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Hubble Snaps Stellar Baby Pictures
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Hubble Snaps Stellar Baby Pictures The Cepheus A region is home to a number of infant stars, including a protostar that is responsible for much of the region’s illumination. NASA, ESA, and R. Fedriani (Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America) Star-forming region G033.91+0.11 is home to a protostar hidden within a reflection nebula. NASA, ESA, and R. Fedriani (Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America) A protostar is swathed in the gas of an emission nebula within star-forming region GAL-305.20+00.21. NASA, ESA, and R. Fedriani (Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America) A protostar’s jets of high-speed particles are responsible for the bright region of excited, glowing hydrogen in this Hubble image. NASA, ESA, and R. Fedriani (Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
Newly developing stars shrouded in thick dust get their first baby pictures in these images from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. Hubble took these infant star snapshots in an effort to learn how massive stars form.
Protostars are shrouded in thick dust that blocks light, but Hubble can detect the near-infrared emission that shines through holes formed by the protostar’s jets of gas and dust. The radiating energy can provide information about these “outflow cavities,” like their structure, radiation fields, and dust content. Researchers look for connections between the properties of these young stars – like outflows, environment, mass, brightness – and their evolutionary stage to test massive star formation theories.
These images were taken as part of the SOFIA Massive (SOMA) Star Formation Survey, which investigates how stars form, especially massive stars with more than eight times the mass of our Sun.
The Cepheus A region is home to a number of infant stars, including a protostar that is responsible for much of the region’s illumination. NASA, ESA, and R. Fedriani (Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)Download this image (5.7 MB)
The high-mass star-forming region Cepheus A hosts a collection of baby stars, including one large and luminous protostar, which accounts for about half of the region’s brightness. While much of the region is shrouded in opaque dust, light from hidden stars breaks through outflow cavities to illuminate and energize areas of gas and dust, creating pink and white nebulae. The pink area is an HII region, where the intense ultraviolet radiation of the nearby stars has converted the surrounding clouds of gas into glowing, ionized hydrogen.
Cepheus A lies about 2,400 light-years away in the constellation Cepheus.
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Glittering much closer to home, this Hubble image depicts the star-forming region G033.91+0.11 in our Milky Way galaxy. The light patch in the center of the image is a reflection nebula, in which light from a hidden protostar bounces off gas and dust.
A protostar is swathed in the gas of an emission nebula within star-forming region GAL-305.20+00.21. NASA, ESA, and R. Fedriani (Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)Download this image (5.8 MB)
This Hubble image showcases the star-forming region GAL-305.20+00.21. The bright spot in the center-right of the image is an emission nebula, glowing gas that is ionized by a protostar buried within the larger complex of gas and dust clouds.
A protostar’s jets of high-speed particles are responsible for the bright region of excited, glowing hydrogen in this Hubble image. NASA, ESA, and R. Fedriani (Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)Download this image (5.7 MB)
Shrouded in gas and dust, the massive protostar IRAS 20126+4104 lies within a high-mass star-forming region about 5,300 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. This actively forming star is a B-type protostar, characterized by its high luminosity, bluish-white color, and very high temperature. The bright region of ionized hydrogen at the center of the image is energized by jets emerging from the poles of the protostar, which ground-based observatories previously observed.
New images added every day between January 12-17, 2026! Follow @NASAHubble on social media for the latest Hubble images and news and see Hubble’s Stellar Construction Zones for more images of young stellar objects.
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Hubble’s Nebulae
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Hubble Observes Ghostly Cloud Alive with Star Formation
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Hubble Observes Ghostly Cloud Alive with Star Formation A seemingly serene landscape of gas and dust is hopping with star formation behind the scenes.NASA, ESA, and K. Stapelfeldt (Jet Propulsion Laboratory); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America) Download this image (84.5 MB)While this eerie NASA Hubble Space Telescope image may look ghostly, it’s actually full of new life. Lupus 3 is a star-forming cloud about 500 light-years away in the constellation Scorpius.
White wisps of gas swirl throughout the region, and in the lower-left corner resides a dark dust cloud. Bright T Tauri stars shine at the left, bottom right, and upper center, while other young stellar objects dot the image.
T Tauri stars are actively forming stars in a specific stage of formation. In this stage, the enveloping gas and dust dissipates from radiation and stellar winds, or outflows of particles from the emerging star. T Tauri stars are typically less than 10 million years old and vary in brightness both randomly and periodically due to the environment and nature of a forming star. The random variations may be due to instabilities in the accretion disk of dust and gas around the star, material from that disk falling onto the star and being consumed, and flares on the star’s surface. The more regular, periodic changes may be caused by giant sunspots rotating in and out of view.
T Tauri stars are in the process of contracting under the force of gravity as they become main sequence stars which fuse hydrogen to helium in their cores. Studying these stars can help astronomers better understand the star formation process.
New images added every day between January 12-17, 2026! Follow @NASAHubble on social media for the latest Hubble images and news and see Hubble’s Stellar Construction Zones for more images of young stellar objects.
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Hubble Spies Stellar Blast Setting Clouds Ablaze
This new NASA Hubble Space Telescope image captures a jet of gas from a forming star shooting across the dark expanse. The bright pink and green patches running diagonally through the image are HH 80/81, a pair of Herbig-Haro (HH) objects previously observed by Hubble in 1995. The patch to the upper left is part of HH 81, and the bottom streak is part of HH 80.
Herbig-Haro objects are bright, glowing regions that occur when jets of ionized gas ejected by a newly forming star collide with slower, previously ejected outflows of gas from that star. HH 80/81’s outflow stretches over 32 light-years, making it the largest protostellar outflow known.
Protostars are fed by infalling gas from the surrounding environment, some of which can be seen in residual “accretion disks” orbiting the forming star. Ionized material within these disks can interact with the protostars’ strong magnetic fields, which channel some of the particles toward the pole and outward in the form of jets.
As the jets eject material at high speeds, they can produce strong shock waves when the particles collide with previously ejected gas. These shocks heat the clouds of gas and excite the atoms, causing them to glow in what we see as HH objects.
HH 80/81 are the brightest HH objects known to exist. The source powering these luminous objects is the protostar IRAS 18162-2048. It’s roughly 20 times the mass of the Sun, and it’s the most massive protostar in the entire L291 molecular cloud. From Hubble data, astronomers measured the speed of parts of HH 80/81 to be over 1,000 km/s, the fastest recorded outflow in both radio and visual wavelengths from a young stellar object. Unusually, this is the only HH jet found that is driven by a young, very massive star, rather than a type of young, low-mass star.
The sensitivity and resolution of Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 was critical to astronomers, allowing them to study fine details, movements, and structural changes of these objects. The HH 80/81 pair lies 5,500 light-years away within the Sagittarius constellation.
Hubble Observes Stars Flaring to Life in Orion
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Hubble Observes Stars Flaring to Life in Orion Protostar HOPS 181 is buried in layers of dusty gas clouds, but its energy shapes the material that surrounds it. NASA, ESA, and T. Megeath (University of Toledo); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America) A protostar wrapped in obscuring dust creates a cavity with glowing walls while its jet streams into space. NASA, ESA, and T. Megeath (University of Toledo); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America) A curving cavity in a cloud of gas has been hollowed out by a protostar in this Hubble image. NASA, ESA, and T. Megeath (University of Toledo); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
Just-forming stars, called protostars, dazzle a cloudy landscape in the Orion Molecular Cloud complex (OMC). These three new images from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope were taken as part of an effort to learn more about the envelopes of gas and dust surrounding the protostars, as well as the outflow cavities where stellar winds and jets from the developing stars have carved away at the surrounding gas and dust.
Scientists used these Hubble observations as part of a broader survey to study protostellar envelopes, or the gas and dust around the developing star. Researchers found no evidence that the outflow cavities were growing as the protostar moved through the later stages of star formation. They also found that the decreasing accretion of mass onto the protostars over time and the low rate of star formation in the cool, molecular clouds cannot be explained by the progressive clearing out of the envelopes.
The OMC lies within the “sword” of the constellation Orion, roughly 1,300 light-years away.
Protostar HOPS 181 is buried in layers of dusty gas clouds, but its energy shapes the material that surrounds it. NASA, ESA, and T. Megeath (University of Toledo); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)This Hubble image shows a small group of young stars amidst molecular clouds of gas and dust. Near the center of the image, concealed behind the dusty clouds, lies the protostar HOPS 181. The long, curved arc in the top left of the image is shaped by the outflow of material coming from the protostar, likely from the jets of particles shot out at high speeds from the protostar’s magnetic poles. The light of nearby stars reflects off and is scattered by dust grains that fill the image, giving the region its soft glow.
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A protostar wrapped in obscuring dust creates a cavity with glowing walls while its jet streams into space. NASA, ESA, and T. Megeath (University of Toledo); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
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The bright star in the lower right quadrant called CVSO 188 might seem like the diva in this image, but HOPS 310, located just to the left of center behind the dust, is the true hidden star. This protostar is responsible for the large cavity with bright walls that has been carved into the surrounding cloud of gas and dust by its jets and stellar winds. Running diagonally to the top right is one of the bipolar jets of the protostar. These jets consist of particles launched at high speeds from the protostar’s magnetic poles. Some background galaxies are visible in the upper right of the image.
A curving cavity in a cloud of gas has been hollowed out by a protostar in this Hubble image. NASA, ESA, and T. Megeath (University of Toledo); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)Download this image (5.7 MB)
The bright protostar to the left in this Hubble image is located within the Orion Molecular Clouds. Its stellar winds — ejected, fast-flowing particles that are spurred by the star’s magnetic field — have carved a large cavity in the surrounding cloud. In the top right, background stars speckle the image.
New images added every day between January 12-17, 2026! Follow @NASAHubble on social media for the latest Hubble images and news and see Hubble’s Stellar Construction Zones for more images of young stellar objects.
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Mysterious ‘little red dots’ could be black holes in disguise
Nature, Published online: 14 January 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-04089-y
Analysis indicates that the light from ‘little red dots’ is generated by young supermassive black holes obscured by dense clouds of gas.Little red dots as young supermassive black holes in dense ionized cocoons
Nature, Published online: 14 January 2026; doi:10.1038/s41586-025-09900-4
The highest-quality JWST spectra reveal that little red dots are young supermassive black holes shrouded in dense cocoons of ionized gas, where electron scattering, not Doppler motions, broadens their spectral lines.Hubble Nets Menagerie of Young Stellar Objects
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Hubble Nets Menagerie of Young Stellar Objects A bright reflection nebula shares the stage with a protostar and planet-forming disk in this Hubble image. NASA, ESA, K. Stapelfeldt (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) and D. Watson (University of Rochester); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)Download this image (58.3 MB)
A disparate collection of young stellar objects bejewels a cosmic panorama in the star-forming region NGC 1333 in this new image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. To the left, an actively forming star called a protostar casts its glow on the surrounding gas and dust, creating a reflection nebula. Two dark stripes on opposite sides of the bright point (upper left) are its protoplanetary disk, a region where planets could form, and the disk’s shadow, cast across the large envelope of material around the star. Material accumulates onto the protostar through this rotating disk of gas and dust, a product of the collapsing cloud of gas and dust that gave birth to the star. Where the shadow stops and the disk begins is presently unknown.
To the center right, an outflow cavity reveals a fan-shaped reflection nebula. The two stars at its base, HBC 340 (lower) and HBC 341 (upper), unleash stellar winds, or material flowing from the surface of the star, that clear out the cavity from the surrounding molecular cloud over time. A reflection nebula like this one is illuminated by light from nearby stars that is scattered by the surrounding gas and dust.
This reflection nebula fluctuates in brightness over time, which researchers attribute to variations in brightness of HBC 340 and HBC 341. HBC 340 is the primary source of the fluctuation as the brighter and more variable star.
HBC 340 and HBC 341 are Orion variable stars, a class of forming stars that change in brightness irregularly and unpredictably, possibly due to stellar flares and ejections of matter from their surfaces. Orion variable stars, so named because they are associated with diffuse nebulae like the Orion Nebula, eventually evolve into non-variable stars.
In this image, the four beaming stars near the bottom of the image and one in the top right corner are also Orion variable stars. The rest of the cloudscape is studded with other young stellar objects.
NGC 1333 lies about 950 light-years away in the Perseus molecular cloud, and was imaged by Hubble to learn more about young stellar objects, such as properties of circumstellar disks and outflows in the gas and dust created by these stars.
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NASA’s Webb Delivers Unprecedented Look Into Heart of Circinus Galaxy
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Artwork: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI)
The Circinus Galaxy, a galaxy about 13 million light-years away, contains an active supermassive black hole that continues to influence its evolution. The largest source of infrared light from the region closest to the black hole itself was thought to be outflows, or streams of superheated matter that fire outward.
Image: Circinus Galaxy (Hubble and Webb) This image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope shows the Circinus galaxy. A close-up of its core from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope shows the inner face of the hole of the donut-shaped disk of gas disk glowing in infrared light. The outer ring appears as dark spots. Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, Enrique Lopez-Rodriguez (University of South Carolina), Deepashri Thatte (STScI); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI); Acknowledgment: NSF’s NOIRLab, CTIO
Now, new observations by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, seen here with a new image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, provide evidence that reverses this thinking, suggesting that most of the hot, dusty material is actually feeding the central black hole. The technique used to gather this data also has the potential to analyze the outflow and accretion components for other nearby black holes.
The research, which includes the sharpest image of a black hole’s surroundings ever taken by Webb, published Tuesday in Nature.
Outflow questionSupermassive black holes like those in Circinus remain active by consuming surrounding matter. Infalling gas and dust accumulates into a donut-shaped ring around the black hole, known as a torus. As supermassive black holes gather matter from the torus’ inner walls, they form an accretion disk, similar to a whirlpool of water swirling around a drain. This disk grows hotter through friction, eventually becoming hot enough to emit light.
This glowing matter can become so bright that resolving details within the galaxy’s center with ground-based telescopes is difficult. It’s made even harder due to the bright, concealing starlight within Circinus. Further, since the torus is incredibly dense, the inner region of the infalling material, heated by the black hole, is obscured from our point of view. For decades, astronomers contended with these difficulties, designing and improving models of Circinus with as much data as they could gather.
Image: Circinus Galaxy Center (Artist’s Concept) This artist’s concept depicts the central engine of the Circinus galaxy, visualizing the supermassive black hole fed by a thick, dusty torus that glows in infrared light. Artwork: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI)“In order to study the supermassive black hole, despite being unable to resolve it, they had to obtain the total intensity of the inner region of the galaxy over a large wavelength range and then feed that data into models,” said lead author Enrique Lopez-Rodriguez of the University of South Carolina.
Early models would fit the spectra from specific regions, such as the emissions from the torus, those of the accretion disk closest to the black hole, or those from the outflows, each detected at certain wavelengths of light. However, since the region could not be resolved in its entirety, these models left questions at several wavelengths. For example, some telescopes could detect an excess of infrared light, but lacked the resolution to determine where exactly it was coming from.
“Since the ‘90s, it has not been possible to explain excess infrared emissions that come from hot dust at the cores of active galaxies, meaning the models only take into account either the torus or the outflows, but cannot explain that excess,” said Lopez-Rodriguez.
Such models found that most of the emission (and, therefore, mass) close to the center came from outflows. To test this theory, then, astronomers needed two things: the ability to filter the starlight that previously prevented a deeper analysis, and the ability to distinguish the infrared emissions of the torus from those of the outflows. Webb, sensitive and technologically sophisticated enough to meet both challenges, was necessary to advance our understanding.
Webb’s innovative techniqueTo look into the center of Circinus, Webb needed the Aperture Masking Interferometer tool on its NIRISS (Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph) instrument.
On Earth, interferometers usually take the form of telescope arrays: mirrors or antennae that work together as if they were a single telescope. An interferometer does this by gathering and combining the light from whichever source it is pointed toward, causing the electromagnetic waves that make up light to “interfere” with each other (hence, “interfere-ometer”) and creating interference patterns. These patterns can be analyzed by astronomers to reconstruct the size, shape, and features of distant objects with much greater detail than non-interferometric techniques.
The Aperture Masking Interferometer allows Webb to become an array of smaller telescopes working together as an interferometer, creating these interference patterns by itself. It does this by utilizing a special aperture made of seven small, hexagonal holes, which, like in photography, controls the amount and direction of light that enters the telescope’s detectors.
“These holes in the mask are transformed into small collectors of light that guide the light toward the detector of the camera and create an interference pattern,” said Joel Sanchez-Bermudez, co-author based at the National University of Mexico.
With new data in hand, the research team was able to construct an image from the central region’s interference patterns. To do so, they referenced data from previous observations to ensure their data from Webb was free of any artifacts. This resulted in the first extragalactic observation from an infrared interferometer in space.
“By using an advanced imaging mode of the camera, we can effectively double its resolution over a smaller area of the sky,” Sanchez-Bermudez said. “This allows us to see images twice as sharp. Instead of Webb’s 6.5-meter diameter, it’s like we are observing this region with a 13-meter space telescope.”
The data showed that contrary to the models predicting that the infrared excess comes from the outflows, around 87% of the infrared emissions from hot dust in Circinus come from the areas closest to the black hole, while less than 1% of emissions come from hot dusty outflows. The remaining 12% comes from distances farther away that could not previously be told apart.
“It is the first time a high-contrast mode of Webb has been used to look at an extragalactic source,” said Julien Girard, paper co-author and senior research scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute. “We hope our work inspires other astronomers to use the Aperture Masking Interferometer mode to study faint, but relatively small, dusty structures in the vicinity of any bright object.”
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While the mystery of Circinus’ excess emissions has been solved, there are billions of black holes in our universe. Those of different luminosities, the team notes, may have an influence on whether most of the emissions come from a black hole’s torus or their outflows.
“The intrinsic brightness of Circinus’ accretion disk is very moderate,” Lopez-Rodriguez said. “So it makes sense that the emissions are dominated by the torus. But maybe, for brighter black holes, the emissions are dominated by the outflow.”
With this research, astronomers now have a tested technique to investigate whichever black holes they want, so long as they are bright enough for the Aperture Masking Interferometer to be useful. Studying additional targets will be essential to building a catalog of emission data to figure out if Circinus’ results were unique or characteristic of a pattern.
“We need a statistical sample of black holes, perhaps a dozen or two dozen, to understand how mass in their accretion disks and their outflows relate to their power,” Lopez-Rodriguez said.
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
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Related Images & Videos Circinus Galaxy Center (Artist’s Concept)This artist’s concept depicts the central engine of the Circinus galaxy, visualizing the supermassive black hole fed by a thick, dusty torus that glows in infrared light.
Circinus Galaxy (Hubble and Webb)
This image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope shows the Circinus galaxy. A close-up of its core from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope shows the inner face of the hole of the donut-shaped disk of gas disk glowing in infrared light. The outer ring appears as dark spots.
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.
Circinus Galaxy Zoom
This zoom-in video shows the location of the Circinus galaxy on the sky. It begins with a ground-based photo of the constellation Circinus by the late astrophotographer Akira Fujii. The video closes in on the Circinus galaxy, using views from the Digitized Sky Survey and the Dark…
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Laura Betz
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Hannah Braun
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Science Paper: “JWST interferometric imaging reveals the dusty disk obscuring the supermassive black hole of the Circinus galaxy” by E. Lopez Rodriguez et al.
Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From Webb James Webb Space TelescopeAncient ‘snowball’ Earth had frigidly briny seas
Nature, Published online: 12 January 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-04081-6
Ocean temperatures well below freezing in Earth’s deep-past glacial phases imply some very salty waters.Quantum computers could help sharpen images of exoplanets
‘Death by a thousand cuts’: young galaxy ran out of fuel as black hole choked off supplies
The researchers, led by the University of Cambridge, used data from the James Webb Space Telescope and the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), to study a galaxy in the early universe – about three billion years after the Big Bang.
The galaxy, called GS-10578 but nicknamed ‘Pablo’s Galaxy’ after the astronomer who first observed it in detail, is massive for such an early period in the universe: about 200 billion times the mass of our Sun, and most of its stars formed between 12.5 and 11.5 billion years ago.
Pablo’s Galaxy appears to have ‘lived fast and died young’: it stopped forming new stars, despite its relatively young age, due to an almost total absence of the cold gas stars need to form.
The supermassive black hole at the galaxy’s centre appears to be the culprit. But instead of a single cataclysmic event, the galaxy suffered ‘death by a thousand cuts’ as the black hole repeatedly heated the gas in and around the galaxy, preventing it from resupplying the galaxy with fresh gas and slowly strangling star formation. The results are reported in the journal Nature Astronomy.
The researchers spent nearly seven hours observing the galaxy with ALMA, hoping to detect carbon monoxide – a tracer of cold hydrogen gas. Instead, they found nothing.
“What surprised us was how much you can learn by not seeing something,” said co-first author Dr Jan Scholtz from Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory and Kavli Institute for Cosmology. “Even with one of ALMA’s deepest observations of this kind of galaxy, there was essentially no cold gas left. It points to a slow starvation rather than a single dramatic death blow.”
Meanwhile, JWST spectroscopy revealed powerful winds of neutral gas streaming out of the galaxy’s supermassive black hole at 400 kilometres per second, removing 60 solar masses of gas every year. Those numbers suggest the galaxy’s remaining fuel was depleted in as little as 16 to 220 million years – far faster than the billion-year timescale typical for similar galaxies.
“The galaxy looks like a calm, rotating disc,” said co-first author Dr Francesco D’Eugenio, who is also affiliated with the Kavli Institute for Cosmology. “That tells us it didn’t suffer a major, disruptive merger with another galaxy. Yet it stopped forming stars 400 million years ago, while the black hole is yet again active. So the current black hole activity and the outburst of gas we observed didn’t cause the shutdown; instead, repeated episodes likely kept the fuel from coming back.”
By reconstructing the galaxy’s star-formation history, the researchers concluded that the galaxy evolved with net-zero inflow – meaning fresh gas never refilled its tank. Rather than blowing away all its gas in one go, the black hole seems to have heated or expelled incoming material over multiple cycles, preventing the galaxy from replenishing itself.
“You don’t need a single cataclysm to stop a galaxy forming stars, just keep the fresh fuel from coming in,” said Scholtz.
The findings help explain a growing population of massive, surprisingly old-looking galaxies seen by Webb in the early Universe. “Before Webb, these were unheard of,” said Scholtz. “Now we know they’re more common than we thought – and this starvation effect may be why they live fast and die young.”
The study shows the advantages of combining ALMA’s ultra-deep radio observations with JWST’s infrared spectra. Future work will target more galaxies like this one to see whether slow starvation, rather than violent blowouts, is the norm for galaxies in the early universe.
The Cambridge team was awarded additional 6.5 hours of JWST time using the MIRI instrument. These new observations targeting the warmer hydrogen gas will tell us more about the exact mechanisms that this supermassive black hole is using to stop the galaxy from forming stars.
The research was supported in part by the European Union, the European Research Council, the Royal Society and the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).
ALMA is a partnership of ESO (representing its member states), NSF (USA) and NINS (Japan), together with NRC (Canada), NSTC and ASIAA (Taiwan), and KASI (Republic of Korea), in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. The James Webb Space Telescope is an international partnership between NASA, ESA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).
Reference:
Jan Scholtz, Francesco D’Eugenio et al. ‘Measurement of the gas consumption history of a massive quiescent galaxy.’ Nature Astronomy (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-025-02751-z
Astronomers have spotted one of the oldest ‘dead’ galaxies yet identified, and found that a growing supermassive black hole can slowly starve a galaxy rather than tear it apart.
JADES CollaborationPablo's Galaxy
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NASA’s Pandora Satellite, CubeSats to Explore Exoplanets, Beyond
6 min read
NASA’s Pandora Satellite, CubeSats to Explore Exoplanets, BeyondA new NASA spacecraft called Pandora is awaiting launch ahead of its journey to study the atmospheres of exoplanets, or worlds beyond our solar system, and their stars.
Along for the ride are two shoebox-sized satellites called BlackCAT (Black Hole Coded Aperture Telescope) and SPARCS (Star-Planet Activity Research CubeSat), as NASA innovates with ambitious science missions that take low-cost, creative approaches to answering questions like, “How does the universe work?” and “Are we alone?”
All three missions are set to launch Jan. 11 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The launch window opens at 8:19 a.m. EST (5:19 a.m. PST). SpaceX will livestream the event.
Artist’s concept of NASA’s Pandora mission, which will help scientists untangle the signals from the atmospheres of exoplanets — worlds beyond our solar system — and their stars. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Conceptual Image Lab
Download high-resolution images from NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio
“Pandora’s goal is to disentangle the atmospheric signals of planets and stars using visible and near-infrared light,” said Elisa Quintana, Pandora’s principal investigator at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “This information can help astronomers determine if detected elements and compounds are coming from the star or the planet — an important step as we search for signs of life in the cosmos.”
BlackCAT and SPARCS are small satellites that will study the transient, high-energy universe and the activity of low-mass stars, respectively.
Pandora will observe planets as they pass in front of their stars as seen from our perspective, events called transits.
As starlight passes through a planet’s atmosphere, it interacts with substances like water and oxygen that absorb characteristic wavelengths, adding their chemical fingerprints to the signal.
But while only a small fraction of the star’s light grazes the planet, telescopes also collect the rest of the light emitted by the star’s facing side. Stellar surfaces can sport brighter and darker regions that grow, shrink, and change position over time, suppressing or magnifying signals from planetary atmospheres. Adding a further complication, some of these areas may contain the same chemicals that astronomers hope to find in the planet’s atmosphere, such as water vapor.
All these factors make it difficult to be certain that important detected molecules come from the planet alone.
Pandora will help address this problem by providing in-depth study of at least 20 exoplanets and their host stars during its initial year. The satellite will look at each planet and its star 10 times, with each observation lasting a total of 24 hours. Many of these worlds are among the over 6,000 discovered by missions like NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite).
This view of the fully integrated Pandora spacecraft was taken May 19, 2025, following the mission’s successful environmental test campaign at Blue Canyon Technologies in Lafayette, Colorado. Visible are star trackers (center), multilayer insulation blankets (white), the end of the telescope (top), and the solar panel (right) in its launch configuration. NASA/BCT
Pandora will collect visible and near-infrared light using a novel, all-aluminum 17-inch-wide (45-centimeter) telescope jointly developed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and Corning Incorporated in Keene, New Hampshire. Pandora’s near-infrared detector is a spare developed for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.
Each long observation period will capture a star’s light both before and during a transit and help determine how stellar surface features impact measurements.
“These intense studies of individual systems are difficult to schedule on high-demand missions, like Webb,” said engineer Jordan Karburn, Pandora’s deputy project manager at Livermore. “You also need the simultaneous multiwavelength measurements to pick out the star’s signal from the planet’s. The long stares with both detectors are critical for tracing the exact origins of elements and compounds scientists consider indicators of potential habitability.”
Pandora is the first satellite to launch in the agency’s Astrophysics Pioneers program, which seeks to do compelling astrophysics at a lower cost while training the next generation of leaders in space science.
After launching into low Earth orbit, Pandora will undergo a month of commissioning before embarking on its one-year prime mission. All the mission’s data will be publicly available.
“The Pandora mission is a bold new chapter in exoplanet exploration,” said Daniel Apai, an astronomy and planetary science professor at the University of Arizona in Tucson where the mission’s operations center resides. “It is the first space telescope built specifically to study, in detail, starlight filtered through exoplanet atmospheres. Pandora’s data will help scientists interpret observations from past and current missions like NASA’s Kepler and Webb space telescopes. And it will guide future projects in their search for habitable worlds.”
Watch to learn more about NASA’s Pandora mission, which will revolutionize the study of exoplanet atmospheres.NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Download high-resolution video and images from NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio
The BlackCAT and SPARCS missions will take off alongside Pandora through NASA’s Astrophysics CubeSat program, the latter supported by the Agency’s CubeSat Launch Initiative.
CubeSats are a class of nanosatellites that come in sizes that are multiples of a standard cube measuring 3.9 inches (10 centimeters) across. Both BlackCAT and SPARCS are 11.8 by 7.8 by 3.9 inches (30 by 20 by 10 centimeters). CubeSats are designed to provide cost-effective access to space to test new technologies and educate early career scientists and engineers while delivering compelling science.
The BlackCAT mission will use a wide-field telescope and a novel type of X-ray detector to study powerful cosmic explosions like gamma-ray bursts, particularly those from the early universe, and other fleeting cosmic events. It will join NASA’s network of missions that watch for these changes. Abe Falcone at Pennsylvania State University in University Park, where the satellite was designed and built, leads the mission with contributions from Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Kongsberg NanoAvionics US provided the spacecraft bus.
The SPARCS CubeSat will monitor flares and other activity from low-mass stars using ultraviolet light to determine how they affect the space environment around orbiting planets. Evgenya Shkolnik at Arizona State University in Tempe leads the mission with participation from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. In addition to providing science support, JPL developed the ultraviolet detectors and the associated electronics. Blue Canyon Technologies fabricated the spacecraft bus.
Pandora is led by NASA Goddard. Livermore provides the mission’s project management and engineering. Pandora’s telescope was manufactured by Corning and developed collaboratively with Livermore, which also developed the imaging detector assemblies, the mission’s control electronics, and all supporting thermal and mechanical subsystems. The near-infrared sensor was provided by NASA Goddard. Blue Canyon Technologies provided the bus and performed spacecraft assembly, integration, and environmental testing. NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley will perform the mission’s data processing. Pandora’s mission operations center is located at the University of Arizona, and a host of additional universities support the science team.
By Jeanette Kazmierczak
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Media Contact:
Claire Andreoli
301-286-1940
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
- Exoplanets
- Ames Research Center
- Astrophysics
- Astrophysics Pioneers
- CubeSats
- Exoplanet Science
- Exoplanet Transits
- Galaxies, Stars, & Black Holes Research
- Goddard Space Flight Center
- Infrared Light
- James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory
- Kepler / K2
- SmallSats Program
- Stars
- Studying Exoplanets
- TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite)
- The Universe
- Visible / Optical Light
NASA won’t bring Mars samples back to Earth: this is the science that will be lost
Nature, Published online: 09 January 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-026-00060-7
A Congressional bill restores funding for most NASA space science missions, but there is no money for returning samples already collected on the red planet.Disappearing ‘planet’ reveals a solar system’s turbulent times
Nature, Published online: 09 January 2026; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-04148-4
What was originally thought to be a planet orbiting the Fomalhaut star was probably just the fallout of a wild collision.