools often lack the resources to nurture these interests.

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Jan 13 • 8:23 AM EST • Science • theconversation.com
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Circinus Galaxy (Hubble and Webb Compass Image)

This image shows two views of the Circinus galaxy, one captured by the Hubble Space Telescope and the other by the James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRISS (Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph. It shows compass arrows, scale bar, and color key for reference.

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Jan 13 • 4:58 AM EST • Science • science.nasa.gov
Hubble Has Traveled Over 6 Billion Kilometers. Soon, It Will Crash Down To Earth.

Current predictions show surprisingly high odds of the telescope posing risk to people on Earth.

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Jan 12 • 12:14 PM EST • Science • iflscience.com
Key to near-Earth object science now being created for for NASA telescope on Big Island

Spectre, an integral field spectrograph named as a nod to a connection with Olympic weightlifter and actor Harold Sakata of Kona, who played OddJob in the James Bond film ‘Goldfinger,’ after first light in 2028 will also deepen mankind’s understanding of explosive phenomena beyond our solar system.

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Jan 10 • 6:00 PM EST • Science • kauainownews.com
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Oddball 'platypus galaxies' spotted by James Webb telescope may challenge our understanding of galaxy formation

Astronomers spotted nine galaxies with characteristics that have never been seen as a collection before. It's possible this is a newly found type of star-forming galaxy.

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Jan 10 • 8:00 AM EST • Science • livescience.com
10 quintillion hydrogen bombs every second: Webb detects massive galactic eruption

Scientists have discovered an enormous stream of super-hot gas erupting from a nearby galaxy, driven by a powerful black hole at its center. The jets stretch farther than the galaxy itself and spiral outward in a rare, never-before-seen pattern. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope pierced through thick dust to reveal this violent outflow. The process is so intense it’s robbing the galaxy of star-forming gas at a staggering rate.

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Jan 10 • 7:00 AM EST • Science • sciencedaily.com
‘I love science': NASA administrator explains decision to close Goddard library

NASA’s newly confirmed administrator visited Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland and defended the decision to close the facility’s library – NASA’s largest. Jared Isaacman emphasized Goddard’s importance Friday. “We’ve got Roman Space Telescope here, Nancy Grace Roman Telescope, so if I like Hubble, you’ve got to love Roman,” he said. “I mean, you know, 100 times the field of…

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Jan 9 • 10:04 PM EST • Science • nbcwashington.com
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Google’s Ex-CEO Backs Start-Up Approach to Big Telescopes for Space and Astronomy

Eric and Wendy Schmidt are backing a start-up-like approach to building a giant space telescope and powerful ground observatories.

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Jan 9 • 9:54 AM EST • Science • nytimes.com
James Webb telescope confirms a supermassive black hole running away from its host galaxy at 2 million mph, researchers say

JWST peered at the glowing trail of stars left behind by a candidate runaway supermassive black hole deep in space, revealing new insights after other telescopes looked at the event.

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Jan 8 • 12:04 PM EST • Science • livescience.com
Schmidt Sciences Announces Plan for Lazuli, a Private Space Telescope

Bigger than Hubble and launching as soon as 2029, the Lazuli Space Observatory would be the first-ever full-scale private space telescope

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Jan 7 • 5:00 PM EST • Science • scientificamerican.com
Scientists Identify 'Astronomy’s Platypus' with NASA’s Webb Telescope

After combing through NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s archive of sweeping extragalactic cosmic fields, a small team of astronomers at the University of

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Jan 6 • 12:16 PM EST • Science • science.nasa.gov
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Betelgeuse: Effect of Companion Star Wake

Scientists used NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to look for evidence of a wake being generated by a companion star orbiting Betelgeuse. The team found a noticeable difference in light shown in the lefthand peak when the companion star was at different points in its orbit.

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Jan 5 • 4:15 PM EST • Science • science.nasa.gov
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NASA’s Webb telescope just discovered one of the weirdest planets ever

A newly discovered exoplanet is rewriting the rules of what planets can be. Orbiting a city-sized neutron star, this Jupiter-mass world has a bizarre carbon-rich atmosphere filled with soot clouds and possibly diamonds at its core. Its extreme gravity stretches it into a lemon shape, and it completes a full orbit in under eight hours. Scientists are stunned — no known theory explains how such a planet could exist.

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Jan 1 • 7:00 AM EST • Science • sciencedaily.com
These Are the Most Exciting Space Science Events for 2026

From crewed lunar voyages to flight tests of fully reusable rockets and launches of new orbital telescopes studying the outer limits of the cosmos, 2026 should be a banner year for space science and exploration

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Dec 30, 2025 • 6:30 AM EST • Science • scientificamerican.com
The people behind the telescope: How specialized expertise is supporting science at the edge of the universe

Behind a world-leading telescope bound for Chile is a team of engineers, machinists, electronics specialists and riggers at Cornell. Meet the specialized staff whose expertise is helping push cosmology to new frontiers.

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Dec 28, 2025 • 7:00 PM EST • Science • news.cornell.edu
Science history: James Webb Space Telescope launches — and promptly cracks our view of the universe

The James Webb Space Telescope blasted off from a launchpad in French Guiana in 2021, before reaching a spot in orbit a million miles away. It soon began breaking cosmology.

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Dec 25, 2025 • 2:00 AM EST • Science • livescience.com
'What the heck is this?' James Webb telescope spots inexplicable planet with diamonds and soot in its atmosphere

Scientists using the James Webb telescope observed a distant exoplanet with an atmosphere of soot and diamonds, challenging all explanations.

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Dec 24, 2025 • 1:05 PM EST • Science • livescience.com
These space stories made us look up in 2025

Space is always inspiring and 2025 was no exception, with finding Betelgeuse’s buddy, debuting a prolific survey telescope and more.

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Dec 23, 2025 • 10:00 AM EST • Science • sciencenews.org
The disunity of science is a feature, not a bug

Mathematical models wield miraculous power, but mistaking them for reality has trapped science in a destructive quest for a “Theory of Everything.” Physicist and philosopher Ragner Fjelland argues that this leads to bloated, Frankenstein theories kept alive by clumsy, ad-hoc amendments, which reduce rather than boost science’s power. Fjelland calls for a radical shift in our attitude: we must reorientate towards creating entirely new theories, celebrating rather than lamenting disunity and diversity in science. Science, from the scientific revolution in the seventeenth century to the present day, has more or less developed in a “reductionist” way. The fundamental assumption is that all sciences may be ordered in a hierarchy that can be represented as an upside-down pyramid. At the top we find the human sciences, and at the bottom physics. Strong (or “ontological”) reductionism maintains that all theories at one level can be completely reduced to the lower level, all the way down to theories of atoms and elementary particles, or whatever is “at the bottom.” In the end, all diversity in the world can be unified in one fundamental theory. Hence it is called a final theory, or a Theory of Everything.One of the central figures in developing the idea of a Theory of Everything is the Dutch theoretical physicist Gerard 't Hooft, who received a Nobel Prize in physics in 1999 for his work. He emphasizes the non-empirical status of the theory:There exists no closely resembling alternative theory. This means that any slight change brought about in the rules would make the theory unlikely or inelegant. The theory will be a "package deal": take it, or leave it. This should hold both for the local laws and for the boundary conditions.This endeavor is not new. On the contrary, it goes all the way back to the birth of Western philosophy 2,500 years ago. The Babylonians made regular astronomical observations during a period of 600 years, from 747 BCE until 150 ACE. They developed mathematical techniques to predict astronomical phenomena, but they made no attempts at explaining them. However, the Greeks developed models, both material and theoretical, to explain the observed phenomena.The best example is Plato’s late dialogue Timaeus. Here he introduces a divine craftsman, the Demiurge, who has constructed the universe according to an original plan. Plato seems to have thought that the original plan is what is actually real, while the material world is merely an imperfect realization of it. He therefore does not, in the Timaeus, reconstruct the material universe, but the original plan, which can then be used to explain the material universe.Plato’s aim in producing a theoretical model is to reconstruct the original plan. That is what he carries out in Timaeus—and some modern physicists have embarked on the same project. For example, Einstein’s basic attitude is reflected in the title of Abraham Pais’ biography: “Subtle is the Lord...,” echoing Einstein’s comment, “Subtle is the Lord, but malicious He is not.” In an interview Einstein compared our situation to a child who enters a huge library. The child knows that someone has written the books, but he does not know the languages in which they are written. He suspects that there is a mysterious order, but he does not know what it is.___“We have all been working in what Husserl called the Galilean style; that is, we have all been making abstract mathematical models of the universe to which at least the physicists give a higher degree of reality than they accord the ordinary world of sensation.”Steven Weinberg, Nobel Prize in Physics (1979)___This Platonist view is contrary to a widespread impression of science, symbolized by the picture of the “father” of modern science, Galileo Galilei, with his telescope. According to this impression, Galileo liberated himself from the dominating metaphysics of his day—basically Aristotelian philosophy—and constructed a telescope that he directed towards the sky, showing that Jupiter has four moons. He also performed experiments with bronze balls rolling down inclined planes and found the law of freely falling bodies.However, in other cases Galileo emphasized the unreliability of our senses. It is easy to see why. He defended Copernicus’ heliocentric hypothesis. According to this hypothesis, we are not at rest at the center of the universe, but moving at a tremendous speed through space. Why don’t we observe this motion? Galileo praises Copernicus because “with reason as his guide he resolutely continued to affirm what sensible experience seemed to contradict.” In other places he directly refers to Plato. SUGGESTED VIEWING The quest for a final theory With Michio Kaku Galileo’s Platonism goes back to his early writings. In The Assayer, published as early as 1623, Galileo compared the universe to a grand book that is written in the language of mathematics, and “its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometric figures without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it.” Therefore, things that cannot be described by mathematics—for example, colors, smells and odors—are not real. They are merely subjective.This division into subjective and objective, advocated by Galileo and his younger contemporary René Descartes, is normally associated with a mechanistic world view, which is regarded as the opposite of Platonism. When we reduce something to, for example, molecules and atoms, we move “downwards.” In contrast, the Platonist moves “upwards,” to abstract entities. However, it only shows that when we address fundamental questions, we should be careful in applying everyday spatial metaphors like “up” and “down.”___Nature is complex, and we cannot in general construct mathematical models that adequately describe the world.___The endeavor of finding a Theory of Everything has been heavily criticized. In 2006, the theoretical physicist Lee Smolin published “The Crisis in Fundamental Physics.” He argued that one of the most fundamental principles of science is that we should only regard theories as scientific if we have the possibility to show that they are false by experiments. Although he did not refer to Karl Popper, other critics have referred to Popper and argued that a theory is not scientific if it cannot be falsified (see for example Ellis & Silk 2014).These were not the first physicists to be anti-reductionists. In 1972, the journal Science published an article by the physicist Philip Anderson with the title “More Is Different.” This is the kind of article a scientist would normally write only after he has won a Nobel Prize. However, Anderson won the Nobel Prize for physics five years later, in 1977. The article is amazing, not primarily because it argues in favor of anti-reductionism in general, but because it argues for anti-reductionism within physics itself. Anderson’s conclusion was:At each stage entirely new laws, concepts, and generalizations are necessary, requiring inspiration and creativity to just as great a degree as in the previous one. Psychology is not applied biology, nor is biology applied chemistry.We may say that Plato started the “unity of science movement,” based on Euclidean geometry as the model of all knowledge. A distinguishing mark of geometry is that all possible constructions can be reduced to a few fundamental principles. We have to acknowledge that this approach has limitations. In general, we can easily model technological systems. In addition, we may construct simplified and idealized models that capture important aspects of systems, from various perspectives and for various purposes. But nature is complex, and we cannot in general construct mathematical models that adequately describe the world. In a complex system, each level has its distinct, emergent, properties that are characteristic of this level. Therefore, a complex system should be investigated at different levels and from different perspectives. Instead of exclusively pursuing a scientific ideal based on the unity of science, we should acknowledge the diversity—or even the disunity—of science.

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Dec 23, 2025 • 7:00 AM EST • Science • iai.tv
Best space photos of 2025

An alien comet, a Martian volcano, a man’s fall from the sun and a groundbreaking telescope’s first images: Here are the most jaw-dropping space photos of 2025.

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Dec 22, 2025 • 4:38 PM EST • Science • livescience.com
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Top science stories of 2025

In a year of funding chaos, ongoing climate change and pollution perils, we also saw the most powerful telescope yet, personalized gene therapy, and the next-best-thing to an HIV vaccine — not to mention a brand-new color

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Dec 21, 2025 • 7:00 PM EST • Science • knowablemagazine.org
Subaru Telescope reveals a hidden giant planet

Astronomers have uncovered a massive hidden planet and a rare “failed star” by combining ultra-precise space data with some of the sharpest ground-based images ever taken. Using the Subaru Telescope in Hawaiʻi, the OASIS survey tracked subtle stellar wobbles to pinpoint where unseen worlds were lurking—then captured them directly.

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Dec 21, 2025 • 7:00 PM EST • Science • sciencedaily.com
Glittering new James Webb telescope image shows an 'intricate web of chaos' — Space photo of the week

This mash-up of data from the James Webb Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory reveals two galaxies mid-collision, with their spiral arms overlapping and bending toward their neighbors' cores.

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Dec 21, 2025 • 6:00 AM EST • Science • livescience.com
Transformational Astrophysics And Exoplanet Science With Habitable Worlds Observatory's High Resolution Imager

Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) will be NASA's flagship space telescope of the 2040s

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Dec 20, 2025 • 4:05 PM EST • Science • astrobiology.com
NASA Webb Telescope Discovers Lemon-Shaped Planet, the ‘Stretchiest’ Ever Seen

An unusual object orbiting a rapidly spinning star might be a new phenomenon in the universe.

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Dec 18, 2025 • 9:32 PM EST • Science • nytimes.com
Hubble Space Telescope spies dusty debris from two cosmic collisions

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has gotten a rare peek at the aftermath of two cosmic collisions — and helped scientists solve a decades-old mystery.

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Dec 18, 2025 • 2:26 PM EST • Science • seattletimes.com
Life beyond Earth? Dame Maggie Aderin-Pocock on the mysteries of space

Dame Maggie Aderin-Pocock is a space scientist and science educator who has worked on a number of instruments that are revolutionising our view of the cosmos, including the James Webb Space Telescope. This year she will be giving the Royal Institution Christmas lectures, Britain’s most prestigious public science lectures, in which she will be exploring some of the big questions space science still has to answer.

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Dec 18, 2025 • 12:00 AM EST • Science • theguardian.com
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New Public Science Center Opens at Kitt Peak National Observatory - Visitors celebrated the opening of the Windows on the Universe Center for Astronomy Outreach, the first science center located inside a telescope

Windows on the Universe Center for Astronomy Outreach is a new science education and astronomy outreach center that has just opened at U.S. National Science Foundation Kitt Peak National Observatory, a Program of NSF NOIRLab.

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Dec 17, 2025 • 7:00 AM EST • Science • noirlab.edu
NASA Completes Next-Gen Telescope, And It Could Soon Reveal Whether We're Alone

A new era begins.

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Dec 16, 2025 • 10:23 PM EST • Science • sciencealert.com
'We were amazed': Scientists using James Webb telescope may have discovered the earliest supernova in the known universe

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope report that a powerful gamma-ray burst detected in March may have been produced by the explosion of a massive star just 730 million years after the Big Bang.

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Dec 16, 2025 • 1:46 PM EST • Science • livescience.com
NASA’s Webb Observes Exoplanet Whose Composition Defies Explanation

Scientists using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have observed a rare type of exoplanet, or planet outside our solar system, whose atmospheric composition

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Dec 16, 2025 • 10:00 AM EST • Science • science.nasa.gov
30 models of the universe proved wrong by final data from groundbreaking cosmology telescope

The Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) in Chile has released its final batch of data after 15 years — and it proves that the Hubble tension, a rift in our understanding of the universe, is very real.

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Dec 15, 2025 • 4:50 PM EST • Science • livescience.com
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Scientists Find the Strongest Evidence Yet of an Atmosphere on a Molten Rocky Exoplanet

Researchers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have detected the strongest evidence yet for an atmosphere on a rocky planet outside our solar system. Observations of the ultra-hot super-Earth TOI-561 b suggest that the exoplanet is surrounded by a thick blanket of gases above a global magma ocean.

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Dec 14, 2025 • 3:54 PM EST • Science • universetoday.com
Strange, 7-hour explosion from deep space is unlike anything scientists have seen — Space photo of the week

Astronomers used major telescopes across the world to probe a cosmic explosion 8 billion light-years from the solar system.

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Dec 14, 2025 • 6:00 AM EST • Science • livescience.com
Comet 3I/ATLAS is getting greener and brighter as it approaches Earth, new images reveal

New images taken with the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii confirm that the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS has gotten brighter and greener since its close flyby of the sun in October.

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Dec 12, 2025 • 5:05 PM EST • Science • livescience.com
NASA’s Webb, Curiosity Named in TIME’s Best Inventions Hall of Fame

Two icons of discovery, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and NASA’s Curiosity rover, have earned places in TIME’s “Best Inventions Hall of Fame,” which

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Dec 12, 2025 • 12:52 PM EST • Science • science.nasa.gov
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James Webb telescope spots 'monster stars' leaking nitrogen in the early universe — and they could help solve a major mystery

Researchers using the James Webb Space Telescope spotted huge stars leaking nitrogen in an early galaxy, hinting that such 'monster stars' might have been the source of ancient supermassive black holes.

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Dec 11, 2025 • 1:55 PM EST • Science • livescience.com
NASA’s Webb Detects Thick Atmosphere Around Broiling Lava World

Researchers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have detected the strongest evidence yet for an atmosphere on a rocky planet outside our solar system, as

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Dec 11, 2025 • 10:00 AM EST • Science • science.nasa.gov
How the James Webb Telescope recorded the earliest supernova ever | - The Times of India

Science News: The James Webb Space Telescope has observed the universe's earliest supernova. This event offers a rare glimpse into the early universe. It shows how

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Dec 11, 2025 • 8:41 AM EST • Science • timesofindia.indiatimes.com
New Software from the Dynamic Eclipse Broadcast Initiative

Eighty-two volunteer teams with the Dynamic Eclipse Broadcast (DEB) Initiative spent the day spread across North America, observing the eclipse with telescopes, collecting a massive dataset of images, and developing software to process it.

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Dec 10, 2025 • 9:00 AM EST • Science • science.nasa.gov
NASA’s Webb Identifies Earliest Supernova to Date, Shows Host Galaxy

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has observed a supernova that exploded when the universe was only 730 million years old — the earliest detection of its kind

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Dec 9, 2025 • 11:00 AM EST • Science • science.nasa.gov
New images show an interstellar comet that will soon make its closest approach to Earth

New images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and a Jupiter-bound mission showcase interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS ahead of its close pass by Earth.

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Dec 8, 2025 • 4:03 PM EST • Science • cnn.com
Wonder and discovery coalesce at Vatican Observatory exhibition

Wonder Bound, the product of a collaboration between Johns Hopkins University, the Space Telescope Science Institute, and the Vatican Observatory, brings images from the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes to a historic venue

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Dec 8, 2025 • 6:00 AM EST • Science • hub.jhu.edu