telescope Archives

Figure summarizing the key science objectives. -- astro-ph.IM

Nautilus Space Observatory: The Evolution of Planets and their Atmospheres

by Keith CowingJune 29, 2026June 29, 2026

[astro-ph.IM] We are just beginning to explore the billion-year evolution from nascent planets in disks to mature planetary systems. Recent discoveries hint at demographic and atmospheric differences between young planets […]

Artist’s rendering of a brown dwarf orbiting a star.Credit: NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/P. Marenfeld Acknowledgement: William Pendrill

Uncategorized

NASA’s Backyard Worlds: Binaries Project

by Keith CowingJune 26, 2026June 26, 2026

Some stars have planets. Others are orbited by brown dwarfs, balls of gas too massive to be planets, but too low-mass to be stars. Astronomers love these brown dwarf-star pairs […]

The setting Sun dips below the horizon of the Pacific Ocean, bathing the Paranal platform in light in this amazing aerial image from the Atacama Desert in northern Chile. The Cerro Paranal mountain top is home to the world’s most advanced ground-based facility for astronomy, hosting the four 8.2-metre Unit Telescopes of the Very Large Telescope, four 1.8-metre Auxiliary Telescopes and the VLT Survey Telescope (VST) — all of which are visible in this image. The 4.1-metre Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA), also housed at Cerro Paranal, is hidden out of frame. -- ESO via Wikipedia

Uncategorized

VLT Beyond 2030 and Call for White Papers

by Keith CowingJune 26, 2026June 26, 2026

The VLT Beyond 2030 conference gathered participants from the community and ESO experts to present and discuss science and technological ideas for the future of both the Very Large Telescope […]

NASA’s Pegasus barge arrives at the Launch Complex 39 turn basin at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida carrying NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on Sunday, June 21, 2026. NASA/Amber Jean Notvest larger image

Astronomy & Telescopes

Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Arrives In Florida Ahead of Launch

by Keith CowingJune 24, 2026June 24, 2026

NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope arrived June 21, at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, marking the start of final prelaunch preparations before liftoff later this summer.

The Chinese Space Station Telescope (CSST) – CNSA/Xinhua

Astronomy & Telescopes

Introduction To The Chinese Space Station Survey Telescope (CSST)

by Keith CowingJune 23, 2026June 23, 2026

The Chinese Space Station Survey Telescope (CSST) is an upcoming Stage-IV sky survey telescope, distinguished by its large field of view (FoV), high image quality, and multi-band observation capabilities.

Two prototype dishes for the DSA at the Owens Valley Radio Observatory (OVRO) near Bishop, California. This generation of antenna was designed and built by Mtex Antenna Technology GmbH in Germany. Credit: Katie Jameson/Caltech/DSA Project

Astronomy & Telescopes, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Press Release

Caltech Readies To Build World’s Most Sensitive Radio Telescope

by Keith CowingJune 22, 2026June 21, 2026

Our cosmos is awash with radio waves, originating from fierce jets blasting out of distant black holes, blinking dead stars closer to home, and many other exotic objects.

Exoplanet 29 Cygni b, seen in this artist’s concept, is a gas giant weighing about 15 times the mass of Jupiter. It orbits a type A star (shown at upper right) slightly hotter and more massive than our Sun, at an average distance of 1.5 billion miles. The star is known to possess a dusty debris disk. A hypothetical comet fragment is shown approaching the planet, while previous impacts have left dark splotches on its cloudtops, similar to what was seen from the Shoemaker-Levy 9 impact on Jupiter in our solar system. -- NASA Larger image

Astrogeology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Press Release, Stellar Cartography

Webb Redefines The Dividing Line Between Planets And Stars

by Keith CowingJune 16, 2026June 16, 2026

Planets, like those in our solar system, form in a bottom-up process where small bits of rock and ice clump together and grow larger over time. But the heftier the […]

Left: Qϕ image of WRAY 15-1880 obtained from the SPHERE polarimetric data. The red dot at the center of the image marks the position of the star; the dashed white circle is the size of the coronagraph used in this observation. The dotted straight lines mark the major and minor axes, as obtained by Curone et al. (2025). Right: similar image, but projected on the disk plane (i “ 39.22 deg) and rotated to have the major axis vertical and the minor axis horizontal. On this plane, the coronagraphic mask is an ellipse represented by the white dashed line. The yellow circle has a radius of 214.1 mas that is the peak of the disk as determined by the ALMA data (see Section 3.3.2). The center of this circle has been offset by 37 mas along the minor axis, to fit the outer contour of the observed disk East of the star, that is the closest side of the disk. The red solid circle (radius of 110 mas) fits the feature seen north of the star. The position of the planet discussed in Section 3.2 at the epoch of the SPHERE polarimetric observation is marked with a small white circle, and its orbit is shown as magenta circle. -- astro-ph.SR

Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

Analysis Of The Young Disk Around WRAY 15-1880: Does It Contain A Primitive Planetary System?

by Keith CowingJune 11, 2026June 11, 2026

Observations of (giant) planets accreting material within their natal environment are crucial to constrain models for their formation.

Telluric spectrum observed at R = 45,000 with IGRINS (black) and the same spectrum smoothed to R = 2,000 (yellow). The middle panel labels the primary molecular constituents while the upper and lower panels show details of particular bands. -- astro-ph.IM

Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

The Case for High-Resolution Infrared Spectroscopy with the Habitable Worlds Observatory

by Keith CowingJune 11, 2026June 11, 2026

A high-resolution near-IR spectroscopy capability on the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) could strongly and efficiently advance many of the mission’s goals.