skip to content

Institute of Astronomy

 

LHC finds intriguing new clues about our universe's antimatter mystery

Tue, 18/03/2025 - 09:55

Analysing the aftermath of particle collisions has revealed two new instances of “CP violation”, a process that explains why our universe contains more matter than antimatter

Most quakes on Mars happen during the summer – and we don’t know why

Tue, 18/03/2025 - 09:54

NASA’s InSight lander recorded surprisingly large quakes that indicate Mars is more seismically active than we first thought. Mysteriously, they only happen during Martian summers

The surprising new idea behind what sparked life on Earth

Sat, 15/03/2025 - 17:00

We may be starting to get a grasp on what kick-started life on Earth – and it could help us search for it on other planets

Telescope first light for ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope now planned for March 2029

Sat, 15/03/2025 - 16:59

As a result of delays experienced during construction, ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) is now set to make its first test observations at the beginning of 2029, with “telescope first light” expected in March 2029.  Afterwards, the first instruments will be installed and commissioned, leading to “scientific first light” in December 2030. 

This updated ELT schedule has been put in place after several of the telescope contracts suffered delays. The reasons for these delays are not untypical for such large, cutting-edge projects, ranging from harsh weather conditions at the construction site, to technological developments taking longer than expected, and equipment failing during manufacturing.  

After the telescope sees first light, it will be optimised before receiving its first scientific instruments. ESO’s ELT is now expected to deliver the first scientific observations in December 2030.  

With this revised schedule, ESO wants to ensure the telescope and its instruments are ready to deliver the best possible science once astronomers start using the ELT for their observations. ESO’s ELT will tackle the biggest scientific challenges of our time, making key contributions in fields such as habitable exoplanet discovery, galaxy formation or the study of dark energy and dark matter. 

Saturn has a whopping 274 moons ― scientists want to know why

Fri, 14/03/2025 - 09:51

Nature, Published online: 13 March 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-00781-1

A huge haul of 128 newfound satellites might be a hint of past collisions in the planet’s orbit, or something else.

Hera asteroid mission takes stunning images of Mars’s moon Deimos

Fri, 14/03/2025 - 09:51

A mission to survey the results of a deliberate crash between an asteroid and a NASA spacecraft has taken stunning images of Mars and its moon Deimos

NASA may have to cancel major space missions due to budget cuts

Fri, 14/03/2025 - 09:51

Potential cuts of up to 50 per cent of NASA's science budget could mean cancelling missions including the Hubble Space Telescope and the Voyager probes

Quartz crystals on Mars could preserve signs of ancient life

Thu, 13/03/2025 - 10:42

NASA’s Perseverance rover found large crystals of quartz with a high purity on Mars, which probably had to have formed in the presence of hot water

Did Mars harbour life? One of the strongest signs yet is spotted in a peculiar rock

Thu, 13/03/2025 - 09:58

Nature, Published online: 12 March 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-00772-2

The intriguing chemistry of a rock collected by the Perseverance rover could trace to microbial activity — or not.

Saturn gains 128 moons, giving it more than the other planets combined

Thu, 13/03/2025 - 09:58

Saturn has dozens of new moons, bringing it to a total of 274. All of the new moons are between 2 and 4 kilometres wide, but at what point is a rock too small to be a moon?

Lunar eclipse to grace pre-dawn sky

Wed, 12/03/2025 - 10:49

UK skywatchers will see a partial but still hopefully spectacular eclipse before dawn on Friday.

NASA Launches Missions to Study Sun, Universe’s Beginning

Wed, 12/03/2025 - 10:48
NASA’s SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) observatory and PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) satellites lift off on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on March 11, 2025.Credit: SpaceX

NASA’s newest astrophysics observatory, SPHEREx, is on its way to study the origins of our universe and the history of galaxies, and to search for the ingredients of life in our galaxy. Short for Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer, SPHEREx lifted off at 8:10 p.m. PDT on March 11 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

Riding with SPHEREx aboard the Falcon 9 were four small satellites that make up the agency’s PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) mission, which will study how the Sun’s outer atmosphere becomes the solar wind.

“Everything in NASA science is interconnected, and sending both SPHEREx and PUNCH up on a single rocket doubles the opportunities to do incredible science in space,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Congratulations to both mission teams as they explore the cosmos from far-out galaxies to our neighborhood star. I am excited to see the data returned in the years to come.”

Ground controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which manages SPHEREx, established communications with the space observatory at 9:31 p.m. PDT. The observatory will begin its two-year prime mission after a roughly one-month checkout period, during which engineers and scientists will make sure the spacecraft is working properly.

“The fact our amazing SPHEREx team kept this mission on track even as the Southern California wildfires swept through our community is a testament to their remarkable commitment to deepening humanity’s understanding of our universe,” said Laurie Leshin, director, NASA JPL. “We now eagerly await the scientific breakthroughs from SPHEREx’s all-sky survey — including insights into how the universe began and where the ingredients of life reside.”

The PUNCH satellites successfully separated about 53 minutes after launch, and ground controllers have established communication with all four PUNCH spacecraft. Now, PUNCH begins a 90-day commissioning period where the four satellites will enter the correct orbital formation, and the instruments will be calibrated as a single “virtual instrument” before the scientists start to analyze images of the solar wind.

The two missions are designed to operate in a low Earth, Sun-synchronous orbit over the day-night line (also known as the terminator) so the Sun always remains in the same position relative to the spacecraft. This is essential for SPHEREx to keep its telescope shielded from the Sun’s light and heat (both would inhibit its observations) and for PUNCH to have a clear view in all directions around the Sun.

To achieve its wide-ranging science goals, SPHEREx will create a 3D map of the entire celestial sky every six months, providing a wide perspective to complement the work of space telescopes that observe smaller sections of the sky in more detail, such as NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and Hubble Space Telescope.

The mission will use a technique called spectroscopy to measure the distance to 450 million galaxies in the nearby universe. Their large-scale distribution was subtly influenced by an event that took place almost 14 billion years ago known as inflation, which caused the universe to expand in size a trillion-trillionfold in a fraction of a second after the big bang. The mission also will measure the total collective glow of all the galaxies in the universe, providing new insights about how galaxies have formed and evolved over cosmic time.

Spectroscopy also can reveal the composition of cosmic objects, and SPHEREx will survey our home galaxy for hidden reservoirs of frozen water ice and other molecules, like carbon dioxide, that are essential to life as we know it.

“Questions like ‘How did we get here?’ and ‘Are we alone?’ have been asked by humans for all of history,” said James Fanson, SPHEREx project manager at JPL. “I think it’s incredible that we are alive at a time when we have the scientific tools to actually start to answer them.”

NASA’s PUNCH will make global, 3D observations of the inner solar system and the Sun’s outer atmosphere, the corona, to learn how its mass and energy become the solar wind, a stream of charged particles blowing outward from the Sun in all directions. The mission will explore the formation and evolution of space weather events such as coronal mass ejections, which can create storms of energetic particle radiation that can endanger spacecraft and astronauts.

“The space between planets is not an empty void. It’s full of turbulent solar wind that washes over Earth,” said Craig DeForest, the mission’s principal investigator, at the Southwest Research Institute. “The PUNCH mission is designed to answer basic questions about how stars like our Sun produce stellar winds, and how they give rise to dangerous space weather events right here on Earth.”

More About SPHEREx, PUNCH

The SPHEREx mission is managed by NASA JPL for the agency’s Astrophysics Division within the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. BAE Systems (formerly Ball Aerospace) built the telescope and the spacecraft bus. The science analysis of the SPHEREx data will be conducted by a team of scientists located at 10 institutions in the U.S., two in South Korea, and one in Taiwan. Data will be processed and archived at IPAC at Caltech, which manages JPL for NASA. The mission’s principal investigator is based at Caltech with a joint JPL appointment. The SPHEREx dataset will be publicly available at the NASA-IPAC Infrared Science Archive.

Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) leads the PUNCH mission and built the four spacecraft and Wide Field Imager instruments at its headquarters in San Antonio, Texas. The Narrow Field Imager instrument was built by the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington. The mission is operated from SwRI’s offices in Boulder, Colorado, and is managed by the Explorers Program Office at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. 

NASA’s Launch Services Program, based out of the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, provided the launch service for SPHEREx and PUNCH.

For more about NASA’s science missions, visit:

http://science.nasa.gov

-end-

Alise Fisher
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-2546
alise.m.fisher@nasa.gov

Calla Cofield – SPHEREx
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
626-808-2469
calla.e.cofield@jpl.nasa.gov

Sarah Frazier – PUNCH
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
202-853-7191
sarah.frazier@nasa.gov

Share Details Last Updated Mar 12, 2025 EditorJessica TaveauLocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms

The asteroid Bennu is even weirder than we thought

Wed, 12/03/2025 - 10:47

Analysis of samples brought back to Earth from the asteroid Bennu reveal that it has a bizarre chemical make-up and is unusually magnetic

Saturn has 128 new moons – more than the rest of the planets combined

Wed, 12/03/2025 - 10:47

Saturn has dozens of new moons, bringing it to a total of 274. All of the new moons are between 2 and 4 kilometres wide, but at what point is a rock too small to be a moon?

NASA’s Dawn Sees Crescent Ceres

Tue, 11/03/2025 - 09:44
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft took this image of Ceres’ south polar region on May 17, 2017. Launched on Sept. 27, 2007, Dawn was NASA’s first truly interplanetary spaceship. The mission featured extended stays at two extraterrestrial bodies:  giant asteroid Vesta and dwarf planet Ceres, both in the debris-strewn main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

The spacecraft’s name was meant to present a simple view of the mission’s purpose: to provide information on the dawn of the solar system. The three principal scientific drivers for the mission were to capture the earliest moments in the origin of the solar system, determine the nature of the building blocks from which the terrestrial planets formed, and contrast the formation and evolution of two small planets that followed very different evolutionary paths.

Dawn completed the first order exploration of the inner solar system, addressed NASA’s goal of understanding the origin and evolution of the solar system, and complemented investigations of Mercury, Earth, and Mars. Dawn’s mission ended on Nov. 1, 2018, after two extended missions.

Follow Dawn’s journey from Earth to deep space through the words of mission director and chief engineer, Dr. Marc Rayman.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

Hubble Unveils a Glittering View of Sh2-284

Mon, 10/03/2025 - 10:30
Explore Hubble

2 min read

Hubble Unveils a Glittering View of Sh2-284 Hubble’s infrared view of emission nebula Sh2-284 provides a glimpse of the brilliant young stars hidden within clouds of gas and dust. Credit: NASA, ESA, and M. Andersen (European Southern Observatory – Germany); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
Download this image

A tiny fraction of the stellar nursery known as Sh2-284 is visible in this glittering, star-filled NASA Hubble Space Telescope image. This immense region of gas and dust is the birthing place of stars, which shine among the clouds. Bright clusters of newborn stars glow pink in infrared light, and clouds of gas and dust, resembling puffy cumulus clouds, are dotted with dark knots of denser dust.

This image shows an infrared view from Hubble, giving an excellent view of the stars that might otherwise be obscured by Sh2-284’s clouds. Unlike visible light, infrared wavelengths can travel through clouds of gas and dust, providing a glimpse of the stars forming within the obscuring clouds.

The nebula is shaped by a young central star cluster, Dolidze 25 (not visible in the Hubble image), whose stars range from 1.5 to 13 million years old (our Sun, in contrast, is 4.6 billion years old). The cluster blasts out ionizing winds and radiation, pushing at the gas and dust of the nebula and carving out intricate shapes and pillars, as seen in detail here. This ionizing radiation gives Sh2-284 its classification as an HII region, an emission nebula consisting primarily of ionized hydrogen. An emission nebula like Sh2-284 glows with its own light as stars within or nearby energize its gas with a flood of intense ultraviolet radiation.

The ground-based image (top) of M24 shows the location of the Hubble view (bottom). The European Southern Observatory’s visible-light image shows prominent clouds of gas and dust, while the Hubble image’s infrared vision highlights the stars within and behind the clouds. Ground-based image: ESO/VPHAS+ Team; Hubble image: NASA, ESA, and M. Andersen (European Southern Observatory – Germany); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)

Sh2-284 is also a low-metallicity region, which means it is poor in elements heavier than hydrogen and helium. These conditions mimic the early universe, when matter was mostly helium and hydrogen and heavier elements were just beginning to form via nuclear fusion within massive stars. Hubble took these images as part of an effort to examine how low metallicity influences stellar formation and how this would apply to the early universe.

Sh2-284 resides 15,000 light-years away at the end of an outer spiral arm of our Milky Way galaxy, in the constellation Monoceros.

Explore More
Hubble’s Nebulae


Exploring the Birth of Stars

Facebook logo @NASAHubble @NASAHubble Instagram logo @NASAHubble

Media Contact:

Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight CenterGreenbelt, MD
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov

Share Details Last Updated Mar 08, 2025 Location NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From Hubble Hubble Space Telescope

Since its 1990 launch, the Hubble Space Telescope has changed our fundamental understanding of the universe.


Hubble’s Cosmic Adventure


Hubble’s Night Sky Challenge


Hubble’s 35th Anniversary

Speeding star offers a rare glimpse of the Milky Way's galactic centre

Sat, 08/03/2025 - 15:16

A star has been spotted shooting away from the heart of our galaxy at around 500 kilometres per second, giving astronomers clues about a group of stellar objects that are hard to observe directly

Cosmic Mapmaker: NASA’s SPHEREx Space Telescope Ready to Launch

Sat, 08/03/2025 - 15:14

6 min read

Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Ahead of launch, NASA’s SPHEREx is enclosed in a payload fairing at Vandenberg Space Force Base on March 2. The observatory is stacked atop the four small satellites that make up the agency’s PUNCH mission.NASA/BAE Systems/Benjamin Fry

NASA’s latest space observatory is targeting a March 8 liftoff, and the agency’s PUNCH heliophysics mission is sharing a ride. Here’s what to expect during launch and beyond.

In a little over a day, NASA’s SPHEREx space telescope is slated to launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The observatory will map the entire celestial sky four times in two years, creating a 3D map of over 450 million galaxies. In doing so, the mission will provide insight into what happened a fraction of a second after the big bang, in addition to searching interstellar dust for the ingredients of life, and measuring the collective glow from all galaxies, including ones that other telescopes cannot easily detect.

The launch window opens at 7:09:56 p.m. PST on Saturday, March 8, with a target launch time of 7:10:12 p.m. PST. Additional opportunities occur in the following days.

Launching together into low Earth orbit, NASA’s SPHEREx and PUNCH missions will study a range of topics from the early universe to our nearest star. NASA/JPL-Caltech

Sharing a ride with SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) is NASA’s PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere), a constellation of four small satellites that will map the region where the Sun’s outer atmosphere, the corona, transitions to the solar wind, the constant outflow of material from the Sun.

For the latest on PUNCH, visit the blog:

https://blogs.nasa.gov/punch

What SPHEREx Will Do

The SPHEREx observatory detects infrared light — wavelengths slightly longer than what the human eye can see that are emitted by warm objects including stars and galaxies. Using a technique called spectroscopy, SPHEREx will separate the infrared light emitted by hundreds of millions of stars and galaxies into 102 individual colors — the same way a prism splits sunlight into a rainbow. Observing those colors separately can reveal various properties of objects, including their composition and, in the case of galaxies, their distance from Earth. No other all-sky survey has performed spectroscopy in so many wavelengths and on so many sources.

The mission’s all-sky spectroscopic map can be used for a wide variety of science investigations. In particular, SPHEREx has its sights set on a phenomenon called inflation, which caused the universe to expand a trillion-trillionfold in a fraction of a second after the big bang. This nearly instantaneous event left an impression on the large-scale distribution of matter in the universe. The mission will map the distribution of more than 450 million galaxies to improve scientists’ understanding of the physics behind this extreme cosmic event.

SPHEREx Fact Sheet

Additionally, the space telescope will measure the total glow from all galaxies, including ones that other telescopes cannot easily detect. When combined with studies of individual galaxies by other telescopes, the measurement of this overall glow will provide a more complete picture of how the light output from galaxies has changed over the universe’s history.

At the same time, spectroscopy will allow SPHEREx to seek out frozen water, carbon dioxide, and other key ingredients for life. The mission will provide an unprecedented survey of the location and abundance of these icy compounds in our galaxy, giving researchers better insight into the interstellar chemistry that set the stage for life.

Launch Sequence

But, first, SPHEREx has to get into space. Prelaunch testing is complete on the spacecraft’s various systems, and it’s been encapsulated in the protective nose cone, or payload fairing, atop the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that will get it there from Vandenberg’s Space Launch Complex-4 East.

NASA’s SPHEREx mission will lift off from Space Launch Complex-4 East at Vanden-berg Space Force Base in California aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, just as the Sur-face Water and Ocean Topography mission, shown here, did in December 2022. NASA/Keegan Barber

A little more than two minutes after the Falcon 9 lifts off, the main engine will cut off. Shortly after, the rocket’s first and second stages will separate, followed by second-stage engine start. The reusable first stage will then begin its automated boost-back burn to the launch site for a propulsive landing.

Once the rocket is out of Earth’s atmosphere, about three minutes after launch, the payload fairing that surrounds the spacecraft will separate into two halves and fall back to Earth, landing in the ocean. Roughly 41 minutes after launch, SPHEREx will separate from the rocket and start its internal systems so that it can point its solar panel to the Sun. After this happens, the spacecraft can establish communications with ground controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which manages the mission for the agency. This milestone, called acquisition of signal, should happen about three minutes after separation.

About 52 minutes after liftoff, PUNCH should separate as well from the Falcon 9.

Both spacecraft will be in a Sun-synchronous low Earth orbit, where their position relative to the Sun remains the same throughout the year. Each approximately 98-minute orbit allows the SPHEREx telescope to view a 360-degree strip of the celestial sky. As Earth’s orbit around the Sun progresses, that strip slowly advances, enabling SPHEREx to image almost the entire sky in six months. For PUNCH, the orbit provides a clear view in all directions around the Sun.

About four days after launch, SPHEREx should eject the protective cover over its telescope lens. The observatory will begin science operations a little over a month after launch, once the telescope has cooled down to its operating temperature and the mission team has completed a series of checks.

NASA’s Launch Services Program, based out of the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, is providing the launch service for SPHEREx and PUNCH.

For more information about the SPHEREx mission, visit:

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/spherex

More About SPHEREx

SPHEREx is managed by NASA JPL for the agency’s Astrophysics Division within the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. BAE Systems (formerly Ball Aerospace) built the telescope and the spacecraft bus. The science analysis of the SPHEREx data will be conducted by a team of scientists located at 10 institutions in the U.S., two in South Korea, and one in Taiwan. Data will be processed and archived at IPAC at Caltech, which manages JPL for NASA. The mission’s principal investigator is based at Caltech with a joint JPL appointment. The SPHEREx dataset will be publicly available at the NASA-IPAC Infrared Science Archive.

Get the SPHEREx Press Kit How to Watch March 8 SPHEREx Launch 6 Things to Know About SPHEREx Why NASA’s SPHEREx Will Make ‘Most Colorful’ Cosmic Map Ever NASA’s SPHEREX Space Telescope Will Seek Life’s Ingredients News Media Contacts

Karen Fox / Alise Fisher 
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600 / 202-358-2546
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / alise.m.fisher@nasa.gov

Calla Cofield, SPHEREx
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
626-808-2469
calla.e.cofield@jpl.nasa.gov

Sarah Frazier, PUNCH
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
202-853-7191
sarah.frazier@nasa.gov

2025-033

Share Details Last Updated Mar 07, 2025 Related Terms Explore More 5 min read NASA Webb Wows With Incredible Detail in Actively Forming Star System

High-resolution near-infrared light captured by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope shows extraordinary new detail and…

Article 7 hours ago 2 min read Hubble Spies a Spiral in the Water Snake

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image of a vibrant spiral galaxy called NGC 5042 resides…

Article 9 hours ago 5 min read NASA Turns Off 2 Voyager Science Instruments to Extend Mission Article 2 days ago Keep Exploring Discover Related Topics

Missions

Humans in Space

Climate Change

Solar System

Gas trapped in rocks gives snapshots of ancient atmosphere

Fri, 07/03/2025 - 10:06
Science, Volume 387, Issue 6738, Page 1023-1024, March 2025.