NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope

Webb optical alignment complete and virtually perfect

9 May 2022 Astronomy Now

NASA says the James Webb Space Telescope’s optical system is now in virtually perfect alignment, setting the stage for instrument commissioning and science operations later this summer.

Listening to the music of the Milky Way

26 September 2020 Astronomy Now

Astronomers have turned the 1s and 0s making up images from three space observatories into sound, allowing them to hear the “music” of the Milky Way.

New study hints at early galaxies lighting up cosmos

9 May 2019 Astronomy Now

Deep field observations by the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes reveal many ancient galaxies shining brighter than expected, possibly providing energy to help turn the cosmos transparent.

Spitzer Space Telescope puts M87’s black hole in context

8 May 2019 Astronomy Now

NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope puts iconic black hole image in context, showing what amounts to a wide-angle view capturing jets spewing away from M87.

Spitzer images the Cat’s Paw Nebula in all its infrared glory

23 October 2018 Astronomy Now

NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope captures a spectacular view of the Cat’s Paw Nebula some 5,000 light years away, showing vast clouds of gas warmed by hot young stars creating huge reddish bubbles that may someday burst into the surrounding space.

A cosmic winter wonderland

22 December 2016 Astronomy Now

Although there are no seasons in space, this cosmic vista invokes thoughts of a frosty winter landscape. It is, in fact, a region called NGC 6357 where radiation from hot, young stars is energizing the cooler gas in the cloud that surrounds them.

Potentially habitable super-Earth K2-3d observed transiting parent star

28 November 2016 Astronomy Now

A group of researchers has observed the first ground-based transit observation of K2-3d — a potentially Earth-like extrasolar planet supposedly within the habitable zone around a bright M-dwarf host star 147 light-years away — using the multi-band imager MuSCAT on the Okayama Astrophysical Observatory’s 1.88-metre telescope.

Microlensing observations with space telescope duo reveals brown dwarf

12 November 2016 Astronomy Now

In a first-of-its-kind collaboration, NASA’s Spitzer and Swift space telescopes joined forces to observe a microlensing event, when a distant star brightens due to the gravitational field of at least one foreground cosmic object. This technique is useful for finding low-mass bodies orbiting stars, such as planets. In this case, the observations revealed a brown dwarf.

Using oxygen as a tracer of galactic evolution

7 October 2016 Astronomy Now

A new study comprised of 7,000 galaxies casts light on how young, hot stars ionise oxygen in the early universe and the effects on the evolution of galaxies through time. The study presents the first measurements of the changing strengths of oxygen emission lines from the present day and back to 12.5 billion years ago.

The Frontier Fields: where primordial galaxies lurk

29 September 2016 Astronomy Now

In the ongoing hunt for the universe’s earliest galaxies, NASA has wrapped up its observations for the Frontier Fields project. This ambitious venture has combined the power of all three of NASA’s orbital observatories — the Spitzer Space Telescope, the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory — to delve as far back in time and space as current technology can allow.