AURA

Happy First Look anniversary Rubin Observatory and celebrating 36 amazing years for Hubble Space Telescope and Space Telescope Science Institute!

Two observatories, two anniversaries, and one spectacular nebula 🌌🎉

One year after NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory's First Look and 36 years into NASA's Hubble Space Telescope mission, we're celebrating together by revisiting the Trifid Nebula as seen by both observatories 🔭

Also known as M20, Trifid is a stellar nursery about 5,000 light-years away in the Milky Way where newborn stars shape the surrounding gas and dust with powerful radiation.

These images show the same object at very different scales.

Rubin's view shows the rich cosmic neighborhood around Trifid, including the Lagoon Nebula and millions of other stars, while Hubble's view reveals the intricate details within the nebula itself.

Together, these observatories can show us both "the forest and the trees," from the broader context of our galaxy to how individual stars shape the gas and dust around them. ✨



📷:
Panels 1+2: NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory/NOIRLab/SLAC/AURA
Panel 3: NASA, ESA, STScI; Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

📖🌌 One year. A LOT of Universe.

NSF NOIRLab’s Year in Review 2025 is here, featuring discoveries, milestones, and behind-the-scenes stories from across our observatories and programs.
Inside: possible hints that dark energy changes over time, new planets orbiting Barnard’s Star, NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory’s global First Look campaign, giant datasets, and the people helping make modern astronomy happen 🔭.

Explore the discoveries, people, and stories that shaped NOIRLab’s year ✨
https://bit.ly/4vvExRW

📷: NOIRLab/NSF/AURA

Someone named it Pinwheel Galaxy and honestly, yes 🌀

Informally known as the Pinwheel Galaxy, M101 is a spiral galaxy that is seen face on. It is a galaxy similar to our own, the Milky Way. It is relatively close by, only about 20 million light-years away, meaning that we can see details inside it very well.

The spiral arms of M101 are filled with numerous regions in which stars are forming (seen as pink clouds of gas). This image was obtained with the wide-field view of the Mosaic Camera on the NSF Nicholas U. Mayall 4-meter telescope at NSF Kitt Peak National Observatory.

The image was created using five filters: 🟣 U (violet), 🔵 B (blue), 🟢 V (green), 🟠 I (orange), and 🔴 H-alpha (red). These reveal both the stars and the regions where new stars are forming.

Credit: T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage) and H. Schweiker (WIYN and NOIRLab/NSF/AURA)

New chemistry clues from the James Webb Space Telescope are helping astronomers trace the origin of comet 3I/ATLAS. It is only the third interstellar comet ever discovered—all other comets are part of our own solar system.

So where did the comet come from, and how different was that environment from our solar system? Webb’s detailed measurements of certain types of molecules show that 3I/ATLAS came from very far away and very long ago, in a young planetary system with a different mixture of raw materials than our own: https://news.stsci.edu/3Qw7fDb

This detection was once thought to be impossible! Light from this galaxy’s young, massive, closely clustered stars blasted through the opaque, neutral gas around it, transforming it and causing the gas to clear. The kicker? This happened when the universe was only 1.4 billion years old, as a transformative period known as the Era of Reionization was ending.

This suggests that similar galaxies in the early universe were responsible for clearing the neutral fog of hydrogen gas that once filled the cosmos.

Researchers have long sought evidence to explain how the universe transitioned from foggy to transparent—and the Hubble Space Telescope has provided the first example this close to the Era of Reionization of how that might have happened within an individual galaxy.

The galaxy, cataloged MXDFz4.4, was discovered in deep imaging from Hubble: https://news.stsci.edu/4eaun3a

NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has arrived at Kennedy Space Center, kicking off final prelaunch preparations!

Roman is targeting liftoff aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A no earlier than August 30, putting the mission eight months ahead of schedule! https://go.nasa.gov/4xIVh9Q