For the first time, STScI served as the news office for two operating NASA flagship missions.
About This Article
With two world-class observatories doing amazing science, it is difficult to choose just a few news-making discoveries to highlight. In its first six months of science operations, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope made more than 38,000 observations, while NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has racked up 1.5 million over the course of its nearly 33-year career. Together, the dynamic space duo is opening up the universe, and our sense of wonder, all over again. Revisit some of their 2022 news highlights below.
NOVEMBER 2022 ׀ WEBB
NASA's Webb Draws Back Curtain on Universe's Early Galaxies
Just days after officially starting science operations, Webb found an unexpectedly rich “undiscovered country” of early galaxies that has been largely hidden until now. Webb is unveiling the first forming galaxies, which look remarkably different from the mature galaxies seen around us today. With just four days of analysis, researchers found two exceptionally bright galaxies that existed approximately 450 and 350 million years after the big bang (with redshifts of approximately 10.5 and 12.5, respectively). The initial findings are from a broader Webb research initiative involving two Early Release Science (ERS) programs: the Grism Lens-Amplified Survey from Space (GLASS), and the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science Survey (CEERS). Discover the early universe with Webb.
OCTOBER 2022 ׀ WEBB
NASA’s Webb Takes Star-Filled Portrait of Pillars of Creation
With its Near-Infrared Camera, Webb delivered the most detailed near-infrared-light image ever captured of the iconic Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula. This is a region where young stars are forming, or have barely burst from their dusty cocoons as they continue to form. Webb’s new view will help researchers revamp their models of star formation by identifying far more precise counts of newly formed stars, along with the quantities of gas and dust in the region. Over time, they will begin to build a clearer understanding of how stars form and burst out of these dusty clouds over millions of years. View the Pillars of Creation like never before.
SEPTEMBER 2022 ׀ HUBBLE AND WEBB
Webb, Hubble Capture Detailed Views of DART Impact
In September 2022, Webb and Hubble teamed up in their first collaborative observation of the same celestial target. The target itself was another first: a unique NASA experiment, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), humanity's first-ever in-space test for planetary defense. The DART spacecraft intentionally slammed into Dimorphos, the asteroid moonlet in the double-asteroid system of Didymos, at nearly 15,000 miles per hour.
Both Webb and Hubble observed the asteroid before and after the collision took place. They captured the impact in different wavelengths of light, Webb in infrared and Hubble in visible. Scientists are using the combined observations to learn about the surface of Dimorphos, how much material was ejected by the collision, how fast it was ejected, and the distribution of particle sizes in the expanding dust cloud. The telescopes' combined capabilities will also allow scientists to analyze a wide array of data relating to the makeup and history of our solar system. “Webb and Hubble show what we’ve always known to be true at NASA: We learn more when we work together,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. Read more about Hubble and Webb’s first joint effort.
SEPTEMBER 2022 ׀ WEBB
New Webb Image Captures Clearest View of Neptune’s Rings in Decades
Webb captured the clearest view of Neptune’s rings in more than 30 years and revealed the ice giant in a whole new light. Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera images objects in the near-infrared range from 0.6 to 5 microns, so Neptune does not appear blue to Webb. Methane-ice clouds are prominent as bright streaks and spots. In addition to several bright, narrow rings, Webb’s precise image quality clearly shows Neptune’s fainter dust bands.
Webb also captured seven of Neptune’s 14 known moons. The largest moon, Triton, dominates the image as a very bright point of light sporting Webb’s signature diffraction spikes. Covered in a frozen sheen of condensed nitrogen, Triton reflects an average of 70 percent of the sunlight that hits it. It far outshines Neptune in this image because the planet’s atmosphere is darkened by methane absorption at these near-infrared wavelengths. See Neptune in a new light with Webb.
AUGUST 2022 ׀ WEBB
NASA’s Webb Detects Carbon Dioxide in Exoplanet Atmosphere
Webb ushered in a new era of exoplanet science with the first unequivocal detection of carbon dioxide in a planetary atmosphere outside our solar system. The research team used Webb’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph to observe the hot gas-giant planet WASP 39 b, which orbits a Sun-like star 700 light-years away. No observatory has ever measured such subtle differences in brightness across the 3 to 5.5-micron range of light in an exoplanet transmission spectrum before. Access to this part of the electromagnetic spectrum is crucial for measuring abundances of gases like water and methane, as well as carbon dioxide, which are thought to exist in many different types of exoplanets. This early discovery with Webb holds promise for the future study of a wide variety of exoplanets, including smaller, cooler, rocky planets, providing insights into the composition, formation, and evolution of planets across the galaxy. Learn more about this groundbreaking discovery.
AUGUST 2022 ׀ HUBBLE
Hubble Sees Red Supergiant Star Betelgeuse Slowly Recovering After Blowing Its Top
Based on data from Hubble and other observatories, astronomers concluded that the bright red supergiant star Betelgeuse quite literally blew its top in 2019, losing a substantial part of its visible surface and producing a gigantic surface mass ejection. This is something never before seen in a normal star's behavior. Betelgeuse blasted off 400 billion times as much mass as a routine ejection by the Sun. These new observations yield clues as to how red stars lose mass late in their lives as their nuclear fusion furnaces burn out, before exploding as supernovae. However, Betelgeuse's behavior is not evidence the star is about to blow up anytime soon. "It's a totally new phenomenon that we can observe directly and resolve surface details with Hubble. We're watching stellar evolution in real time," said astronomer Andrea Dupree. Keep reading about Betelgeuse.
JULY 2022 ׀ WEBB
NASA Reveals Webb Telescope’s First Images of Unseen Universe
The much-anticipated first full-color images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope were released to the public in July 2022, beginning with a special broadcast from the White House on July 11. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson presented Webb’s First Deep Field image to President Biden and Vice-President Harris, and STScI’s then-Deputy Director Nancy Levenson attended to provide additional briefing, along with other experts. The following day, a full package of images and accompanying news releases and materials were issued, covering four additional celestial targets related to various areas of astronomy Webb will pursue during its mission: WASP-96 b (other worlds), the Southern Ring Nebula (stellar life cycle), Stephan’s Quintet (galaxies through time), and the Carina Nebula (star formation). Read the release that kicked off the start of Webb’s science operations.
JUNE 2022 ׀ HUBBLE
Dead Star Caught Ripping Up Planetary System
Using archival data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and other NASA observatories, a white dwarf star has been found for the first time pulling both rocky-metallic and icy material onto its surface from its planetary system. A white dwarf is what remains after a star like our sun sheds its outer layers and ends nuclear fusion. This study confirms the true scale of this chaotic process, showing that within 100 million years after the beginning of its white dwarf phase, the star is able to simultaneously capture and consume material that originated in its asteroid belt and Kuiper belt-like regions. The makeup of the bodies detected raining onto the white dwarf implies that icy reservoirs might be common among planetary systems. This could have implications for our own solar system, and the theory that water was first delivered to Earth via comets and asteroids. Get details on the dead star here.
JUNE 2022 ׀ HUBBLE
Hubble Determines Mass of Isolated Black Hole Roaming Our Milky Way Galaxy
For the first time ever, astronomers found direct evidence for a lone black hole drifting through interstellar space. Hubble made a mass measurement of the phantom object, following six years of meticulous observations. Until now, all black hole masses have been inferred statistically or through interactions in binary systems or in the cores of galaxies. Stellar-mass black holes are usually found due to the presence of a companion star, making this one unusual.
Hubble measured the amount of deflection of a background star's image by the black hole's warping of space. The star's image was offset from where it normally would be by about one milliarcsecond. That's equivalent to measuring the diameter of a 25-cent coin in Los Angeles as seen from New York City. Keep reading about the lone black hole.
APRIL 2022 ׀ HUBBLE
Hubble Confirms Largest Comet Nucleus Ever Seen
Hubble has determined the size of the largest icy comet nucleus yet discovered. The estimated diameter is approximately 80 miles across, making it larger than the state of Rhode Island. The nucleus is about 50 times larger than those found at the heart of most known comets. Its mass is estimated to be a staggering 500 trillion tons, a hundred thousand times greater than the mass of a typical comet found much closer to the Sun. The behemoth comet, C/2014 UN271 (Bernardinelli-Bernstein) is barreling this way at 22,000 miles per hour from the edge of the Solar System. But not to worry. It will never get closer than 1 billion miles away from the Sun, which is slightly farther than the distance of the planet Saturn. Continue reading about the comet's nucleus.
MARCH 2022 ׀ HUBBLE
Record Broken: Hubble Spots Farthest Star Ever Seen
Hubble established an extraordinary new benchmark with its detection of a star that existed within the first billion years after the universe's birth in the big bang—the farthest individual star ever seen to date. Nicknamed Earendel, the star is so far away that its light has taken 12.9 billion years to reach Earth, appearing to us as it did when the universe was only 7 percent of its current age, at redshift 6.2. Even Hubble's power needed a boost from nature to detect it: Earendel is positioned along a ripple in space-time that gives it extreme magnification. The star's discovery was a huge leap further back in time from the previous single-star record holder, also detected by Hubble in 2018, which existed when the universe was about 4 billion years old, or 30 percent of its current age, at redshift 1.5. Read more about Earendel.