NASA engineers installing the sunshield on the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (Image source: NASA and Sophia Roberts)
NASA recently installed a powerful “sunblock” on the Roman Space Telescope. This shield has an astounding ability to protect the telescope from the Sun’s heat and light. The outside of the shield can get to be hot enough to boil water, while the inside will be cooler than Antarctica’s harshest winter.
NASA has completed another major milestone in the assembly of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. The telescope, which is expected to reveal around 100,000 cosmic explosions and evidence of the first stars, is now equipped with two sunshields. The sunshields, together called the Lower Instrument Sun Shade, will help protect the telescope’s sensitive instruments from the Sun’s heat and light. This protection is crucial, as intense solar radiation could overwhelm the telescope’s ability to detect faint infrared signals from space.
The two individual panels that make up the sunshield are Solar Array Sun Shield and Deployable Aperture Cover. Each panel has an area of about 7 × 7 feet (2.13 × 2.13 m) and is 3 inches (7.62 cm) thick. Conrad Mason, an aerospace engineer at NASA Goddard, describes them as “giant aluminum sandwiches” because their structure consists of metal sheets on the top and bottom with a lightweight honeycomb core in between.
Due to its design, the sunshields are lightweight yet rigid. Their material aids in limiting heat transfer, and can keep the inner side at temperatures as low as −211° F (−135 °C) even while the Sun-facing side is as hot as 216 °F (102.22 °C). Each panel is wrapped in a specialized polymer film, with 17 layers on the Sun-facing side and one on the opposite side.
The sunshade will be stowed for the launch and gently deploy around an hour after launch. Roman’s inner segment is now set for a 70-day thermal vacuum test, where engineers and scientists will test the full functionality of the spacecraft, telescope, and instruments under simulated conditions. With everything on track, NASA hopes to launch Roman as early as fall 2026, but no later than May 2027.
Chibuike Okpara – Tech Writer – 78 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2024
I have always been fascinated by technology and digital devices my entire life and even got addicted to it. I have always marveled at the intricacy of even the simplest digital devices and systems around us. I have been writing and publishing articles online for about 6 years now, just about a year ago, I found myself lost in the marvel of smartphones and laptops we have in our hands every day. I developed a passion for learning about new devices and technologies that come with them and at some point, I asked myself, “Why not get into writing tech articles?” It is useless to say I followed up the idea — it is evident. I am an open-minded individual who derives an infinite amount of joy from researching and discovering new information, I believe there is so much to learn and such a short life to live, so I put my time to good use — learning new things. I am a ‘bookworm’ of the internet and digital devices. When I am not writing, you will find me on my devices still, I do explore and admire the beauty of nature and creatures. I am a fast learner and quickly adapt to changes, always looking forward to new adventures.
Ever wondered why the moon looks slightly different every night? This is to do with the lunar cycle.
The lunar cycle is a series of eight unique phases of the moon’s visibility. The whole cycle takes about 29.5 days, according to NASA, and these different phases happen as the Sun lights up different parts of the moon whilst it orbits Earth.
So, let’s see where we are in the cycle tonight, Aug. 2.
What is today’s moon phase?
As of Saturday, Aug. 2, the moon phase is Waxing Gibbous. According to NASA’s Daily Moon Observation, the moon will be 60% lit up tonight.
It’s day nine of the lunar cycle, and there’s a whole lot for us to see on the moon’s surface.
With the unaided eye, enjoy a glimpse of the Mare Fecunditatis, the Mare Tranquillitatis, and the Mare Crisium. If you’re in the Northern Hemisphere, look to the top right. If you’re in the Southern Hemisphere, you’ll see these on the bottom left.
With binoculars, enjoy a glimpse of the Alps Mountains, Apennine Mountains, and the Aphonsus Crater. With a telescope, you can also see the Rima Arladaeus, the Descartes Highlands, and Rupes Altai.
Mashable Light Speed
When is the next full moon?
The next full moon will be on August 9. The last full moon was on July 10.
What are moon phases?
According to NASA, moon phases are caused by the 29.5-day cycle of the moon’s orbit, which changes the angles between the Sun, Moon, and Earth. Moon phases are how the moon looks from Earth as it goes around us. We always see the same side of the moon, but how much of it is lit up by the Sun changes depending on where it is in its orbit. This is how we get full moons, half moons, and moons that appear completely invisible. There are eight main moon phases, and they follow a repeating cycle:
New Moon – The moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it’s invisible to the eye).
Waxing Crescent – A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).
First Quarter – Half of the moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-moon.
Waxing Gibbous – More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.
Full Moon – The whole face of the moon is illuminated and fully visible.
Waning Gibbous – The moon starts losing light on the right side.
Last Quarter (or Third Quarter) – Another half-moon, but now the left side is lit.
Waning Crescent – A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.
Ever wondered why the moon looks slightly different every night? This is to do with the lunar cycle.
The lunar cycle is a series of eight unique phases of the moon’s visibility. The whole cycle takes about 29.5 days, according to NASA, and these different phases happen as the Sun lights up different parts of the moon whilst it orbits Earth.
So, let’s see where we are in the cycle tonight, Aug. 2.
What is today’s moon phase?
As of Saturday, Aug. 2, the moon phase is Waxing Gibbous. According to NASA’s Daily Moon Observation, the moon will be 60% lit up tonight.
It’s day nine of the lunar cycle, and there’s a whole lot for us to see on the moon’s surface.
With the unaided eye, enjoy a glimpse of the Mare Fecunditatis, the Mare Tranquillitatis, and the Mare Crisium. If you’re in the Northern Hemisphere, look to the top right. If you’re in the Southern Hemisphere, you’ll see these on the bottom left.
With binoculars, enjoy a glimpse of the Alps Mountains, Apennine Mountains, and the Aphonsus Crater. With a telescope, you can also see the Rima Arladaeus, the Descartes Highlands, and Rupes Altai.
When is the next full moon?
The next full moon will be on August 9. The last full moon was on July 10.
What are moon phases?
According to NASA, moon phases are caused by the 29.5-day cycle of the moon’s orbit, which changes the angles between the Sun, Moon, and Earth. Moon phases are how the moon looks from Earth as it goes around us. We always see the same side of the moon, but how much of it is lit up by the Sun changes depending on where it is in its orbit. This is how we get full moons, half moons, and moons that appear completely invisible. There are eight main moon phases, and they follow a repeating cycle:
New Moon – The moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it’s invisible to the eye).
Waxing Crescent – A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).
First Quarter – Half of the moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-moon.
Waxing Gibbous – More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.
Full Moon – The whole face of the moon is illuminated and fully visible.
Waning Gibbous – The moon starts losing light on the right side.
Last Quarter (or Third Quarter) – Another half-moon, but now the left side is lit.
Waning Crescent – A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.
New particle model opens overlooked pathway in dark matter search
by Clarence Oxford
Los Angeles CA (SPX) Aug 01, 2025
A team of physicists from the University of Sao Paulo (USP) in Brazil has introduced a new theoretical framework that could advance the search for dark matter by focusing on inelastic particles that interact with ordinary matter through a novel type of force carrier. Their study, published in the Journal of High Energy Physics, proposes a model involving a massive vector boson that enables interaction between dark and visible matter.
“Dark matter constitutes roughly 27% of the universe, yet we still do not know its exact composition,” said Ana Luisa Foguel, a Ph.D. student at USP’s Physics Institute and lead author of the study. “In this work, we consider a dark sector containing light particles that interact weakly with known particles from the Standard Model.”
For decades, dark matter candidates were presumed to be massive particles too heavy to produce in existing particle colliders. However, experiments like those at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider have failed to detect such particles. This has driven researchers to explore lighter particles that interact very weakly-requiring experiments focused on ultra-sensitive detection of rare interactions.
Foguel and colleagues align their study with the “thermal freeze-out” mechanism, a well-known theory in cosmology where particles, once in thermal equilibrium with ordinary matter in the early universe, decouple as the universe expands and cools. After this decoupling, their abundance remains essentially fixed.
The model introduces a new particle, dubbed ZQ, which acts as a mediator between dark matter and Standard Model particles. Unlike the known W and Z bosons, ZQ is both massive and capable of directly coupling with standard particles. It facilitates interactions between two types of dark particles: a stable one (?1), which forms the bulk of dark matter, and a heavier, unstable partner (?2). These particles interact with ZQ simultaneously, defining the inelastic nature of the dark matter.
Importantly, the decay properties of ?2 help the model evade existing experimental constraints. During the cosmic recombination epoch, when energy injections into the primordial plasma would be noticeable in the cosmic background radiation, ?2’s short lifetime ensures minimal impact. In the present-day universe, its absence reduces the likelihood of indirect detection signals. Direct detection is also hindered because converting ?1 into the heavier ?2 requires considerable energy.
“The inelastic nature of the particles allows our model to avoid current bounds from cosmology and dark matter searches,” Foguel explained. “Furthermore, our mediator interacts directly with Standard Model particles, unlike the so-called ‘vanilla’ models that have largely been excluded by experimental data.”
Foguel emphasized that the study not only proposes a viable mechanism for dark matter production through freeze-out but also makes a significant contribution to theoretical physics. The team developed and published computational tools to explore this model across a wide range of parameters. Their analysis identifies regions of the parameter space that are consistent with known dark matter abundance and are still untested by current experiments.
“Some of these unexplored regions could be probed in the next generation of particle physics experiments,” Foguel said, highlighting the model’s potential to guide future empirical investigations.
Research Report:Unlocking the inelastic Dark Matter window with vector mediators
Sun dogs, other celestial effects could appear in alien skies
by Kate Blackwood | College of Arts and Sciences
Ithaca NY (SPX) Aug 01, 2025
Ice crystals in Earth’s atmosphere sometimes align just right to create various striking visual effects, from a halo around the moon, to bright spots called sun dogs on either side of the sun in a winter sky, or a rainbowed pillar, called a crown flash, above a storm cloud.
Similar phenomena can appear in the skies over some exoplanets of the “hot Jupiter” variety, a common type of gaseous giant that always orbits close to its host star, Cornell astronomers have found. On WASP 17b, a hot Jupiter exoplanet, 10,000 mile per hour winds could align particles in clouds made of quartz and other crystalline mineral aerosols, creating conditions in which polarizing dust could interact with starlight in the same way aligned ice crystals interact with sunlight on Earth.
“Just like the alignment of ice crystals in Earth’s atmosphere produces observable phenomena, we can observe the alignment of silicate crystals in hot Jupiter exoplanets,” said Elijah Mullens, M.S. ’24, doctoral student in astronomy and co-author of the study.
“Silicate Sundogs: Probing the Effects of Grain Directionality in Exoplanet Observations” published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters on July 21. In the paper, Mullens and co-author Nikole Lewis, associate professor of astronomy in the College of Arts and Sciences, propose that the conditions are right in this exoplanet’s atmosphere for the wind to align silicate crystals – a process called mechanical alignment – creating visual effects.
The idea of mechanical alignment was put forward in 1952 by Cornell astronomy professor Tommy Gold to explain what aligns dust in the interstellar medium (ISM), Lewis said. Gold proposed that gas movement aligned dust particles, as if air were blowing on them. His mechanical alignment theory has fallen out of favor for ISM dust particles; researchers now say it’s more likely that magnetic fields and radiative torques, where starlight heats one side, make particles align.
“Now we see that the 1952 proposal doesn’t work for the interstellar medium, but it probably works for a hot Jupiter exoplanet, a very hot planetary atmosphere with high-speed winds,” said Lewis, whose expertise is in atmospheric dynamics of these exoplanets. “When we started looking at planetary atmospheres, in particular these hot Jupiters, it occurred to me that with 10,000 mile per hour winds zipping around in these very dense atmospheres, surely the grains would align.”
Lewis and Mullens came up with this idea when they were both on the team that used the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to find evidence for quartz nanocrystals in the high-altitude clouds of WASP-17 b, a hot Jupiter exoplanet 1,300 light-years from Earth, reported in 2023.
“We didn’t expect to see quartz crystals in a hot Jupiter atmosphere,” Lewis said. “We were predicting something completely different.”
Quartz crystals are tiny: at 10 nanometers across, 10,000 could fit side-by-side across a human hair. And they have an elongated shape, like boats, said Mullens. In a wind, the crystals behave like a group of boats on a river with a strong current.
“If you put a bunch of these crystals in very strong winds like we expect on hot Jupiters, they’re going to align themselves with the wind like boats in a current,” he said.
But even if they don’t align horizontally with the wind, as proposed in this paper, Mullens said, the crystals are susceptible to being arranged in some way – perhaps vertically, or with electric fields, or even randomly – that create visual effects from interactions with the light from its star.
Researchers can see these effects with JWST, an infrared telescope. They can’t take photographs of WASP 17b because it is so far away, Lewis said, but “if we were able to take a picture of WASP 17b at optical wavelengths and resolve the disk of the planet, we would see these types of sun dog features.”
Both on Earth and an exoplanet, visual effects reveal much about what’s going on in the atmosphere, said Mullens.
“Other than being pretty, these effects can teach us about how crystals are interacting in the atmosphere. It’s really information-rich, just as on Earth where the atmospheric conditions need to be a certain way for them to be horizontally oriented to produce a sun dog,” he said. “If we see something similar in a hot Jupiter, we can be able to tell something about how the crystals are interacting with local forces.”
Research Report:Silicate Sundogs: Probing the Effects of Grain Directionality in Exoplanet Observations
Related Links
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Galactic Center magnetic field offers new insight into stellar evolution dynamics
by Clarence Oxford
Los Angeles CA (SPX) Aug 01, 2025
A new study of the Sagittarius C region in the Milky Way’s Central Molecular Zone has revealed a detailed portrait of the galactic magnetic field, offering fresh insight into how dense gas clouds, star formation, and high-energy particles interact at the heart of our galaxy.
Sagittarius C, a complex star-forming zone within a dense cloud ring near the Galactic Center, has long intrigued astronomers due to its tangle of gas filaments and intense stellar activity. A team led by Roy Zhao, a PhD student at the University of Chicago’s Department of Physics and the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, measured the region’s magnetic field using infrared data from NASA’s now-retired SOFIA airborne observatory. Their results were recently published in the Astrophysical Journal.
The research focused on how interstellar dust, aligned by magnetic fields, emits polarized infrared light. By capturing that light at a wavelength of 214 microns, the team mapped the magnetic field orientation within cold clouds of gas in Sgr C. The data reveal the field curves around a bubble of ionized gas likely formed by stellar winds from massive young stars-pushing and shaping both the surrounding gas and the field itself.
This expanding bubble appears to link directly with the origin of the Milky Way’s radio filaments, thin structures first discovered in the 1980s by co-author and UCLA astrophysicist Prof. Mark Morris. The observed field geometry supports a leading theory: that reconnection of magnetic field lines near the bubble’s edge accelerates electrons to near light speed, generating the filaments. This finding may apply to other filamentary structures throughout the Galactic Center.
The study also showed that magnetic fields significantly influence how cold gas, star-forming regions, and hot ionized zones interact-providing a blueprint for interpreting similar environments in other galaxies. The research team now plans follow-up observations using different wavelengths to explore hotter regions invisible to the current data.
Zhao noted that Sgr C has historically received less attention than nearby Sagittarius A*, the site of the Milky Way’s central black hole. But its dynamic mix of gas, stars, and energetic particles makes it a uniquely revealing astrophysical case study.
One of the study’s most surprising outcomes was the alignment between the newly measured magnetic field and prior data on ionized carbon emission in the same region. This agreement confirmed the bubble structure and pointed to a powerful Wolf-Rayet star as the likely source driving its expansion.
Research Report:SOFIA/HAWC+ Far-infrared Polarimetric Large Area CMZ Exploration Survey. V. The Magnetic Field Strength and Morphology in the Sagittarius C Complex.
Is there a massive undiscovered planet on the outer reaches of the Solar System? The idea has been around since before the discovery of Pluto in the 1930s.
Labelled as planet X, prominent astronomers had put it forward as an explanation for Uranus’s orbit, which drifts from the path of orbital motion that physics would expect it to follow. The gravitational pull of an undiscovered planet, several times larger than Earth, was seen as a possible reason for the discrepancy.
That mystery was ultimately explained by a recalculation of Neptune’s mass in the 1990s, but then a new theory of a potential planet nine was put forward in 2016 by astronomers Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown at Caltech (the California Institute of Technology).
Their theory relates to the Kuiper Belt, a giant belt of dwarf planets, asteroids and other matter that lies beyond Neptune (and includes Pluto). Many Kuiper Belt objects – also referred to as trans-Neptunian objects – have been discovered orbiting the Sun, but like Uranus they don’t do so in a continuous expected direction.
Related: Strange ‘Fossil’ World Detected at Fringes of Solar System
Batygin and Brown argued that something with a large gravitational pull must be affecting their orbit, and proposed planet nine as a potential explanation.
This would be comparable to what happens with our own Moon. It orbits the Sun every 365.25 days, in line with what you would expect in view of their distance apart.
However, the Earth’s gravitational pull is such that the Moon also orbits the planet every 27 days. From the point of view of an outside observer, the Moon moves in a spiralling motion as a result. Similarly, many objects in the Kuiper Belt show signs of their orbits being affected by more than just the Sun’s gravity.
While astronomers and space scientists were initially sceptical about the planet nine theory, there has been mounting evidence thanks to increasingly powerful observations that the orbits of trans-Neptunian objects are indeed erratic. As Brown said in 2024:
I think it is very unlikely that P9 does not exist. There are currently no other explanations for the effects that we see, nor for the myriad other P9-induced effects we see on the Solar System.
In 2018, for example, it was announced that there was a new candidate for a dwarf planet orbiting the Sun, known as 2017 OF201. This object measures around 700 km across (Earth is roughly 18x bigger) and has a highly elliptical orbit.
This lack of a roughly circular orbit around the Sun suggested either an impact early in its lifetime that put it on this path, or gravitational influence from planet nine.
Problems with the theory
On the other hand, if planet nine exists, why hasn’t anyone found it yet?
Some astronomers question whether there’s enough orbital data from Kuiper objects to justify any conclusions about its existence, while alternative explanations get put forward for their motion, such as the effect of a ring of debris or the more fantastical idea of a small black hole.
The biggest issue, however, is that the outer Solar System just hasn’t been observed for long enough. For example, object 2017 OF201 has an orbital period of about 24,000 years. While an object’s orbital path around the Sun can be found in a short number of years, any gravitational effects probably need four to five orbits to notice any subtle changes.
New discoveries of objects in the Kuiper Belt have also presented challenges for the planet nine theory. The latest is known as 2023 KQ14, an object discovered by the Subaru telescope in Hawaii.
It is known as a “sednoid”, meaning it spends most of its time far away from the Sun, though within the vast area in which the Sun has a gravitational pull (this area lies some 5,000AU or astronomical units away, where 1AU is the distance from the Earth to the Sun). The object’s classification as a sednoid also means the gravitational influence of Neptune has little to no effect on it.
2023 KQ14’s closest approach to the Sun is around 71AU away, while its furthest point is about 433AU. By comparison, Neptune is about 30AU away from the Sun.
This new object is another with a very elliptical orbit, but it is stabler than 2017 OF201, which suggests that no large planet, including a hypothetical planet nine, is significantly affecting its path. If planet nine exists, it would therefore perhaps have to be farther than 500AU away from the Sun.
The band of green objects beyond Neptune is the Kuiper Belt. (Wikimedia/CC BY 3.0)
To make matters worse for the planet nine theory, this is the fourth sednoid to be discovered. The other three also exhibit stable orbits, similarly suggesting that any planet nine would have to be very far away indeed.
Nonetheless, the possibility remains there could still be a massive planet affecting the orbits of bodies within the Kuiper Belt.
But astronomers’ ability to find any such planet remains somewhat limited by the restrictions of even unmanned space travel. It would take 118 years for a spacecraft to travel far enough away to find it, based on estimates from the speed of Nasa’s New Horizons explorer.
This means we’ll have to continue to rely on ground- and space-based telescopes to detect anything. New asteroids and distant objects are being discovered all the time as our observing capabilities become more detailed, which should gradually shed more light on what might be out there. So watch this (very big) space, and let’s see what emerges in the coming years.
Ian Whittaker, Senior Lecturer in Physics, Nottingham Trent University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
NASA has captured some of the most breathtaking images of stars, galaxies, and celestial events using powerful instruments like the Hubble Space Telescope, the Cassini spacecraft, and the International Space Station. These images reveal the beauty and complexity of the universe, from distant spiral galaxies and glowing nebulae to variable stars and massive star clusters. Each photograph tells a story of cosmic evolution, star formation, and the hidden forces shaping space. Whether it’s the shimmering glow of a globular cluster or the light from a supernova millions of light-years away, these visuals deepen our understanding of the vast universe we inhabit.
NASA’s top 10 views: From spiral galaxies to variable stars
1. Sunrise on Crew-11 Launch Attempt
Source: NASA
On the morning of July 31, 2025, the Sun rises over NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida as preparations continue for the launch of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-11 mission. Originally scheduled for July 31, the launch was delayed due to unfavourable weather conditions. Teams are now aiming for liftoff at 11:43 a.m. EDT on Friday, August 1.The mission will carry NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, JAXA astronaut Kimiya Yui, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov to the International Space Station, where they will conduct scientific research, technology demonstrations, and carry out maintenance operations.2. Looking Forward To The Moon
Source: NASA
On May 8, 2022, Shawn Quinn, Program Manager for NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems, captured this cropped image of the Hadley–Apennine region on the Moon, which includes the Apollo 15 landing site, located near the shadow cast by one of the area’s lunar mountains. Building on the legacy of the Apollo missions, Artemis crews aim to demonstrate the capabilities needed for human deep space exploration and lay the foundation for sustained scientific research and long-term presence on the lunar surface.3. Hubble Spies Swirling Spiral
Source: NASA
This Hubble Space Telescope image shows the spiral galaxy NGC 3285B, located 137 million light-years away in the Hydra constellation, the largest and longest constellation in the sky. NGC 3285B is part of the Hydra I galaxy cluster, which contains thousands of galaxies and is anchored by two massive ellipticals.Situated on the cluster’s outskirts, NGC 3285B caught astronomers’ attention when it hosted a Type Ia supernova, SN 2023xqm, visible as a bluish dot on the galaxy’s edge. Hubble observed this galaxy as part of a program studying 100 Type Ia supernovae across multiple wavelengths to improve cosmic distance measurements by accounting for the effects of dust and distance.4. The Day Earth Smiled
Source: NASA
On July 19, 2013, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft captured a rare image of Saturn with Earth visible in the distant background, spanning about 404,880 miles. Saturn blocked the Sun’s intense rays, allowing Cassini to take a detailed panoramic mosaic of the ringed planet and its system, backlit by the Sun.This was only the third time Earth was photographed from the outer solar system and the first time people knew in advance their planet would be imaged from so far away. Cassini’s mission, which ended in 2017, has influenced future explorations like NASA’s Europa Clipper mission, launching in 2024 to study Jupiter’s icy moon for signs of life.5. Hubble Snaps Galaxy Cluster’s Portrait
Source: NASA
Hubble image features Abell 209, a massive galaxy cluster 2.8 billion light-years away in the constellation Cetus. The cluster contains over a hundred galaxies separated by vast distances, with hot gas filling the space between them – visible only in X-rays – and an invisible presence of dark matter detected through its gravitational effects.Hubble’s observations help astronomers study dark matter and dark energy by using the cluster’s immense gravity to warp spacetime and magnify distant galaxies, a process called gravitational lensing. Though Abell 209 doesn’t show dramatic lensing rings, subtle distortions reveal the cluster’s mass distribution, aiding our understanding of the universe’s evolution.6. Hubble Observations Give “Missing” Globular Cluster Time to Shine
Source: NASA
This Hubble image shows the globular cluster ESO 591-12 (also known as Palomar 8), a dense, spherical group of stars bound by gravity. Globular clusters like this one formed early in galactic history, with stars of similar age. In the image, red and blue stars indicate cooler and hotter temperatures, respectively.Hubble captured this data as part of the Missing Globular Clusters Survey, aiming to study 34 previously unobserved Milky Way clusters. The project helps determine their ages, distances, and properties, offering insights into the early formation of our galaxy.7. Stellar Duo
Source: NASA
In this image released on January 27, 2023, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captures the bright variable star V 372 Orionis and its companion within the Orion Nebula, about 1,450 light-years away.V 372 Orionis is an Orion Variable—a young star whose brightness changes irregularly due to early-stage instability. It’s surrounded by the Orion Nebula’s patchy gas and dust, typical of stars of this kind.8. Hubble Captures an Active Galactic Center
Source: NASA
This Hubble image shows the spiral galaxy UGC 11397, located in the constellation Lyra, with its light traveling 250 million years to reach us. While it appears like a typical spiral galaxy, its center hosts a supermassive black hole 174 million times the mass of the Sun.Though much of the black hole’s energetic activity is hidden by dust in visible light, its strong X-ray emissions revealed it as a Type 2 Seyfert galaxy. Hubble is studying galaxies like UGC 11397 to better understand black hole growth, star formation in galactic centers, and the evolution of supermassive black holes over cosmic time.9. Waning Crescent Moon
Source: NASA
On May 8, 2022, NASA astronaut Bob Hines captured this image of the waning crescent Moon as the International Space Station passed into an orbital sunrise, 260 miles above the Atlantic Ocean near the northwest coast of the United States. Since becoming operational in November 2000, the station’s crew members have taken hundreds of thousands of photos of the Moon and Earth as part of the Crew Earth Observations program.10. Far Out
Source: NASA
Pismis 24, shown in this image released on December 11, 2006, is a star cluster located within the larger emission nebula NGC 6357, about 8,000 light-years from Earth. The cluster’s brightest object was once believed to be a single, extremely massive star weighing between 200 and 300 times the mass of the Sun – well above the accepted upper limit of around 150 solar masses for individual stars. However, observations by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope revealed that this object, known as Pismis 24-1, is actually two separate stars. This discovery effectively reduced their estimated mass to approximately 100–150 solar masses each.Also read | Japanese scientists discover new plastic that dissolves in water within hours
