Space telescopes as a research area encompass the scientific and technical study, design, deployment, and utilization of astronomical observatories operating above Earth’s atmosphere to access wide spectral ranges (e.g., ultraviolet, X-ray, gamma-ray, infrared) and achieve high-precision photometry, spectroscopy, and imaging. The field addresses orbital dynamics, thermal and structural stability, detector and optics optimization, contamination control, and data calibration pipelines. Research includes mission architecture, survey strategies, multi-messenger and time-domain coordination, and methodologies for extracting cosmological, stellar, and planetary parameters from space-based observations, as well as technology development for next-generation observatories and constellations.
NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is poised to make a major leap in the hunt for worlds outside our solar system, known as exoplanets. Scientists expect the mission to reveal around 100,000 worlds—a staggering leap ...
Astronomy
May 28, 2026
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Look closely at this image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and you'll see galaxies of various shapes and sizes clustered together toward the center-left of the image. A few foreground stars shine brightly and are easily ...
Astronomy
May 22, 2026
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Looking back at 14 years of Hubble telescope data for Jupiter's moon Europa has given Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) scientists a better understanding of its tenuous atmosphere. The findings have cast doubt on previous ...
Astrobiology
May 18, 2026
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NASA's TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) has released its most complete view of the starry sky to date, filling in gaps from previous observations. Nearly 6,000 colored dots scattered across the image show the ...
Astronomy
May 13, 2026
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Using data from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers led by researchers at the University of California, Riverside have produced the most detailed map of the cosmic web ever made, tracing the network of galaxies ...
Astronomy
May 12, 2026
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The Milky Way's galactic bulge, the bulbous region that surrounds the galactic center, contains a dense collection of stars, planets, and other free-floating objects. This region has been studied for decades with numerous ...
Astronomy
May 11, 2026
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There's so little we know about circumbinary planets—planets that orbit two stars instead of one—that they can feel like the stuff of fantasy. And for good reason: to date, we've only confirmed the existence of 18 circumbinary ...
Astronomy
May 11, 2026
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One night last fall, University of Cincinnati astrophysics graduate Paul Smith waited anxiously for data to start rolling across his computer screen from the James Webb Space Telescope a million miles from Earth.
Astronomy
May 9, 2026
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Astronomers have long known that neutron stars, the crushed cores left behind after massive stars explode, should be scattered throughout the Milky Way galaxy. However, most of them are effectively invisible. A new study ...
Astronomy
May 6, 2026
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32
Astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope together with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have looked deeply at thousands of young star clusters in four nearby galaxies, studying clusters at different ...
Astronomy
May 6, 2026
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