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Space Telescope Science Institute
@stsci.edu
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The Space Telescope Science Institute is the Science Operations Center for Webb, Hubble, and the upcoming Roman space telescopes, & Mission Operations Center for Webb. We help humanity explore the universe with advanced space telescopes and data archive.
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Bright galaxies like M83 are a favorite among amateur astronomers. This Hubble image provides a wealth of information about stellar formation—and death, spread across the galaxy’s 50,000 light-years: https://bit.ly/4qsgocE
A spiral galaxy, which takes up almost the entire scene. Blue, pink, and purple spiral arms stretch out from the galaxy’s yellow center. In the spiral arms are dark brown filamentary dust lanes. Numerous stars are scattered through the arms that spin out into the black background. The background of space is black.
February 9, 2026 at 3:09 PM
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Bright galaxies like M83 are a favorite among amateur astronomers. This Hubble image provides a wealth of information about stellar formation—and death, spread across the galaxy’s 50,000 light-years: https://bit.ly/4qsgocE
A spiral galaxy, which takes up almost the entire scene. Blue, pink, and purple spiral arms stretch out from the galaxy’s yellow center. In the spiral arms are dark brown filamentary dust lanes. Numerous stars are scattered through the arms that spin out into the black background. The background of space is black.
February 9, 2026 at 3:09 PM
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Astronomers have used #NASAWebb—most powerful infrared telescope to date—to search for brown dwarfs at very low masses in a nearby nebula that contains newborn stars.

Join Dr. Kevin Luhman (Penn State) for a discussion on the surprising aspect of these new brown dwarfs on Feb. 24, at 7 p.m. ET. 🔭
Discovering the Least-Massive Brown Dwarfs Known with the James Webb Space Telescope
Stars exist across a wide range of masses, some more massive than the Sun and some less massive. If a star is less massive than roughly 8% of the Sun's mass, or 80 times the mass of Jupiter, its center is too cool to sustain hydrogen fusion. These stars...
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February 6, 2026 at 5:55 PM
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This celestial firestorm is the blazing wreckage of a collision between two spiral galaxies. The Antennae Galaxies show off two long streamers of stars, gas, and dust that extend from the crash site.
Zoom into the Antennae Galaxies
This celestial firestorm is the blazing wreckage of a collision between two spiral galaxies. The two galaxies, whose bright yellow cores appear to the lower left and upper right of center, began their fateful confrontation a few hundred million years ag...
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February 6, 2026 at 5:05 PM
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If you've ever wondered what Hubble and Webb were observing at any time, there's an easy way to find out! 👀

Space Telescope Live can show you what the telescopes are looking at now and what the next planned observation will be, all in one space (pun intended 😁): https://spacetelescopelive.org/
February 4, 2026 at 5:00 PM
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It’s a continuous cycle: space telescope technology 🔁 astronomical observations. As we learn about the universe with space telescopes, like #Hubble and #NASAWebb, investigating ongoing mysteries and answering new questions requires state-of-the-art technology. Credit: STScI.
February 5, 2026 at 3:46 PM
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As the sun sets, observatory work begins!

Once Rubin begins the 10-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time, it will create the greatest cosmic timelapse movie and the most detailed view of the southern hemisphere sky ever made 🌌 🔭🧪

📷: NSF–DOE RubinObs/NOIRLab/SLAC/AURA/W. O'Mullane
A boot-shaped observatory with vertical dome slit open, silhouetted against a pink and purple sunset sky
February 4, 2026 at 8:55 PM
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A sideways spiral galaxy shines in this Hubble image. Located about 60 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo, NGC 4388 is a resident of the Virgo galaxy cluster.

The Virgo cluster contains more than a thousand galaxies and is the nearest large galaxy cluster to the Milky Way. 🔭
Galaxy NGC 4388 — Hubble Space Telescope #shorts
YouTube video by Space Telescope Science Institute
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February 4, 2026 at 8:44 PM
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If you've ever wondered what Hubble and Webb were observing at any time, there's an easy way to find out! 👀

Space Telescope Live can show you what the telescopes are looking at now and what the next planned observation will be, all in one space (pun intended 😁): https://spacetelescopelive.org/
February 4, 2026 at 5:00 PM
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OPPORTUNITY: The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, MD, is searching for a Senior Software Engineer to help manage the backend data pipelines, MPP database system and ensure high-performance, reliable data access for our advanced astronomical public data archive: https://bit.ly/4a0Ce16
February 4, 2026 at 4:53 PM
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OPPORTUNITY: The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, MD, is searching for a Software Engineer I, to help advance our data analysis tools for our NASA flagship missions primarily in areas of data visualization: https://bit.ly/4qQ4QA4
The image shows the logo of the Space Telescope Science Institute, featuring a stylized illustration of a telescope within a blue circle. Below the logo, the text reads, "Expanding the Frontiers of Space Astronomy" against a cosmic nebula background.
February 3, 2026 at 5:16 PM
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Appearing like a cosmic sweater, symbiotic binary star R Aquarii is seen in a combination of X-ray and visible light, including visible light from Hubble.

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; ESA/XMM-Newton; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI; ESO/VLT. 🔭
A symbiotic binary star. The structure resembles a cozy sweater with a red body, and blue wooly arms opened wide. The object is centered and take up about a third of the image horizontally. The background of space is black and dotted with distant stars and galaxies.
February 2, 2026 at 3:52 PM
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Among the objects being studied by #NASAWebb are exoplanets: planets orbiting stars other than our sun.

In a virtual talk on February 5, STScI's Dr. Néstor Espinoza will share the latest advancements learned from those alien worlds, paving the road to answer the ultimate question, “Are we alone?“
Natural History Society of Maryland - Exploring Distant Exoplanet Atmospheres with the James Webb Space Telescope
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is humanity's new eye in the sky. Orbiting at about
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February 2, 2026 at 6:47 PM
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Two stars in this #NASAWebb image are responsible for the horizontal jets. Known as Herbig-Haro 797, they are ingesting gas and dust—and periodically sending out two-sided jets. They’ll form over thousands of years.

Credit: ESA, NASA, CSA.
In the lower half is a narrow, horizontal cloud of gas and dust that stretches from edge to edge. It is largely pink at left and a mix of greens, oranges and reds at right. Two actively forming stars known as Herbig-Haro 797 are hidden on the right side, within the pinched waist of an orange section. A bright star with long diffraction spikes lies along the top right edge, and a few smaller stars are spread around. The background is covered in a thin blue haze.
February 2, 2026 at 4:52 PM
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Appearing like a cosmic sweater, symbiotic binary star R Aquarii is seen in a combination of X-ray and visible light, including visible light from Hubble.

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; ESA/XMM-Newton; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI; ESO/VLT. 🔭
A symbiotic binary star. The structure resembles a cozy sweater with a red body, and blue wooly arms opened wide. The object is centered and take up about a third of the image horizontally. The background of space is black and dotted with distant stars and galaxies.
February 2, 2026 at 3:52 PM
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WATCH: The Crab Nebula is an expanding remnant of a star's supernova explosion. Located 6,500 light-years away, this glowing relic has been expanding since the star exploded, and it is now approximately 11 light-years in width.
Zoom into the Crab Nebula
YouTube video by Space Telescope Science Institute
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January 29, 2026 at 8:36 PM
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STScI helps everyone—astronomers and the public alike—explore the universe with advanced space telescopes and ever-growing data archives. Learn about our support for Hubble, Webb, Roman, MAST, and the upcoming Habitable Worlds Observatory: https://bit.ly/4k9iHPp
The words STScI Updates, How We Support You run over an image of space that shows distant galaxies against a black background.
January 29, 2026 at 8:06 PM
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Over three years #NASAWebb observed the same area as the Hubble Ultra Deep Field for nearly 100 hours. Webb revealed more than 2,500 objects, including extremely distant galaxies that contain clues about galaxy growth in the early universe.

Credit: ESA, NASA, CSA.
An area of deep space with thousands of galaxies in various shapes and sizes on a black background. Most are circles or ovals, with a few spirals. More distant galaxies are smaller, appearing as dots, while closer galaxies are larger and some appear to be glowing. Red and orange galaxies contain more dust or more stellar activity.
January 29, 2026 at 4:01 PM
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#NASAWebb has set a new cosmic distance record: MoM-z14, the furthest galaxy ever confirmed (for now). In this image we see the galaxy as it appeared only 280 million years after the universe began in the big bang: https://news.stsci.edu/49Uanyg
A wide field of view showing deep space dotted with many small galaxies and a few foreground stars that display diffraction spikes. One galaxy is highlighted with a magnified image in a pull-out box in the lower right corner. The galaxy is labeled MoM-z14 and appears as a blurry yellow blob with a small red area at its top.
January 28, 2026 at 3:02 PM
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Applications for our Space Astronomy Summer Program must be submitted by 11:59 pm EST January 31, 2026, to receive consideration.
stsci.edu Space Telescope Science Institute @stsci.edu · Jan 7
Applications are open for STScI's Space Astronomy Summer Program: an opportunity for college students to work with researchers and staff on projects that include astrophysics research; science software engineering; science instrument calibration; and science public outreach: https://bit.ly/4ptMkfs 🔭
Group of people standing in a room with posters and models related to space exploration, including a banner for the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.
January 27, 2026 at 6:26 PM
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Like searching for needles in a cosmic haystack, a team of astronomers used AI to find rare, oddball objects in archived Hubble data. Out of nearly 100 million sources, the team quickly found more than 1,300 celestial oddities, most new: https://news.stsci.edu/4sUNPpO
Six Hubble images of distorted galaxies are organized in a two-row mosaic. From left to right, in the top row: The left panel has a galaxy that resembles the number nine tilted on its side to the left and has red-orange regions scattered with blue knots. The center square shows an edge-on spiral galaxy appearing like a white thin bar extending from 8 o’clock to 2 o’clock. It has a bright, compact core and a small background spiral galaxy just below the core. The right panel shows two merging galaxies forming a convoluted shape that extends from 8 o’clock to 2 o’clock. The bottom row of galaxies: Left square contains a face-on spiral with faint, broad arcs of material to its left and right. The center panel has a hazy white, face-on spiral with a lumpy vertical line to its right that appears to curve around its core. The right panel shows an orange elliptical galaxy with a lumpy blueish galaxy curving around it to the right.
January 27, 2026 at 3:03 PM
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Stuck inside on a snow day? May we suggest watching science videos from the Hubble Space Telescope? 🔭
Hubble Space Telescope — Science Videos - YouTube
Videos that take a deeper dive into science and discoveries from the Hubble Space Telescope.
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January 26, 2026 at 4:12 PM
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OPPORTUNITY: The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, MD, is searching for a Senior Astronomical Data Scientist, to help advance our data analysis tools for our NASA flagship missions primarily in areas of data visualization: https://bit.ly/3YQDM7y
Logo of the Space Telescope Science Institute, STScI, over a backdrop of a colorful space nebula, with text 'Expanding the Frontiers of Space Astronomy'.
January 26, 2026 at 3:47 PM
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Cassiopeia A has been observed by astronomers since its discovery in 1948. Its close distance and brightness help telescopes like #NASAWebb see intricate details in the supernova remnant, informing astronomers about how its progenitor star exploded: https://bit.ly/4rGZQ1v
Cassiopeia A, a supernova remnant. This is a circular-shaped cloud of gas and dust with complex structure. The inner shell is made of bright pink and orange filaments studded with clumps and knots that look like tiny pieces of shattered glass. Around the exterior of the inner shell, particularly at the upper right, there are curtains of wispy gas that look like campfire smoke. The white smoke-like material also appears to fill the cavity of the inner shell, featuring structures shaped like large bubbles. Around and within the nebula, there are various stars seen as points of blue and white light. Outside the nebula, there are also clumps of yellow dust, with a particularly large clump at the bottom right corner that appears to have very detailed striations. The background of space is black.
January 26, 2026 at 2:41 PM
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The clumps within this supernova remnant, 1E 0102, seen by Hubble, are moving away from the explosion site at 2 million miles per hour (3 million kilometers per hour). At that velocity, one could travel to the Moon and back in 15 minutes: https://bit.ly/4iTwyJe
1E 0102, a supernova remnant. This is a circular-shaped cloud of gas and dust with complex structure. Clumps of blue filaments of gas and dust, spread out from 1 o’clock to 11 o’clock, expand from the center, forming a circular shape. Throughout the clumps of blue, there are wispy red filaments of matter. There are blue and white stars spread throughout on the black background of space.
January 23, 2026 at 3:30 PM