SpaceInfo

27/09/2026

A galaxy where chaos is creating new stars.

Arp 263 is an irregular galaxy with a disturbed appearance that may be the result of a galactic merger. As galaxies interact, their gas and dust can collide and compress, triggering bursts of new star formation.

Webb’s infrared vision reveals this process in remarkable detail. Red structures trace dust and complex molecules, while blue regions show hydrogen gas energized by newly formed stars.

Across the galaxy, bright clumps reveal young stars and stellar clusters forming within the disturbed gas.

Even the brightest star in the image is a trick of perspective. Its dramatic diffraction spikes come from Webb’s optics, but the star itself is actually in the foreground of our own Milky Way, not part of Arp 263.

Arp 263 gives astronomers a valuable laboratory for studying how galaxy interactions can reshape gas and drive the birth of new stars.

Image credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Leroy

Want to see more stories like this and learn directly from our space content?

Watch the replay of The Skills Rocket, our free masterclass.
Link in bio.

22/09/2026

A face-on view of another galaxy.

About 25 million light-years away, the Whirlpool Galaxy, M51, gives us a spectacular view of a spiral galaxy from above, something we can never see from inside the Milky Way.

Chandra’s X-ray observations reveal more than 400 X-ray sources across M51. Most are X-ray binaries, where a neutron star or black hole orbits another star and can produce powerful X-ray emission as it accretes matter.

Nearly one million seconds of Chandra observations helped astronomers map these systems and study how they contribute to the evolution of galaxies.

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Wesleyan Univ./R. Kilgard, et al.

Want to explore how your skills can take you into the space industry?

Join The Skills Rocket, our free masterclass on September 24th.
Link in bio.

20/09/2026

Too small to be stars. Too massive to be planets.

Hidden inside a vast star-forming nebula, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has discovered some remarkably small brown dwarfs, objects that occupy one of the strangest boundaries in astronomy.

Brown dwarfs form much like stars, collapsing from clouds of gas and dust. But they never accumulate enough mass to sustain the hydrogen fusion that powers ordinary stars. They are therefore neither fully-fledged stars nor planets.

The newly identified objects are especially unusual. With masses of only about twice that of Jupiter, they are the least massive brown dwarfs found so far. For comparison, brown dwarfs are generally expected to have between roughly 13 and 80 times Jupiter’s mass.

Their existence challenges current models of how stars and brown dwarfs form. How can the star-formation process produce objects this small?

And there is an even stranger detail. One of these extremely low-mass brown dwarfs appears to have a disk of material around it, raising the possibility that small planets could eventually form around an object that itself has only a few times Jupiter’s mass.

Webb is therefore probing a fascinating question: how small can an object created through star formation actually be?

Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Kevin Luhman (PSU), Catarina Alves de Oliveira (ESA), Mahdi Zamani (ESA/Webb)

Want to learn how people with different backgrounds can build skills for the growing space industry?

Join The Skills Rocket, our free masterclass on September 24th.
Link in bio.

16/09/2026

This galaxy has a secret pair of arms.

At first glance, NGC 4258, also known as Messier 106, looks like a fairly typical spiral galaxy. But hidden beyond its familiar spiral structure are two enormous arms made not of stars, but of hot gas.

These unusual structures are connected to the galaxy’s central supermassive black hole. As material falls toward the black hole, powerful jets of particles are launched from the central region. When those jets interact with the surrounding gas, they generate immense shockwaves that heat the material to millions of degrees.

That’s why the galaxy looks so different depending on which wavelength we observe.

In this composite image, Chandra’s X-ray data reveal the superheated gas in deep blue, while Hubble’s optical observations show the stars and spiral structure. Webb’s infrared observations trace the intricate filaments of dust winding through the galaxy.

NGC 4258 is located about 26 million light-years away in the constellation Canes Venatici.

So while its visible spiral arms are shaped by stars and gas, its “extra” arms are a direct signature of the extraordinary power of the black hole at its centre.

Credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI; Infrared: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare

Want to explore the skills needed to enter the growing space industry?

Join The Skills Rocket, our free masterclass on September 24th.
Link in bio.

13/09/2026

Seven mysterious objects hiding inside the Pinwheel Galaxy.

NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has revealed a completely unexpected population of objects emitting extremely low-energy X-rays, so faint and unusual that they could only be detected through long observations.

Astronomers have identified 84 of these objects across six galaxies, including M101, the Pinwheel Galaxy, as well as the Andromeda Galaxy and four elliptical galaxies. They have been given a fitting name: hypersoft X-ray sources.

What makes them particularly interesting is that they appear to behave differently from known classes of X-ray sources. Understanding them could help astronomers address two long-standing questions in astrophysics, making these seemingly faint objects surprisingly important.

In this composite view of M101, X-ray data from Chandra appears in purple, while Hubble’s optical observations reveal the galaxy’s spectacular spiral structure in red, green and blue.

Among the countless points of light scattered across the galaxy, seven are these mysterious hypersoft X-ray sources.

And this may be just the beginning. Studying what produces such unusually soft X-rays could reveal new information about some of the most extreme stellar systems in the Universe.

Credits: NASA

Want to learn more about the skills that can help you build a career in the space sector?

Join our free masterclass, “The Skills Rocket,” on September 24th.
Link in bio.

11/09/2026

Ffingerprints of stars being born

They may look like something from science fiction, but these striking structures captured by Hubble are actually stellar jets launched by young stars.

As a star forms inside a dense cloud of gas and dust, material falls toward it through an accretion disk. Some of that material can be redirected into narrow jets that shoot outward at enormous speeds.

When these jets slam into the surrounding interstellar material, they heat and compress the gas, producing glowing structures known as Herbig-Haro objects.

The regions HH 24 and HH 111 are particularly spectacular examples. Their jets emerge from deeply embedded young stars, piercing through clouds of dust and creating luminous structures that can extend far beyond their stellar birthplace.

These objects are more than beautiful cosmic phenomena. They provide astronomers with a direct way to study how young stars interact with their environment and how the violent processes of stellar birth shape the material around them.

Credits: NASA and ESA; Acknowledgment: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)/Hubble-Europe (ESA) Collaboration, D. Padgett (GSFC), T. Megeath (University of Toledo), and B. Reipurth (University of Hawaii)

08/09/2026

A giant bubble carved into a galaxy.

Around 160,000 light-years away, the Large Magellanic Cloud offers one of the closest laboratories we have for studying how stars reshape their surroundings.

This image shows LHA 120-N44, better known as N44, a spectacular star-forming region dominated by a huge central cavity.

That cavity is a superbubble, roughly 210 by 140 light-years across. It was created by the combined power of massive stars at the centre: their intense stellar winds continuously push surrounding gas outward, while supernova explosions add even more energy to the expanding structure.

As the central cluster cleared out its surroundings, the displaced gas accumulated into a shell around the bubble. And remarkably, that shell is not simply an empty boundary. New stars are forming within it.

N44 therefore captures a fascinating cycle of stellar evolution: massive stars are born, reshape their environment, and can trigger the formation of another generation of stars in the process.

A cosmic bubble that is also a stellar nursery.

Credits: Hubble: ESA & NASA, D. Gouliermis

06/09/2026

Isaacman held the phone to the microphone. This is what was said — and what came before it.

🎙 WHAT TRUMP SAID
"I just want to thank everybody, and congratulate you. Boy, it looked beautiful on
television."

"Jared is doing a fantastic job, you are doing a fantastic job, and I'm supplying you all
that money."

On 30 August 2026, minutes after the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telesc...

03/09/2026

This galaxy is being pulled apart by space itself.

At first glance, NGC 4654 looks like a spiral galaxy with one unusually prominent arm. But look more closely and its asymmetry tells a much more dramatic story.

One side of the galaxy is bright and packed with stars, while the opposite side appears almost stripped of them. Beyond the disk, an enormous tail of gas stretches away, extending beyond the field of view.

The reason is ram pressure.

NGC 4654 is moving rapidly through the hot, diffuse gas that fills the Virgo Cluster. As the galaxy travels through this environment, gas inside its disk experiences resistance. The leading edge becomes compressed, while gas is pushed and dragged behind the galaxy, producing the elongated tail.

This process can dramatically reshape a galaxy and, at the same time, influence where new stars can form. The blue regions visible along the spiral arm are young, hot stars, highlighting areas where star formation is still active.

What looks like an unusual spiral structure is therefore actually a snapshot of a galaxy interacting with its environment on a truly enormous scale. 🌠

📷 Credits: NASA

Want more stories about the hidden processes shaping galaxies and the Universe?
Join the free SpaceInfo Club newsletter. 🚀