#stsci

Another piece of the Beta Pictoris puzzle has fallen into place—a newly discovered giant planet!

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have discovered a third exoplanet orbiting the nearby young star. This artist's concept shows the complete system, including the newly discovered Beta Pictoris d (right).

When a star wanders too close to a supermassive black hole, it can be shredded in a process known as a tidal disruption event (seen here in an artist’s concept).

Finding globular star cluster Omega Centauri’s first known stellar-mass black hole required time and the united efforts of the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes.

Models suggest that Omega Centauri, which is composed of 10 million gravitationally bound stars, should also contain about 10,000 stellar-mass black holes. However, observational evidence of their existence has remained scarce … until now.

One of astronomy’s big questions is: under what conditions can rocky planets outside our solar system even hold an atmosphere?

A program operated by the Space Telescope Science Institute is seeking to answer that question, and the team has reached a major milestone. They completed coordinated observations with the James Webb and Hubble space telescopes of their first target, Earth-sized rocky planet GJ 3929 b, and the red dwarf star it orbits, GJ 3929.

This fraction of the legendary Helix Nebula, observed by the James Webb Space Telescope in 2024, is now available as a printable poster!

The poster is available single- or double-sided. The double-sided version includes the image on the front and a description in both English and Spanish on the back.

Download this high-resolution poster: https://go.nasa.gov/4vJQ8Nz

Did you know the soon-to-launch Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will map our universe? 🗺️

Through its High-Latitude Wide-Area Survey, Roman will help astronomers study the universe’s large—and mostly hidden—structure by measuring distances to millions of galaxies. Over 520 days during the telescope’s five-year primary mission, Roman will observe 12% of the entire sky—equivalent to about 25,500 full moons. 🌕

This Roman survey will shed light on some of the perplexing aspects of the cosmos, including dark energy, dark matter, and the universe’s accelerating expansion. Roman will also uncover hundreds of millions of galaxies, providing insight about their evolution and the stellar populations within them.

There's more to this galaxy than what meets the eye.

In visible light, thick lanes of dust hide much of nearby galaxy Centaurus A, but the James Webb Space Telescope observes in infrared light, showing a totally new view.

The image, released to mark four successful years of science from the world’s most powerful space telescope, reveals glowing clouds of dust, a central supermassive black hole, hidden star-forming regions, different generations of stars, and the lasting marks of an ancient galactic collision.