Infrared telescopes

The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Euclid telescope has been gradually losing its vision as layers of water molecules have frozen onto its mirrors. That’s bad news for a mission tasked with observing the dark universe using super-sensitive cameras, but the team behind the telescope has come up with a plan to keep Euclid warm in the cold depths of space.First Full-Color Images From Webb Space TelescopeEuclid launched in July 2023 to study the dark universe—the parts of our cosmos made up of dark energy and dark matter—using…

A new NASA experiment will take to the skies on a balloon, scanning the space between the stars of our galaxy and listening for cosmic ingredients to understand how the Milky Way evolved over time.First Full-Color Images From Webb Space TelescopeGUSTO, or Galactic/Extragalactic ULDB Spectroscopic Terahertz Observatory, is launching no earlier than Thursday from the largest ice shelf in Antarctica known as the Ross Ice Shelf, according to NASA. From there, the telescope will float 120,000 feet over Antarctica while…

A diligent surveyor of the night skies, NEOWISE is sadly approaching its fiery demise as the Sun’s erratic outbursts are causing the infrared telescope to gradually fall out of its orbit before it eventually burns up in Earth’s atmosphere.First Full-Color Images From Webb Space TelescopeNASA’s NEOWISE, or Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, will be rendered unusable in early 2025 due to increased solar activity, the space agency announced. The telescope’s orbit is expected to gradually lower over time.…

An artist’s concept of the Euclid mission in space.Illustration: ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGOThe European Space Agency (ESA) is gearing up for the launch of its highly anticipated mission to explore the cosmic dark side.Astronomers Could Soon Get Warnings When SpaceX Satellites Threaten Their ViewThe Euclid space telescope is scheduled to launch on board a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Saturday at 11:11 a.m. ET, lifting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. There are plenty of viewing options for the launch as both…

Together, dark matter and dark energy comprise 95% of the known universe, yet scientists don’t know what they are. The Euclid telescope, set to launch to space from Florida on Saturday, may help decipher them.First Full-Color Images From Webb Space TelescopeHere’s what you need to know about the world’s newest space telescope.What is Euclid?Euclid is a space telescope that will observe the universe at infrared wavelengths. Its primary goal is to map the geometry of the dark universe—hence its name, for the Greek…

The Webb Space Telescope is on a tear, imaging regions of star formation across the cosmos. Its latest target? The barred spiral galaxy NGC 5068—a bedazzled conglomeration of gas and stars 17 million light-years from Earth.Webb Telescope Images the Pillars of CreationLaunched in December 2021, Webb has been making scientific observations since July 2022. It’s uniquely capable of seeing some of the oldest, most distant light, which it does at infrared wavelengths. Taking data on this ancient light clues astronomers into…

For more than three years, NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has been idly coasting around the Sun while locked in a retirement safe mode,while its successor, the Webb Telescope, took over its cosmic observation duties. An upcoming servicing mission, however, could give the old telescope a new purpose: protecting Earth from dangerous asteroids.Astronomers Could Soon Get Warnings When SpaceX Satellites Threaten Their ViewThis week, Washington-based company Rhea Space Activity announced that it has been selected to develop…

The Webb Space Telescope recently trained its perceptive gaze on a rocky exoplanet about 26 light-years from Earth and found that it appears to have water vapor in its atmosphere—a shock, given its extreme heat and its proximity to its host star.What Is Planet Nine and Why Can’t We Find It?The world—named GJ 486 b—is about 2.8 times the mass of Earth but only 30% larger, meaning it has a stronger gravitational pull than our own planet. Discovered in 2021, GJ 486 b has a surface temperature of about 800 degrees Fahrenheit…

The Webb Space Telescope has produced a stupendous view of a Wolf-Rayet star, an extraordinarily bright object in the sky that (you may want to sit down) will soon die.Wolf-Rayet stars are supernovae waiting to happen. They are stars that are generally much larger than our Sunbut are rapidly losing mass as they age, according to the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian. At the end of their life cycles, they burst outwards in luminous, space-time roiling supernovae.The star recently imaged by the $10…

A new Webb Space Telescope deep field image shows the luminous realm of Pandora’s Cluster (Abell 2744), a pileup of galaxy clusters that formed over the course of 350 million years.The cluster has previously been imaged by a number of telescopes, including NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory. But now the $10 billion Webb telescope has trained its gaze on the distant cluster, displaying about 50,000 light sources in and around the object.The image shown above is actually four Webb images…