APOD

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

The Horns of Venus

Explanation: That’s no moon. But you could be forgiven for thinking it was a crescent Moon in the sky. It is a lesser known fact that Venus also has phases. (What about other planets?) The featured image shows Venus seen almost directly between the Sun and the Earth. This happens once every year and a half, and it is like the alignment that happens every month during a new Moon. But the new Moon is dark, while Venus’ backlit atmosphere refracts and scatters the sunlight, creating a glowing crescent arc that extends beyond 180 degrees: the tips of this arc are called the “horns”. The crescent can be seen with a small telescope or binoculars during twilight, but those with exceptionally acute eyesight may be able to see it with the unaided eye. Ancient Babylonian astronomers may have been the first to study Venus’ brightness changes, which are related to its phases. Many other cultures have similar astronomical records, including the oldest surviving Maya book.

Tomorrow’s picture: What’s next?

Date	October 29, 2026
Credit & Copyright	Thierry Legault
Authors & editors:	Cecilia Chirenti, Robert Nemiroff, Jerry Bonnell, Keighley Rockcliffe
A service of:	ASD at NASA / GSFC, NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U.

Source: science.nasa.gov

Jared Spiers had an interest in contributing to NASA’s mission long before becoming a civil servant for the agency. Growing up close to NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, and hearing about his father’s work there, he gained a firsthand connection to the nation’s space program. Before graduating high school, he knew exactly where he wanted to work.

Spiers graduated from Pearl River Community College in 2017, where he earned three associate degrees in instrumentation, electronics, and electrical technology. He started working at NASA Stennis as a contractor on the Monday following graduation.

Spiers contributed to the mission of returning to the Moon through his work at the Thad Cochran Test Stand (B-1/B-2), a facility originally constructed to test Saturn V rocket stages during the Apollo Program. He helped prepare the stand for the Green Run test series of the first core stage for NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket before the successful Artemis I test flight.

“Being hands-on with the rocket was a whole different experience,” said Spiers. “Childhood me would have been crazily excited to see it.”

This work helped lay the foundation for the Artemis II test flight around the Moon last April. During that mission, the first astronauts to fly aboard NASA’s Orion spacecraft traveled farther in space than humans ever have before.

This past summer, in June 2026, Spiers transitioned to a civil servant role under NASA’s workforce directive to restore core competencies.

“When I joined NASA, it meant a lot more. It felt like a goal achieved,” said Spiers. “As a contractor, I was never treated any differently, but now with NASA, you feel even more a part of the team. There is more ownership and a very significant sense of pride.”

The ownership Spiers takes on as an electrical engineering technician is evident during his 12-hour shifts that begin at 6 a.m. He is part of the team preparing the stand for stage testing of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket. This commercial partnership directly supports NASA’s work to achieve the goal of landing American astronauts on the Moon and building a Moon Base.

Spiers’ technical acumen is put to work daily as he ensures facility electronics are operational so accurate data can be collected. He runs conduit and cabling, connects data-collecting instruments, and ensures motor valves operate as intended. The work is fast paced, but Spiers takes pride in making sure everything is done right.

For Spiers, NASA is truly a family affair. His father, Joey Spiers, also transitioned from a longtime contractor to a NASA civil servant during the summer and works as an electrical engineering technician. Spiers’ brother-in-law, Brock Sheppard, joined NASA as a mechanical engineering technician in September.

The excitement for all things NASA extends to his wife and kids in Poplarville, Mississippi. As proud members of the Artemis Generation, his six-year-old son points at the International Space Station when it passes overhead, convinced his dad works there, while his younger daughter calls him at work to ask about the rocket.

He brings a family-oriented mindset to work and views his crew as extended family. Spiers also is appreciative of the veteran employees who mentored him when he was fresh out of college, and now he pays it forward.

During NASA’s Career Technical Education Day at Stennis in September, Spiers shared his path to NASA, the importance of a strong work ethic, and how technical skills contribute to the agency’s mission with community college students and a virtual audience of thousands.

“My crew is great. We love our jobs, we love being together, and we take care of each other,” said Spiers.

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Source: www.nasa.gov

When companies began approaching NASA’s Langley Research Center, asking to be included in the In-Space Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing (ISAM) State of Play for access to competitive intelligence, the team knew they had crossed an inflection point.

“We’ve had some unnamed companies ask if we have any proprietary information,” says Dale Arney, senior team lead for the ISAM Technology Portfolio at NASA Langley. The answer is “no,” but that impartiality is precisely what makes the State of Play invaluable to an industry trying to understand a rapidly expanding field.

Published since 2021, the 2026 edition has grown to 368 pages documenting current ISAM capabilities across 11 functional areas, from robotic manipulation to refueling and structural assembly. The document serves as both encyclopedia and roadmap for the technologies that will enable spacecraft to be serviced, assembled, and manufactured in orbit rather than launched as integrated systems.

“The field itself has expanded more than linearly since we started,” Arney explains. What began as a tool to ensure NASA centers shared a common reference point has become the industry’s go-to resource for understanding what’s possible versus what’s still conceptual.

The State of Play team maintains strict entry criteria: hardware must physically exist, either as ground prototypes or in-flight demonstrations. “We get people who will send their PowerPoint presentation of their technology idea,” Arney notes. “There’s no real indication they’ve done any work on the technology itself yet.” Those concepts don’t make the cut until the following year’s review.

This rigor matters, because ISAM capabilities will enable missions impossible with traditional single-launch approaches. Future missions will require telescopes larger than any launch vehicle fairing, persistent national security assets that are mobile and resilient, and commercial systems that can upgrade to the latest technology on orbit without full replacement.

The document is intentionally collaborative. “We like to refer to it as kind of a crowdsource document,” says team member John Mulvaney. Each year brings more interviews with industry partners to ensure accuracy and completeness. Contributions come from NASA centers including Ames, Glenn, Marshall, Kennedy, and Johnson, along with international developers meeting the hardware criteria.

The result is more than a technical reference. The 2026 edition includes developer profiles and facilities documentation, providing mission designers with not just what’s possible but who’s doing it and where the work happens. For companies entering the ISAM ecosystem or expanding their capabilities, it offers both competitive context and collaboration opportunities.

As the space industry moves toward more ambitious missions, from lunar infrastructure to on-orbit manufacturing, the ISAM State of Play provides the shared vocabulary and capability baseline that emerging ecosystems require. It’s not speculation about the future; it’s documentation of what exists now and where the hardware is heading next.

The 2026 ISAM State of Play is available for download at NASA.gov

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Source: www.nasa.gov

You may never soar under the clouds or over the organic sands of Saturn’s moon Titan, but your name can. NASA is inviting the public to send their names aboard the agency’s Dragonfly rotorcraft and be part of the first science mission to fly and explore the surface of another world.  

To have your name included on a microchip aboard Dragonfly and receive a personalized digital boarding pass commemorating your place on this historic mission, visit:

https://go.nasa.gov/dragonfly-names

“NASA’s Dragonfly mission will simply blow your mind,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters in Washington. “By flying the first-ever rotorcraft science mission, NASA will explore Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, as we search for signs of habitability on a distant world that is most similar to our own. We are excited to bring humanity along for the journey of a lifetime, and we invite everyone to send their names on this small, but mighty rotorcraft that will unlock the secrets of the universe in what is widely considered one of the most exciting space missions of our lifetime.”

The public can secure a place on Dragonfly’s passenger list until 11:59 p.m. EST Jan. 15, 2027.

The Dragonfly rotorcraft is currently being assembled at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland. Scheduled to launch in 2028, the rotorcraft will travel to Titan, a remarkable world with a thick atmosphere, rivers and lakes of liquid methane, sweeping dunes, and a landscape rich in organic material. After arriving in 2034, Dragonfly will fly to different locations on the moon, exploring Titan’s diverse environments and searching for clues about prebiotic chemistry — the chemistry that came before biology — to help scientists better understand the ingredients and conditions for life.

Dragonfly is being designed and built under the direction of APL, which leads the mission for NASA. Elizabeth Turtle of APL is the principal investigator. Dragonfly is the fourth mission in NASA’s New Frontiers Program, managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate.

For more information on NASA’s Dragonfly mission, visit:

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/dragonfly/

-end-

Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
Headquarters, Washington
240-285-5155 / 240-419-1732
[email protected] / [email protected]

Mike Buckley
Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory
443-567-3145
[email protected]

Source: www.nasa.gov

Read this release in English here.
Puede que nunca llegues a surcar los cielos bajo las nubes o sobre las arenas orgánicas de la luna Titán de Saturno, ¡pero tu nombre sí puede hacerlo! La NASA invita al público a enviar su nombre a bordo de la aeronave de ala giratoria Dragonfly de la agencia y a formar parte de la primera misión científica que volará sobre la superficie de otro mundo para su exploración.

Si deseas que tu nombre sea incluido en un microchip que viajará a bordo de Dragonfly y recibir una tarjeta de embarque digital personalizada que conmemore tu participación en esta misión histórica, visita el sitio web (en español e inglés):

https://go.nasa.gov/dragonfly-names

“La misión Dragonfly de la NASA les dejará impactados”, dijo Nicky Fox, administradora asociada de la Dirección de Misiones Científicas en la sede central de la NASA en Washington. “Al llevar a cabo la primera misión científica con una aeronave de ala giratoria, la NASA explorará Titán, la luna más grande de Saturno, mientras buscamos señales de habitabilidad en este mundo lejano que es muy parecido al nuestro. Nos entusiasma hacer partícipe a la humanidad de este viaje único en la vida, e invitamos a todos a enviar su nombre a bordo de esta pequeña pero poderosa aeronave de ala giratoria que revelará los secretos del universo en lo que muchos consideran una de las misiones espaciales más apasionantes de nuestra generación”.

El público puede asegurarse un puesto en la lista de pasajeros de Dragonfly hasta las 23:59 hora del este de Estados Unidos (EST) del 15 de enero de 2027.

Actualmente, la aeronave de ala giratoria Dragonfly está siendo ensamblada en el Laboratorio de Física Aplicada (APL, por sus siglas en inglés) de la Universidad Johns Hopkins en Laurel, Maryland, y su lanzamiento está programado para 2028. La aeronave llegará a Titán, un mundo extraordinario que posee una atmósfera densa, ríos y lagos de metano líquido, extensas dunas y un paisaje rico en materia orgánica. Tras su llegada en 2034, Dragonfly volará a diferentes lugares de esta luna para explorar sus diversos entornos y buscar indicios de química prebiótica — la química que precedió a la biología — con el fin de ayudar a los científicos a comprender mejor las condiciones y los ingredientes que son necesarios para la vida.

Dragonfly está en proceso de diseño y construcción bajo la dirección de APL, el cual dirige esta misión para la NASA. Elizabeth Turtle, de APL, es la investigadora principal. Dragonfly es la cuarta misión del Programa de Nuevas Fronteras de la NASA, que es administrado por el Centro de Vuelo Espacial Marshall de la agencia en Huntsville, Alabama, para la Dirección de Misiones Científicas de la NASA en Washington.

Para obtener más información sobre la misión Dragonfly de la NASA, visita el sitio web:

https://ciencia.nasa.gov/dragonfly

-fin-

Karen Fox / Molly Wasser / María José Viñas
Sede central de la NASA, Washington
240-285-5155 / 240-419-1732
[email protected] / [email protected]/
[email protected]

Mike Buckley
Laboratorio de Física Aplicada de la Universidad Johns Hopkins (JHU APL)
443-567-3145
[email protected]

Source: www.nasa.gov

The Quantum-Enabled Predictive Preclinical NAMs for Toxicity and Safety (QuSAFE) Challenge, a collaboration between the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and NASA, advances quantum-enabled sensing for in vitro NAMs, such as organoids and microphysiological systems (MPS), to improve drug safety while reducing animal use.

In vitro NAMs, such as organoids and microphysiological systems (MPS), can generate human-relevant data for drug development and safety evaluation. However, conventional assays and imaging are often noisy, invasive, and not sensitive enough. As a result, weak, early, and low-abundance biological signals can go undetected, and destructive measurements make it hard to monitor dynamic processes over time. Quantum-enabled sensing approaches can offer ultra-high sensitivity, improved signal-to-noise performance, and nanoscale resolution, overcoming detection and measurement limitations that today’s approaches can’t reach.

The NIH-NASA QuSAFE Challenge directly supports NASA’s Biological and Physical Sciences Division, addressing the need for advanced detection methods that work beyond traditional labs.

By leveraging recent advances in sensor-development research communities, the challenge enhances NASA’s space exploration capabilities and benefits science both in space and on Earth.

Award: Up to $7.1 million in prizes

Submissions Open Date: December 15, 2026

Submissions Close Date: July 27, 2027

For more information including registration, rules, and eligibility, visit: https://www.qusafechallenge.com/

Source: www.nasa.gov

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman has named Troy Asher director of the agency’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. Asher, a veteran test pilot and aerospace engineer with decades of experience in flight research and operations, has served as the center’s acting director since March.

“Troy has spent his career pushing the boundaries of flight, both at the controls of experimental aircraft and leading the teams that make these missions possible,” said NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman. “He understands what it takes to turn ambitious ideas into successful flight tests, and his experience will be invaluable as Armstrong leads the way in rebuilding NASA’s X-plane portfolio, restoring our flight-test capabilities, and flying higher, farther, and faster than we have in decades.”

“Flight testing demands a rare combination of technical excellence, operational judgment, and trust in the teams that make every mission possible,” said NASA Associate Administrator and Chief Engineer Amit Kshatriya. “Troy’s service to America, from his distinguished career as an Air Force test pilot to his leadership of some of NASA’s most challenging flight research missions, embodies those qualities. Few people better understand the art and discipline of flight testing, and he brings a deep understanding of both the aircraft and the teams behind every successful mission. As director, Troy will help us revolutionize how we develop, evaluate, and fly new technologies, strengthening the capabilities that keep NASA at the forefront of aerospace research.”

Asher will oversee Armstrong’s workforce and operations, leading NASA’s efforts to advance flight research, aircraft operations, and the development of new aviation technologies. As NASA’s Flight Test and Aircraft Operations Center of Excellence, Armstrong plays a central role in the agency’s efforts to rebuild and expand its X-plane portfolio, pushing the boundaries of high-speed flight and developing experimental aircraft and technologies that will shape the future of aviation. The center also supports airborne science missions and flight research across the agency.

Prior to becoming acting center director, Asher served as director of Flight Operations at Armstrong, overseeing the center’s pilots, engineers, maintainers, and fleet of specialized aircraft supporting aeronautics research and scientific missions around the world.

Asher joined NASA in 2008 as a research test pilot and aerospace engineer. During his time as a NASA pilot, he conducted flight research aboard aircraft, including the F-15, F/A-18, Gulfstream III, and X-56A unmanned aircraft system. He served as the lead test pilot for the development of NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) and flew scientific research missions aboard the agency’s DC-8 aircraft, supporting airborne science campaigns around the globe.

Before joining NASA, Asher completed a 24-year career in the U.S. Air Force, retiring as a lieutenant colonel. His military service included assignments as an instructor at the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base, commander of the 419th Flight Test Squadron, and director of the Bomber Combined Test Force. In 2003, he set 25 world speed records flying the B-1B bomber.

Asher earned a bachelor’s degree in astronautical engineering from the U.S. Air Force Academy and a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from California State University, Fresno.

Asher succeeds Bradley Flick, who retired in March following nearly 40 years of NASA service.

Established in 1946, Armstrong has been at the forefront of American flight research for eight decades, from the first supersonic flight aboard the Bell X-1 to today’s work advancing quiet supersonic flight through NASA’s X-59 aircraft. The center continues to push the boundaries of aviation while providing critical flight research and operational capabilities in support of NASA’s science, technology, and exploration missions.

For more information about NASA Armstrong, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/armstrong

-end-

George Alderman
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
[email protected]

Dede Dinius
Armstrong Flight Research Center, Edwards, Calif.
661-276-5701
[email protected]

Source: www.nasa.gov

When a rose-colored meteorite was found in the Sahara Desert in 2022, no one knew how old it was or where it came from. Not until NASA-funded scientists age-dated its minerals did they realize the nearly 2-pound (800-gram) rock was a piece of Mars that formed more than 4.1 billion years ago, making it one of the oldest Martian meteorites ever found. Named Teghaza 001 after the salt plain in Mali where it was discovered, the meteorite is one of roughly 435 from the Red Planet.

In a paper published Thursday in Science, researchers offered an initial characterization of Teghaza 001, providing a rare snapshot of Mars’ ancient crust and formation. What scientists learn from future studies could help answer many questions, including how water and rocks interacted on ancient Mars. A separate paper published in Science Advances in June detailed the meteorite’s water content, offering a look at how water shaped the early planet’s surface.

“It was only after we started looking closely that we realized this meteorite is really unique,” said the paper’s lead author, Yang Liu of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “One of the paper’s reviewers called it a Rosetta Stone for Mars.”

Rose-colored stone

What sets Teghaza 001 apart from other Martian meteorites is its texture and age as well as the uniqueness of its igneous, or volcanic, minerals. It is one of the three most ancient Martian meteorites found on Earth. While invaluable, the others provide more limited glimpses of Mars’ geological history. They include ALH84001, which is composed almost entirely of one mineral and is similar in age to Teghaza 001. The other meteorite, nicknamed “Black Beauty,” formed about 2.1 billion years ago and is composed of small, volcanic rock fragments.

Unlike its ancient peers, Teghaza 001 has a mix of igneous minerals that tells a story about how the planet’s crust formed from cooling magma before it was eventually altered by subsurface water. The meteorite’s distinctive mineralogy matches what NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has observed in the planet’s cratered southern highlands. No one will ever know exactly where the meteorite originated on Mars, but the paper identifies several potential locations that match Teghaza 001’s mineralogy and chemistry.

“This is really our first piece of Martian crust from a part of Mars we’ve never had a sample of before,” said the new paper’s second author, Lee Saper, who conducted the research while at JPL as a postdoctoral scholar. Lee now is a scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley. “It records interactions of water and rock and maybe even an imprint of the Martian atmosphere as it was losing water.”

Although the Mars meteorites found on Earth differ from one another, they share a common history, having been blasted off the Red Planet’s surface by an impact, followed by a trajectory that eventually placed them on Earth and into the hands of scientists. Meteorites are often found by collectors in deserts or snowy plains, where they stand out from the rest of the barren landscape. Scientists can verify a meteorite as Martian by matching its mineral and chemical components to data collected by NASA’s Mars missions, including the Viking landers as well as the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers.

Signs of water

When Liu was first asked to look at Teghaza 001, she almost passed on the opportunity.

Researchers at the University of New Mexico had already identified it as Martian based on its oxygen isotopes, which serve as geochemical fingerprints for different planetary bodies. In this case, the researchers matched the meteorite’s oxygen isotopes to those seen in other Martian meteorites. Teghaza 001 appeared to be a shergottite which is the most common class of meteorite from the Red Planet. As an expert in planetary samples, Liu has seen plenty of those, but she decided to take a peek, anyway.

At the very least, there were odd textures and unusual minerals she hadn’t seen before. Liu and her colleagues discovered zircon crystals in Teghaza 001, which record clues to a rock’s formation and can be used by geologists to precisely age-date a sample. Further analysis revealed when Teghaza 001 formed and when certain changes, like water alteration, occurred.

Caltech coauthor Francois Tissot helped the researchers utilize a novel age-dating method pioneered by his team. Compared with bulk-analysis techniques, where a sample is entirely dissolved and analyzed, Tissot’s in-situ rubidium-strontium age-dating used a piece of Teghaza 001 that was smaller than a fingernail, analyzing single mineral grains on its surface. Besides its extreme precision and speed, the technique preserves rare samples like Martian meteorites for future studies.

“Right now, we are one of very few labs in the world able to perform this kind of age-dating, and the first to date such an ancient Martian meteorite,” Tissot said. “Our hope is to pave the way for dating even more Martian meteorites, or samples returned from other planets, their moons, and asteroids.”

When the age-dating results came back, Liu was shocked: This rock had been altered by Martian water sometime around 4.1 billion years ago, suggesting it originally formed even earlier. Clues within the oxygen isotopes, texture, and chemistry of Teghaza 001 minerals point to a much more dynamic water cycle on early Mars.

This year’s papers are just the start. Liu and her co-authors are eager to see what the rest of the scientific community can learn from Teghaza 001.

“We’ve only scratched the surface,” Liu said.

-end-

Andrew Good
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-2433
[email protected]

Karen Fox / Alana Johnson
NASA Headquarters, Washington
240-285-5155 / 202-672-4780
[email protected] / [email protected]

2026-079    

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Ghostly Cat’s Head Nebula Lurks Within Sight of NASA’s Hubble, Webb

Like a spectral form rising out of a cold mist, NASA’s Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes have captured a hauntingly dynamic star-forming scene. It lies within the vast Carina Nebula, a diffuse star-forming region located about 7,500 light-years away from Earth. The small, select area both telescopes observed is nicknamed the Cat’s Head Nebula because of its resemblance to a cat sitting with its back toward the viewer. The “head” of the cat is turned to the right, revealing a glowing eye.

Though the Cat’s Head Nebula is a temporary scene that will eventually disperse as stars form and evolve over time, the region is packed with information. Hubble and Webb’s complementary views of the Cat’s Head Nebula are helping astronomers learn more about the elusive, chaotic, and complex process known as star formation. 

The distinctive “cat’s head” shape of the nebula was likely sculpted over time by the intense ultraviolet radiation and winds from massive stars in the Carina Nebula. As this stellar feedback erodes the surrounding gas and dust, denser material within the feline-shaped pillar resists erosion, at least for now.

Hubble’s visible-light view reveals an opaque, dark brown pillar of dust. The cat’s glowing red eye may indicate a young star that is still partially embedded in dust. A ridge of hazy yellow seems to follow the edge of the filament’s right side. This bright rim is consistent with gas illuminated and ionized by ultraviolet radiation from nearby massive stars, potentially driving a process known as photoevaporation.

The diffuse material surrounding the pillar glows blue and cyan above, shifting to yellow, orange, and red toward the bottom. Hubble’s filters capture light emitted by oxygen, hydrogen, and sulfur, along with starlight scattered by dust. These color variations reveal a complex mix of excited gas, dust, and stellar illumination.

Piercing Through Dust’s Darkness

Webb’s near- and mid-infrared images each offer different pieces of information to help create a more well-rounded understanding of the Cat’s Head Nebula. While the nebula’s overall structure is similar to the visible-light Hubble image, the filament becomes more transparent, and its complex surface structure becomes discernable in near-infrared light seen by Webb. On the cat’s left are ghostly wisps of dust and gas, delicate structures exposed to radiation from nearby massive stars.

Webb’s near-infrared view reveals a dense scattering of stars, shown in blue and yellow. Even in infrared light, some stars are still enshrouded in dust to various degrees. The cat’s eye remains conspicuous. The telescope’s high-resolution imagery even shows faint background galaxies, offering a partial view through our Milky Way galaxy and beyond.

In mid-infrared light, emission from warm dust and carbon-based molecules excited by starlight outlines intricate structures within the nebula. Changes in local conditions and compositions lead to variations in color and brightness. Delicate globules and strands to the pillar’s left are particularly evident in this mid-infrared view.

To the right of the pillar, a bright light source is shown as yellow in the mid-infrared image. Likely an infant star embedded in dust, it lies against reddish emission from surrounding material. A narrow filament appears to cross the source, although the image alone cannot establish whether the two are physically related.

The Hubble Space Telescope has been operating for more than three decades and continues to make ground-breaking discoveries that shape our fundamental understanding of the universe. Hubble is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope and mission operations. Lockheed Martin Space also supports mission operations at Goddard. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, conducts Hubble science operations for NASA.

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).

Related Multimedia

Image: Cat’s Head Nebula (Hubble WFC3 Image)

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope shows an opaque dust pillar edged by a luminous rim of gas. Surrounding blue regions include emission from ionized gas and scattered starlight. The cat’s glowing red eye may indicate a young star embedded in the dust.

Image: Cat’s Head Nebula (Webb NIRCam Image)

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s near-infrared view reveals detailed structures in the pillar and many stars, as well as some background galaxies. The glowing yellow eye may be a young star embedded in dust.

Image: Cat’s Head Nebula (Webb MIRI Image)

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s mid-infrared view reveals intricate structures within the nebula, traced by the emission from warm dust and carbon-based molecules excited by starlight.

Video: Exploring the Cat’s Head Nebula

This visualization explores imagery from NASA’s Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes of the Cat’s Head Nebula, a relatively small, dusty filament containing forming stars located within the massive Carina Nebula.

Video: Multiwavelength Flight into the Cat’s Head Nebula

This tour glides through imagery from NASA’s Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes of the Cat’s Head Nebula. The dust filament broadly remains the same in shape across the different wavelengths of light, but each view contains different details.

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The Carina Nebula: Star Birth in the Extreme

This 50-light-year-wide Hubble view of the central region of the Carina Nebula showcases a region of intense star birth and death.

“Cosmic Cliffs” in the Carina Nebula (NIRCam)

Captured in infrared light by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), this image reveals previously obscured areas of star birth in the Carina Nebula.

Hubble Captures View of ‘Mystic Mountain’

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Hubble’s Sparkling New View of the Carina Nebula

This image features an enormous cloud of gas and dust in the Carina Nebula. The region is home to several massive and bright stars, including at least a dozen that are 50 to 100 times the mass of our Sun.

Explore the Night Sky: Caldwell 92

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Hubble News

Source: science.nasa.gov

A sweeping barred galaxy takes center stage in this Oct. 22, 2026, image, but the gravitational lensing at bottom right is the real target. This observation is one of many gravitational lensing images taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope in preparation for science with the new Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.

Astronomers will use these images to analyze gravitational distortions to learn more about dark matter in the foreground galaxies and to lay the groundwork for future Roman observations. Images like this offer a glimpse of how Hubble and Roman will work together to build an even more comprehensive picture of the cosmos.

Image credit: NASA, ESA, and X. Huang (University of San Francisco); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)

Source: www.nasa.gov