Searching for Ultrafast Outflows from a Nearby Quasar

Artist's impression of the accretion disk around a supermassive black hole, with smooth (left) and clumpy (right) versions of the ultrafast outflow launched from the disk. Image credit: K. Fukumura. Download Image<

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During the past week, NuSTAR performed a simultaneous observation of PG 1114+445, a relatively nearby type-1 quasar, which is an actively accreting supermassive black hole that is oriented in a way that allows us to observe high-velocity regions close to the black hole. This observation was coordinated with XRISM to search for ultra-fast outflows (UFOs) using the Fe K iron emission feature. This is a sub-Eddington source—that is, accreting at only a small fraction of its theoretical maximum rate—and it has only elusively been suggested to exhibit UFOs from examination of past observations with XMM-Newton observing campaigns. The primary goal of this joint observation is to reveal the unknown true nature of the claimed UFOs by definitively detecting its spectral signature with high confidence and to determine whether the outflows are smooth or clumpy. NuSTAR making a robust measurement of the spectrum's high-energy continuum, including a potential reflection component, is instrumental for maximizing the value of the high resolution spectroscopy taken with XRISM in the Fe K energy band. NuSTAR data will also independently provide diagnostics of the UFO if present, regardless of whether it is clumpy or not. This program will thus deliver new insights into UFOs in the sub-Eddington accretion regime, allowing for comparison with the clumpy UFOs found in near/super-Eddington quasars in recent studies.

Last week, the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory ceased science operations as its altitude has become too low, and is expected to re-enter Earth's atmosphere in the coming weeks. The NuSTAR team is sad to lose such an important member of the X-ray fleet, and we are immensely grateful for the close collaboration between the Swift and NuSTAR teams over the years of their joint operation, and for over two decades of valuable data Swift leaves behind as a legacy. We thank the Swift team for all their hard work, and wish them the best in the mission closeout process.

Authors: Keigo Fukumura (Professor, James Madison University); Hannah Earnshaw (NuSTAR Project Scientist, Caltech)

Source: NASA's >Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR)/Weekly Highlights

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Smithsonian Scientists Create Most Detailed Simulation Yet of the Early Universe

A rendering of the cosmic web about 650 million light-years across, produced by the Lumina simulation. The fine filaments represent dark matter, and the warm orange and yellow tones highlight where gas is moving the fastest between galaxy clusters. Image Credit: Oliver Zier, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian. Oliver Zier, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & SmithsonianNew Model Gives Astronomers a Powerful Tool To Understand Discoveries From the James Webb and Nancy Roman Space Telescopes

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New Model Gives Astronomers a Powerful Tool To Understand Discoveries From the James Webb and Nancy Roman Space Telescopes

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and Nancy Roman Space Telescope are revealing the universe’s earliest chapters in extraordinary detail. To help astronomers understand what they are seeing, researchers at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard and Smithsonian have developed “Lumina,” one of the largest and most detailed simulations ever created of the early universe.

Published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, the new model recreates how ordinary matter, dark matter and radiation interacted during the universe’s first 2 billion years, giving scientists a powerful new tool to test theories about how the cosmos evolved after the Big Bang. By comparing observations from JWST, Roman and other telescopes with Lumina’s predictions, astronomers can determine whether their understanding of the laws governing the universe remains accurate or whether new discoveries may require them to rethink existing theories.

For centuries, astronomers have observed the night sky and developed increasingly sophisticated models to explain how stars, galaxies and other cosmic structures form. Today, supercomputer simulations allow researchers to transform those theories into detailed predictions. When observations match those predictions, confidence in existing theories grows. When they do not, scientists gain opportunities to uncover new insights about how the universe works.

“With JWST, the early universe has become an exciting new frontier in astrophysics,” said lead author Oliver Zier, an ITC Fellow at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard and Smithsonian. “To understand what we are seeing with this telescope, we need to translate our theories into detailed predictions. After several years of work, with plenty of ups and downs, it is incredibly rewarding to see the simulation results and watch our predictions come to life in video.”

Lumina represents the largest cosmological radiation-hydrodynamics simulation ever created. This type of simulation models how the universe’s fundamental ingredients, including gas, dark matter and light, interact to form stars and galaxies. Lumina follows the first 2 billion years of cosmic history, tracing how the earliest galaxies emerged and transformed the vast regions of gas between them.

The simulation covers more than 100 times the volume of space modeled by previous comparable simulations. It is also the first to capture helium reionization as it occurred while allowing its effects to immediately influence the evolving universe within the model. The simulation encompasses a region equivalent to a cube roughly 1.5 billion light-years on each side, comparable to the scale astronomers can observe with today’s most powerful telescopes.

“We feel incredibly fortunate to be building simulations like Lumina,” said Aaron Smith, an assistant professor of physics at the University of Texas at Dallas and an author on the paper. “For the first time, we can follow along as both hydrogen and helium changed into their modern form across such an enormous volume of the universe, while still resolving the galaxies and other luminous objects driving that transformation.”

Creating Lumina required more than 15,000 graphics processing units running on Frontier, one of the world’s fastest supercomputers, located at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. Its immense computing power allowed researchers to model an unprecedented volume of the early universe while maintaining the level of detail needed to study the formation of galaxies, stars and black holes.

The research team designed Lumina as a platform for testing new ideas about the formation and evolution of the universe. Future studies will use the simulation to investigate how gases move between galaxies, how radiation from the Big Bang shaped cosmic evolution and how regions of intense star formation developed over time.

Source: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA)/News

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Media Contact:

Ben Marcus, 202-633-5194; marcusba@si.edu

Christine Buckley, 617-599-9628; christine.buckley@sao.si.edu

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About the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard and Smithsonian

The Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian is a collaboration between Harvard and the Smithsonian designed to ask, and ultimately answer, humanity's greatest unresolved questions about the nature of the universe. The CfA is headquartered in Cambridge, MA, with research facilities across the U.S. and around the world.

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Ghostly Cat’s Head Nebula Lurks Within Sight of NASA’s Hubble, Webb

Cat's Head Nebula (Hubble WFC3 Image)

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope shows an opaque dust pillar edged by a luminous rim of gas. Surrounding blue regions include emission from ionized gas and scattered starlight. The cat’s glowing red eye may indicate a young star embedded in the dust. Credit Image: NASA, ESA, STScI; Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

Cat's Head Nebula (Webb NIRCam Image)

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s near-infrared view reveals detailed structures in the pillar and many stars, as well as some background galaxies. The glowing yellow eye may be a young star embedded in dust. Credit Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

Cat's Head Nebula (Webb MIRI Image)

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s mid-infrared view reveals intricate structures within the nebula, traced by the emission from warm dust and carbon-based molecules excited by starlight. Credit Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI))

Exploring the Cat's Head Nebula (Video)

This visualization explores imagery from NASA’s Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes of the Cat’s Head Nebula, a relatively small, dusty filament containing forming stars located within the massive Carina Nebula. Credit Producer: Gregory Bacon (STScI); Visualization: Leah Hustak (STScI), Christian Nieves (STScI), Alyssa Pagan (STScI), Joseph DePasquale (STScI); Script Writer: Frank Summers (STScI); Audio: Danielle Kirshenblat (STScI); Narration: Frank Summers (STScI); Acknowledgment: University of Minnesota, NOAO, AURA, NSF, DSS, Nathan Smith

Multiwavelength Flight into the Cat's Head Nebula (Video)

This tour glides through imagery from NASA’s Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes of the Cat’s Head Nebula. The dust filament broadly remains the same in shape across the different wavelengths of light, but each view contains different details. Credit Producer: Gregory Bacon (STScI), Frank Summers (STScI); Visualization: Leah Hustak (STScI), Christian Nieves (STScI), Alyssa Pagan (STScI), Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

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Like a spectral form rising out of a cold mist, NASA’s Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes have captured a hauntingly dynamic star-forming scene. It lies within the vast Carina Nebula, a diffuse star-forming region located about 7,500 light-years away from Earth. The small, select area both telescopes observed is nicknamed the Cat’s Head Nebula because of its resemblance to a cat sitting with its back toward the viewer. The “head” of the cat is turned to the right, revealing a glowing eye.

Though the Cat’s Head Nebula is a temporary scene that will eventually disperse as stars form and evolve over time, the region is packed with information. Hubble and Webb’s complementary views of the Cat’s Head Nebula are helping astronomers learn more about the elusive, chaotic, and complex process known as star formation.

The distinctive “cat’s head” shape of the nebula was likely sculpted over time by the intense ultraviolet radiation and winds from massive stars in the Carina Nebula. As this stellar feedback erodes the surrounding gas and dust, denser material within the feline-shaped pillar resists erosion, at least for now.

Hubble’s visible-light view reveals an opaque, dark brown pillar of dust. The cat’s glowing red eye may indicate a young star that is still partially embedded in dust. A ridge of hazy yellow seems to follow the edge of the filament’s right side. This bright rim is consistent with gas illuminated and ionized by ultraviolet radiation from nearby massive stars, potentially driving a process known as photoevaporation.

The diffuse material surrounding the pillar glows blue and cyan above, shifting to yellow, orange, and red toward the bottom. Hubble’s filters capture light emitted by oxygen, hydrogen, and sulfur, along with starlight scattered by dust. These color variations reveal a complex mix of excited gas, dust, and stellar illumination.

Piercing Through Dust’s Darkness

Webb’s near- and mid-infrared images each offer different pieces of information to help create a more well-rounded understanding of the Cat’s Head Nebula. While the nebula’s overall structure is similar to the visible-light Hubble image, the filament becomes more transparent, and its complex surface structure becomes discernable in near-infrared light seen by Webb. On the cat’s left are ghostly wisps of dust and gas, delicate structures exposed to radiation from nearby massive stars.

Webb’s near-infrared view reveals a dense scattering of stars, shown in blue and yellow. Even in infrared light, some stars are still enshrouded in dust to various degrees. The cat’s eye remains conspicuous. The telescope’s high-resolution imagery even shows faint background galaxies, offering a partial view through our Milky Way galaxy and beyond.

In mid-infrared light, emission from warm dust and carbon-based molecules excited by starlight outlines intricate structures within the nebula. Changes in local conditions and compositions lead to variations in color and brightness. Delicate globules and strands to the pillar’s left are particularly evident in this mid-infrared view.

To the right of the pillar, a bright light source is shown as yellow in the mid-infrared image. Likely an infant star embedded in dust, it lies against reddish emission from surrounding material. A narrow filament appears to cross the source, although the image alone cannot establish whether the two are physically related.

The Hubble Space Telescope has been operating for more than three decades and continues to make ground-breaking discoveries that shape our fundamental understanding of the universe. Hubble is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope and mission operations. Lockheed Martin Space also supports mission operations at Goddard. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, conducts Hubble science operations for NASA.

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).

Source: NASA's Hubble Space Telescope/News

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Details:

Last Updated: Oct 29, 2026
Editor: Andrea Gianopoulos
Location: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Contact Media:

Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov

Abigail Major, Christine Pulliam
Space Telescope Science Institute
Baltimore, Maryland

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What Lurks Within the Shadows of Betelgeuse?

Betegeuse's Haunted Atmosphere

This artist’s illustration shows the smaller, hotter companion star Siwarha creating a wake-like disruption in Betelgeuse’s outer atmosphere as it orbits directly through it. The shape of Betelgeuse itself becomes slightly oblong as a result of Siwarha's perturbations. Credit: NSF/AUI/NSF NRAO/M. Weiss

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New Radio Images Reveal Disturbances from Mysterious Companion

The well-known star Betelgeuse has a mysterious houseguest — and it’s shaking the rafters, rattling the pipes, and slamming the cupboards. (Metaphorically speaking.) It’s causing enough subtle atmospheric disturbance that it might as well be making ghost noises. Who’s to blame? New data suggests that its recently discovered companion star, Siwarha, is the one doing the haunting.

Betelgeuse, the bright red supergiant marking the shoulder of Orion, has long captivated astronomers and skywatchers alike — never more so than in late 2019 and early 2020, when it dramatically dimmed to its faintest in more than a century of record-keeping. Now, a new study using the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (NSF VLA) and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) shows that the star’s extended atmosphere has largely recovered from that episode — and the same data reveal compelling new evidence that Betelgeuse’s atmosphere is being actively perturbed by the aforementioned close-in stellar companion.

The results, led by Dr. Lynn D. Matthews, Principal Research Scientist and Assistant Director at MIT Haystack Observatory, along with colleagues from the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, the University of Manchester, and the European Southern Observatory, are based on observations at seven radio frequencies — from 22 GHz to 485 GHz — collected between 2021 and 2026. Because radio waves of different frequencies probe different depths in a star’s atmosphere, the combined NSF VLA and ALMA data let the team build a layer-by-layer picture of Betelgeuse’s atmosphere, from just above its visible surface out to several times the star’s radius.

“It was the combination of the incredible data from the NSF VLA and ALMA that gave us a convincing result here,” said Matthews. “The fact that we can use these facilities to actually resolve the disks of nearby stars is amazing.”

A Star Bouncing Back

In 2019, months before the Great Dimming (when Betelgeuse ejected a billion tons of solar material, partially blocking our view), a study led by Matthews had found that Betelgeuse’s atmosphere at radio wavelengths was unusually cool — a sign, the researchers proposed, that a shock wave triggered by convection deep in the star had disturbed the gas in its outer layers, setting the stage for the massive dust-forming outburst that followed. The new observations show that the brightness temperature of the star’s atmosphere at those same wavelengths has since climbed back to more typical levels. The star’s gas now measures around 3,500 Kelvin (comparable to Betelgeuse’s own surface temperature) near a radius of about 2.7 times the star’s own size.

The current team also confirmed a long-suspected “temperature minimum” in Betelgeuse’s atmosphere — a cool layer sandwiched between the star’s visible surface and the chromosphere above. Their highest-frequency ALMA measurements, reaching closer to the star’s surface than ever before, found gas temperatures dropping to roughly 2,200 Kelvin, over 1,000 degrees cooler than the photosphere itself. That chilly layer coincides with the so-called “MOLsphere,” a shell of molecular gas long inferred from infrared observations but rarely probed so directly at radio wavelengths.

Fingerprints of a Hidden Companion

Perhaps the most striking result concerns Betelgeuse’s recently identified companion star, Siwarha, whose existence was proposed in 2024 to explain the star’s mysterious 2,100-day brightness cycle and has since been supported by direct imaging and spectroscopic studies. Since Betelgeuse means “the hand of al-Jawza” in Arabic, the companion star was dubbed Siwarha, meaning “her bracelet.”

Siwarha is thought to orbit deep within Betelgeuse’s extended atmosphere, at a distance of only about twice the giant star’s radius. As Matthews explained, “This companion is orbiting so close to the star that it actually passes through its extended atmosphere.” Like a jet boat tearing through a lake, it’s likely leaving a wake in its path as the smaller star rips through the atmosphere. And as the new spatially resolved observations of Betelgeuse show, Siwarha’s presence is producing observable effects.

Although Siwarha itself is likely far too faint to detect directly at radio wavelengths — the team calculated it would be tens to hundreds of times too faint to see in their observations — its gravitational and physical presence appears to leave a mark on its giant host. By measuring the subtle egg-like shape (“ellipticity”) of Betelgeuse’s radio-emitting atmosphere across multiple epochs, the researchers found that the star becomes noticeably more elongated near the times when the companion is expected to be at its greatest apparent separation from Betelgeuse, and rounder when the companion is expected to be passing in front of or behind the star.

It’s a bit like watching ripples on a pond and being able to infer that something is moving just beneath the surface. Researchers can’t see the companion directly at radio wavelengths, but they can see its influence on the shape of Betelgeuse’s atmosphere as it moves along its orbit

Looking Ahead

The team notes that additional observations spanning a fuller range of the companion’s orbit — particularly at frequencies not yet well sampled — will be needed to confirm and refine these findings. Future observatories such as the Next Generation Very Large Array, currently in development, are expected to make such studies far more routine, offering an even sharper view of how red supergiant stars like Betelgeuse shed material and evolve in the final stages of their lives — and how the pull of a nearby companion might shape that process. The paper, “New Spatially Resolved Observations of Betelgeuse from the VLA and ALMA: Evidence for Atmospheric Perturbations from a Close Companion,” has been published in The Astronomical Journal.

Source: National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO)/News

Scientific Paper

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Press Contacts:

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About the NSF NRAO

The NSF National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NSF NRAO) is a facility of the U.S. National Science Foundation, operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.

About ALMA

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international astronomy facility, is a partnership of the European Southern Observatory (ESO), the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) of Japan in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. ALMA is funded by ESO on behalf of its Member States, by NSF in cooperation with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) in Taiwan and by NINS in cooperation with the Academia Sinica (AS) in Taiwan and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI).

ALMA construction and operations are led by ESO on behalf of its Member States; by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), managed by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI), on behalf of North America; and by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) on behalf of East Asia. The Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) provides the unified leadership and management of the construction, commissioning and operation of ALMA.

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Helpful Cosmic Ghost Brings Stellar Birth, Not Death

Carina Nebula (NGC 3372)
Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/N.Smith(Univ of Minnesota);
Infrared: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare

JPEG (1.3 MB) - Large JPEG (11.1 MB) - Tiff (24.3 MB) - More Images

A Tour of the Helpful Cosmic Ghost Brings Stellar Birth, Not Death - More Videos

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• A region of the Carina Nebula, which is located about 7,500 light years from Earth, contains a structure reminiscent of a ghost.


• This cosmic apparition, in fact, hosts stellar birth where a new generation of stars is thriving.


• A new image from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and James Webb Space Telescope reveals this cloud of gas and dust with young stars.


• The unusual shape may come from powerful radiation from some of the region’s massive stars outside this field of view.

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An eerie structure resembling a ghostly figure has been captured by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and James Webb Space Telescope. Unlike most of the scary associations with this topic, however, this cosmic apparition hosts stellar birth where a new generation of stars is thriving.

The phantom-like structure is part of the Carina Nebula, which is located about 7,500 light years from Earth within the Milky Way galaxy. The Carina Nebula is a vast star-forming region and contains some of the most massive stars in our Galaxy, including the famous Eta Carinae system that astronomers suspect could soon explode as a supernova.

In this latest representation of this region, X-rays detected by Chandra (pink) — that reveal young stars in the nebula — have been combined with Webb’s infrared data (red, green, and blue).

The glowing ghost is an isolated cloud of gas and dust that has a glowing hooded head and a sweeping cape-like tail. Because of their resemblance to comets, astronomers sometimes objects refer to these objects as cometary globules despite having no connection to the traveling bodies. The shape may come from the cloud being eroded by powerful radiation from some of the region’s massive stars — including Eta Carinae — that are outside the field of view in this image.

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.

Quick Look: Helpful Cosmic Ghost Brings Stellar Birth, Not Death

Source: NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory

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Visual Description:

A composite image of a small portion of the Carina Nebula reveals a striking golden-orange cloud of gas and dust that loosely resembles a ghostly figure. Its glowing hooded head and a sweeping cape-like tail stretch through a star-filled background of rich blues, reds, and greens. Brilliant blue-white stars sparkle in the scene, while bright pink dots of X-ray light reveal young stars scattered across this eerie stellar nursery.

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Fast Facts for Carina Nebula "Ghost":

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/N.Smith(Univ of Minnesota); Infrared: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. F/rattare

Release Date: October 28, 2026
Scale: Image is about 4.3 arcmin (9.4 light-years) across.
Category:    Normal Stars & Star Clusters
Coordinates (J2000): RA 10h 45m 53.1s | Dec -59° 57´ 45.9"
Constellation: Carina
Observation Dates: August 28, 2008
Observation Time: 16 hours 30 minutes
Obs. ID: 9483
Instrument: ACIS
Color Code: X-ray: magenta; Optical: red, green, and blue; Infrared: red, green, and blue
Distance Estimate: About 7,500 light-years from Earth

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NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory Reveals Its First Dwarf Planet Candidate in Our Solar System

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2026 ED138 orbital arc (with annotations)

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2026 ED138 orbit in 3D

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2026 ED138 orbit in 3D (with dwarf planets)

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2026 ED138 orbital arc (without annotations)

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2026 ED138 orbital pathway during May 2026

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Mosaic of 2026 ED138 discovery images

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Top-down view of 2026 ED138 orbit

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Top-down view of 2026 ED138 orbit (with dwarf planets)

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Videos


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2026 ED138 orbital arc


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2026 ED138 3D orbit


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2026 ED138 3D orbit (with dwarf planets)


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2026 ED138 3D orbit (portrait)


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2026 ED138 3D orbit (portrait, with dwarf planets)


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Zooming into 2026 ED138

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The candidate orbits our Sun beyond Pluto, and may be among the largest and brightest objects discovered in this region of the Solar System

In the outer reaches of our Solar System, beyond the orbit of Pluto, NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory has spotted 2026 ED138 — a large, bright trans-Neptunian object that scientists have identified as a dwarf planet candidate. The observations were announced today by the International Astronomical Union Minor Planet Center (MPC). If confirmed, ED138 would be among the largest dwarf planets ever discovered in this region of the Solar System.

With observations taken during the run up to the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory has discovered a new dwarf planet candidate in our Solar System. The candidate, which has been given the provisional designation 2026 ED138 (ED138), was found by Rubin Operations team member and in-Kind contributor Matthew Holman (Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian [CfA]). He contributes to improving Rubin's algorithms that search for distant moving objects in our Solar System. The candidate’s distance from the Sun places it beyond the orbit of dwarf planet Pluto. Initial analysis indicates that it may be among the largest and brightest bodies scientists have discovered in this region of the Solar System.

Rubin Observatory is jointly funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science.

“Rubin Observatory's super power is the ability to clearly capture movement and change among a vast number of objects and phenomena that humans have never seen before,” says Edward Ajhar, NSF Program Director for Rubin Observatory. “That power greatly extends our ability to reveal and understand new things about our Solar System, the Milky Way, and billions of other galaxies across the Universe.”

“Rubin Observatory’s unique strengths make it an incredible tool for investigating a wide range of astrophysical phenomena, from dark energy to the discovery of this dwarf planet candidate,” says Kathy Turner, DOE’s Program Manager for Rubin Observatory.

Today, MPC announced the discovery in a Minor Planet Electronic Circular. Mario Jurić, faculty at the University of Washington and Rubin Solar System Lead Scientist, and Holman presented the results at a press conference at the 58th Annual Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS) meeting in Spokane, Washington.

On the evening of 13 October, Holman was running data collected by Rubin earlier in 2026 through a search code he developed with CfA colleague Kevin Napier. The code is built to look at billions of detections of moving objects, compare them, and find the detections that correspond to the same object. Using this method, Holman uncovered ED138, and he immediately noticed that its brightness and distance indicated that it is unusually large.

“My first reaction was one of excited disbelief,” says Holman. “Objects like this are very rare, so I immediately started checking whether I or the code had done something wrong.”

To remove any doubt, a detailed search through the data began in the hopes of uncovering more observations of ED138. Jurić searched Rubin’s catalogs and images and found 20 more observations, going back to 4 March 2026. In all, Rubin observed ED138 30 times on 20 nights between 4 March and 11 July. Additional archival images from the DOE-fabricated Dark Energy Camera (DECam), and uncovered by the Asteroid Institute’s ADAM Precovery service, provided data going all the way back to 2016. These data allowed the team to trace more than 10 years of ED138's orbit. DECam is mounted on the NSF Victor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), a Program of NSF NOIRLab.

ED138 is currently at a distance of about 46 astronomical units (au), where 1 au is the average distance between the Earth and the Sun. For reference, dwarf planet Pluto has an average distance of 40 au. This classifies ED138 as a trans-Neptunian object (TNO) — objects that orbit the Sun at a distance greater than Neptune’s.

A model of the Solar System showing the orbital pathway of newly discovered dwarf planet candidate 2026 ED138 (ED138). ED138 was discovered in observational data from NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory spanning 4 March–11 July 2026. The rendering starts on 8 May 2026. Visit Orbitviewer to interact with ED138’s orbit in 3D and in real-time. Credit: NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory/NOIRLab/SLAC/AURA/R. Proctor.

Scientists study the size, composition, and orbital trajectories of TNOs to understand how the Solar System formed, how the giant planets migrated over time, and how smaller objects have been scattered throughout this evolution. ED138’s orbit is tilted almost 25 degrees off of the plane of the Solar System, classifying it as a hot-classical TNO and suggesting that it was disturbed from its original orbit through gravitational interactions with Neptune.

Not all TNOs are considered dwarf planet candidates, with the distinction being in the size and shape of the object. To be a dwarf planet an object needs to be massive enough for its own gravity to pull it into a round shape. Based on ED138’s distance, brightness and estimated surface reflectivity (albedo), the team estimates that its size is between 600 and 1500 kilometers, and icy bodies this large are expected to be round.

This preliminary analysis places ED138 among the largest dwarf planet candidates ever discovered beyond Neptune, though observations in the infrared are needed to constrain its exact size and confirm its nature as a dwarf planet. If confirmed, ED138 would join the five dwarf planets recognized by the International Astronomical Union (IAU): Pluto, Ceres, Eris, Haumea, and Makemake.

ED138 was found in a region of sky close to the plane of the Milky Way — a crowded region filled with millions of stars. To most telescopes, ED138 has been lost among the myriad background sources, which is likely why it was not discovered until now. Rubin Observatory’s regular and continuous monitoring of the entire Southern Hemisphere sky, combined with powerful algorithms that sift through millions to billions of points of light to identify those corresponding to small moving objects, enabled the team to spot ED138 within the crowded field.

“Rubin is giving us an unprecedented capacity to explore the sky through a combination of speed, depth, and precision,” says Jurić. “And the discovery is just the beginning: once we identify a new object, we can search back months, and sometimes even decades, finding it in images where nobody knew to look. This ability to both discover and ‘precover’ objects is transforming how quickly and accurately we can determine their orbits and understand the distant Solar System.”

ED138 joins the rapidly growing sample of Solar System objects discovered by Rubin since it began collecting early data in preparation for the LSST, which began in June 2026. In April, before LSST formally began, the Rubin Solar System team submitted observations of over 11,000 new asteroids to the IAU Minor Planet Center (MPC), which included roughly 380 new TNOs. At the time, the team called this large submission “the tip of the iceberg” and expressed their excitement for the discoveries to come once LSST began. With the discovery of ED138, those hopes are coming to fruition.

“If confirmed as a dwarf planet, ED138 would join a very small family of worlds,” says Holman. “Rubin will image the whole southern sky again and again for ten years, so any others hiding in the places earlier surveys skipped are now within reach.”

Now that Rubin has identified ED138, scientists around the globe can organize follow-up observations to uncover even more information about its nature. Images of ED138 are made available to Rubin data rights holders on the Rubin Science Platform, an online, web-based environment where scientists can access, explore, and process the massive amounts of data being produced by the LSST. The public can also interact with this discovery on Orbitviewer, an interactive web-based app that provides an intuitive way to explore the structure of our cosmic backyard in three dimensions and in real time.

Source: NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory (NOIRLab)/News

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More information

The Rubin Solar System Operations team is composed of Mario Jurić, Aren Heinze, Jacob A. Kurlander, Matthew J. Holman, Kevin J. Napier, Ian Sullivan, Eric C. Bellm, Megan E. Schwamb; Joachim Moeyens, Ian Chow, Pedro H. Bernardinelli, Colin Orion Chandler, Sarah Greenstreet, Samuel Cornwall, Siegfried Eggl, Chester Li, Eric J. Christensen, Erfan Nourbakhsh, James E. Robinson, Devanshi Singh, and Danica Zilkova.

NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory, funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science, is a groundbreaking new astronomy and astrophysics observatory on Cerro Pachón in Chile. It is named after astronomer Vera Rubin, who provided the first convincing evidence for the existence of dark matter. Using the largest camera ever built, Rubin is repeatedly scanning the sky for 10 years to create an ultra-wide, ultra-high-definition, time-lapse record of our Universe.

NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory is a joint initiative of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science (DOE/SC). Its primary mission is to carry out the Legacy Survey of Space and Time, providing an unprecedented data set for scientific research supported by both agencies. Rubin is operated jointly by NSF NOIRLab and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. NSF NOIRLab is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) and SLAC is operated by Stanford University for the DOE. France provides key support to the construction and operations of Rubin Observatory through contributions from CNRS/IN2P3. Rubin Observatory is privileged to conduct research in Chile and gratefully acknowledges additional contributions from more than 40 international organizations and teams.

The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1950 to promote the progress of science. NSF supports basic research and people to create knowledge that transforms the future.

The DOE’s Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time.

NSF NOIRLab, the U.S. National Science Foundation center for ground-based optical-infrared astronomy, operates the International Gemini Observatory (a facility of NSF, NRC–Canada, ANID–Chile, MCTIC–Brazil, MINCyT–Argentina, and KASI–Republic of Korea), NSF Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), NSF Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), the Community Science and Data Center (CSDC), and NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory (in cooperation with DOE’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory). It is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with NSF and is headquartered in Tucson, Arizona.

The scientific community is honored to have the opportunity to conduct astronomical research on I’oligam Du’ag (Kitt Peak) in Arizona, on Maunakea in Hawai‘i, and on Cerro Tololo and Cerro Pachón in Chile. We recognize and acknowledge the very significant cultural role and reverence of I’oligam Du’ag to the Tohono O’odham Nation, and Maunakea to the Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians) community.

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory explores how the universe works at the biggest, smallest, and fastest scales and invents powerful tools used by researchers around the globe. As world leaders in ultrafast science and bold explorers of the physics of the universe, we forge new ground in understanding our origins and building a healthier and more sustainable future. Our discovery and innovation help develop new materials and chemical processes and open unprecedented views of the cosmos and life’s most delicate machinery. Building on more than 60 years of visionary research, we help shape the future by advancing areas such as quantum technology, scientific computing, and the development of next-generation accelerators. SLAC is operated by Stanford University for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.

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Links

• Press release on rubinobservatory.org
• Vera C. Rubin Observatory website
• Vera C. Rubin Observatory image gallery
• More Rubin images
• More Rubin videos
• Check out other NOIRLab Science Releases
• For journalists: subscribe to receive our releases under embargo
• For scientists: got a story? Pitch your research

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Contacts:

Mario Jurić
Rubin Solar System Lead Scientist
University of Washington
Email: mjuric@uw.edu

Matt Holman
Senior Astrophysicist
Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian
Email: mholman@cfa.harvard.edu

Josie Fenske
Public Information Officer
NSF NOIRLab
Email: josie.fenske@noirlab.edu

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Dead star and planetary bodies: astronomers spot unique disc of debris that foretells Solar System’s future

PR Image eso2613a
Artist’s impression of the debris disc around the white dwarf J1328−1450

PR Image eso2613b
Alternative artist’s impression of the debris disc around the white dwarf J1328−1450

PR Image eso2613c
Region in the sky around the white dwarf J1328−1450

PR Image eso2613d
Detecting two rings of debris around the white dwarf J1328−1450

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Videos


PR Video eso2613a
Astronomers find unique disc of debris around dead star | ESO News


PR Video eso2613b
Animation of a debris disc around the white dwarf J1328−1450


PR Video eso2613c
Detecting two rings of debris around the white dwarf J1328−1450

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Astronomers using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) have found a rare disc of debris around a dead star that provides a glimpse of what may happen to our Solar System. Unlike in similar systems previously found, the debris — the leftovers of planets that once orbited the star — is organised in a double disc, the two parts separated by a clear gap. The disc appears to be shaped by two planetary bodies, one possibly as big as Pluto, that have survived the violent death of the star.

“We have known for some time that planets may survive beyond the transformation of their central star, but this is the first example of a complex system with a double debris disc and potentially two surviving planetesimals,” says Nicola Gentille Fusillo, astronomer at the Università degli Studi di Trieste, Italy, and lead author of the study published this week in Nature Astronomy. The central star of this system is the white dwarf J1328−1450, the dense and burnt-out core left behind when a star similar to our Sun ran out of fuel.

As stars like the Sun enter the final stages of their life, they expand and shed their outer layers, engulfing and destroying nearby planets. The surviving rocky bodies can break apart forming a disc around the central, dead star. However, the disc around J1328−1450 is different from those observed around other dead stars: instead of having only one ring of vaporised planetary rubble, the star is surrounded by two concentric debris rings.

“The structure we see in this system is particularly intriguing because the two gaseous rings are remarkably stable and remain separated by a gap,” says co-author Felipe Lagos-Vilches, an astronomer at the University of Warwick, UK and at the Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María in Chile. “The system is a rare glimpse of the violent, chaotic process by which a planetary system meets its end, and it hints that dead stars can have disc structures far more complex than previously realised,” adds Gentile Fusillo, who is also affiliated with the INAF-Astronomical Observatory of Trieste.

According to the team, this complex double structure is likely maintained by two surviving planet-like bodies, on separate orbits. They estimate that the one in the inner ring is the size of a typical asteroid, a few kilometres in diameter, while the outer one could be as large as Pluto, or even our Moon.

All known debris discs around white dwarfs have been identified by the same observational signature, which indicates the presence of a single, flat, rotating disc. But the new observations, made with the X-Shooter instrument on ESO’s VLT in Chile’s Atacama Desert, show that the J1328−1450 system breaks this pattern completely, revealing instead the unique fingerprint of a double disc.

The observations also reveal that elements such as calcium, oxygen, magnesium and iron are present in the disc, indicating a composition similar to that of rocky planetary material found in our own Solar System. Moreover, the data indicate that the two rings in the disc in fact have rather different compositions, with the inner ring rich in magnesium gas and the outer largely stripped of it. This suggests that the planetesimals that feed the rings originated from two planets with different compositions. An alternative explanation is that they are the result of different parts of a celestial body, like the crust and core of a planet.

Our Solar System could meet a similar end, as our Sun will, in a far future, become a white dwarf in a process that may destroy Earth. “The system therefore offers a remarkable glimpse of what the future of planetary systems, including systems like our own, might look like,” concludes Lagos-Vilches.

Source: ESO/News

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More information

This research was presented in a paper published in Nature Astronomy (doi: 10.1038/s41550-026-03004-3).

The team is composed of Nicola Pietro Gentile Fusillo (Dipartimento di Fisica, Universita‘ di Trieste and INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste, Italy), Felipe Lagos-Vilches (Department of Physics, University of Warwick, UK and Departamento de Física, Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, Chile), Boris T. Gänsicke (Department of Physics and Centre for Exoplanets and Habitability, University of Warwick, UK), Christopher J. Manser (Department of Physics, Astrophysics Group, Imperial College London, UK), Detlev Koester (Institut für Theoretische Physik und Astrophysik, University of Kiel, Germany).

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) enables scientists worldwide to discover the secrets of the Universe for the benefit of all. We design, build and operate world-class observatories on the ground — which astronomers use to tackle exciting questions and spread the fascination of astronomy — and promote international collaboration for astronomy. Established as an intergovernmental organisation in 1962, today ESO is supported by 16 Member States (Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom), along with the host state of Chile and with Australia as a Strategic Partner. ESO’s headquarters and its visitor centre and planetarium, the ESO Supernova, are located close to Munich in Germany, while the Chilean Atacama Desert, a marvellous place with unique conditions to observe the sky, hosts our telescopes. ESO operates three observing sites: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope and its Very Large Telescope Interferometer, as well as survey telescopes such as VISTA. Also at Paranal, ESO will host and operate the south array of the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory, the world’s largest and most sensitive gamma-ray observatory. Together with international partners, ESO operates ALMA on Chajnantor, a facility that observes the skies in the millimetre and submillimetre range. At Cerro Armazones, near Paranal, we are building “the world’s biggest eye on the sky” — ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope. From our offices in Santiago, Chile we support our operations in the country and engage with Chilean partners and society.

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Links

• Research paper
• Photos of the VLT
• For journalists: subscribe to receive our releases under embargo in your language
• For scientists: got a story? Pitch your research

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Contacts

Nicola Pietro Gentile Fusillo
University of Trieste and INAF-Astronomical Observatory of Trieste
Trieste, Italy
Tel: +39 403199156
Email: nicola.gentilefusillo@gmail.com, nicolapietro.gentilefusillo@units.it

Felipe Esteban Lagos Vilches
Universidad Técnica Federico Santamaria
Valparaiso, Chile
Email: felipe.lagos.vilches@gmail.com

Bárbara Ferreira
ESO Media Manager
Garching bei München, Germany
Tel: +49 89 3200 6670
Cell: +49 151 241 664 00
Email: press@eso.org

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Euclid discovers new comet

Comet C/2026 S1 (Euclid) observations in context

A black-and-white Euclid image shows a sky field filled with bright points and faint fuzzy light sources on a dark background. A boxed region is enlarged in an inset, where comet C/2026 S1 (Euclid) is marked by an arrow. The comet appears as a bright elongated streak surrounded by a diffuse cloud of light. Lines connect the inset to the comet’s location in the wider image. Credit: ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, M. Pöntinen et al. 2026

Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO or ESA Standard Licence - (content can be used under either licence)

A composite of eight Euclid VIS exposures of Comet C/2026 S1 (Euclid)

A black-and-white close-up view of comet C/2026 S1 (Euclid). The comet appears as a bright central core surrounded by a large, diffuse cloud of dust that gradually fades into the dark background. Faint points of light are scattered across the image. The view focuses on the comet’s glowing coma, which fills much of the frame.Credit: ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, M. Pöntinen et al. 2026

Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO or ESA Standard Licence - (content can be used under either licence)

Comet C/2026 S1 (Euclid) streaks across the sky (annotated)

A black-and-white telescopic view of deep space shows a faint comet, labelled “C/2026 S1 (Euclid),” moving slowly against a background of stars. An arrow points to the comet’s bright central core and short tail. A timestamp updates as the animation progresses, highlighting the comet’s motion over time. Orientation markers and a scale bar provide celestial directions and distance. Credit: ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, M. Pöntinen et al. 2026

Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO or ESA Standard Licence - (content can be used under either licence)

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The European Space Agency’s Euclid space telescope has discovered its first previously unknown comet, in images taken between 16 and 24 September 2026.

The discovery [1] is impressive for a mission that is designed to take deep, steady images of distant galaxies – not for following fast-moving Solar System objects like comets [2]. Furthermore, the quick turnaround between identifying and validation proves the case that Euclid can detect new comets while they are still relatively far from the Sun, potentially leading to a suitable target for ESA’s future Comet Interceptor mission.

Mikko Pöntinen of the University of Helsinki [3], together with the Solar System Objects Science Working Group of the Euclid Consortium, made the initial discovery using moving object detection software that Mikko developed to monitor small Solar System objects in Euclid’s images: “I was excited to see my software flag a ‘streak’ smeared across several images – the result of a fast-moving object. By predicting its position I could identify it in other images, in total finding it in five image sets [4]. Further inspection revealed that it had a fuzzy cloud around it, indicative of an active object like a comet that is shedding dust and gas.”

Checks against catalogues of known comets and asteroids found no match, so Mikko reported the observations to the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center (MPC) as a new comet [5]. This alerted ground-based astronomers who could then contribute follow-up observations. The MPC subsequently confirmed it as a comet on 8 October, and it is now identified as C/2026 S1 (Euclid).

The comet is located approximately 1.3 billion kilometres away from Earth, equivalent to the distance from the Sun to roughly between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn. However, it does not lie in the same horizontal plane as the planets, but is currently ‘straight up’ from the Sun’s perspective, arching over the Solar System on an orbit that will take thousands of years to complete.

Euclid deliberately avoids the asteroid- and comet-rich band of sky along the Solar System’s plane to reduce unwanted glare from dust that would hinder sensitive deep-sky imaging, making the discovery of new Solar System objects particularly challenging. In addition, the telescope’s ‘step-and-stare’ imaging strategy typically only visits each section of the sky once, so a comet cannot simply be revisited on demand to confirm its characteristics.

Nonetheless, tracking Solar System objects is important in order to correctly identify all objects in the field of view, and to remove any ‘noise’ – like moving comet trails or extra light – from Euclid’s images that is not relevant to its primary mission of precision galaxy mapping [6].

“Very few comets are expected to be discovered by Euclid so it was a happy coincidence that the combination of the comet’s orbit and Euclid’s scanning over those days captured the object in multiple images,” says Bruno Altieri, Euclid Archive Scientist, and part of the discovery team. “While this particular comet is not a suitable candidate for Comet Interceptor, the process of discovery and alert gives us a real test case for how our two mission teams will coordinate in the future. And we are of course happy to have discovered a previously unknown comet for the Solar System community to follow-up on,” adds Valeria Pettorino, Euclid Project Scientist.

Source: ESA / Science & Exploration

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Background information

[1] Euclid has previously detected comets, but they were already known. C/2026 S1 (Euclid) is the first new comet that Euclid has discovered.

[2] Comets are icy, dusty leftovers from the birth of the Solar System about 4.6 billion years ago, mostly originating in the distant Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud, beyond the orbits of the outer Solar System planets (interstellar comets come from other solar systems). When a comet swings close to the Sun, its ice turns to gas, creating a glowing fuzzy ‘coma’ and long tail. Because comets originating in our Solar System have changed very little since they formed, studying them helps scientists understand the raw ingredients and conditions that shaped the planets, including clues about where Earth’s water and the building blocks of life may have come from.

[3] Mikko Pöntinen is a PhD student at the University of Helsinki. The discovery was reported on behalf of the Solar System Objects Science Working Group of the Euclid Consortium: M. Pöntinen, A. A. Nucita, A. Franco, M. Granvik, B. Altieri, S. Kruk, B. Y. Irureta-Goyena and B. Carry.

[4] The comet was discovered in the ‘Euclid Deep Field North’. It was captured in five different fields of view over several days, with between two and four exposures per view, yielding a total of 16 exposures.

[5] The International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center (MPC) acts as the global clearing house for comet and asteroid observations, collecting reports from observers worldwide and using them to confirm new discoveries, calculate orbits, and assign official designations. The orbital period of C/2026 S1 (Euclid) will be refined once more data has been collected.

[6] The goal of the Euclid mission is to reveal the hidden influence of dark matter and dark energy on the visible Universe. Over a period of six years, Euclid will observe the shapes and motions of billions of galaxies out to 10 billion light-years.

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About Euclid

Euclid is a European mission, built and operated by ESA, with contributions from its Member States and NASA. The Euclid Consortium – consisting of more than 2000 scientists from 300 institutes in 15 European countries, the USA, Canada and Japan – is responsible for providing the scientific instruments and scientific data analysis. ESA selected Thales Alenia Space as prime contractor for the construction of the satellite and its service module, with Airbus Defence and Space chosen to develop the payload module, including the telescope. NASA provided the detectors of the Near-Infrared Spectrometer and Photometer, NISP. Euclid is a medium-class mission in ESA’s Cosmic Vision Programme.

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For more information, please contact:

ESA Media Relations
media@esa.int

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Seagull Nebula Through the Eyes of NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory Commissioning Camera

PR Image noirlab2625a
Seagull Nebula captured by NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory ComCam

PR Image noirlab2625b
Scale Comparison of Seagull Nebula to Trifid-Lagoon

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Videos


PR Video noirlab2625a
Pan on the Seagull Nebula


PR Video noirlab2625b
Zooming into the Seagull Nebula


PR Video noirlab2625c
Stepping into the Seagull Nebula

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Before Rubin Observatory’s First Look event, its engineering camera captured exquisite details of star formation taking place in the Seagull Nebula

Two years ago this month, NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s engineering test camera, named the LSST Commissioning Camera (ComCam), began capturing images of the sky to prepare for the revolutionary Legacy Survey of Space and Time, which began earlier this year. This image featuring the head of the Seagull Nebula was one of many ComCam images that led to the success of Rubin First Look and helped to document the observatory’s excellent performance.

Active star formation populates this image of the Seagull Nebula taken in Fall 2024 by NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s engineering test camera, known as the Commissioning Camera (ComCam). This image is being released today in recognition of the two-year anniversary of the beginning of engineering testing with ComCam.

ComCam’s work was an important step towards the ongoing Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). Collecting the data for this Seagull Nebula image provided an opportunity to test Rubin’s hardware and software systems, as well as the image processing pipelines that would later be used with the much larger images from the LSST Camera.

With a mosaic of nine CCD sensors and a total of 144 megapixels, ComCam covers an area in the sky about twice that of the full Moon. Over the seven-week ComCam engineering test campaign, from 24 October to 11 December 2024, approximately 16,000 exposures were acquired. Within the data collected is this image featuring IC 2177, a region recognizable as the head of the Seagull Nebula.

Rubin Observatory is a joint initiative of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science (DOE/SC). Rubin is operated jointly by NSF NOIRLab and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.

Located about 3700 light-years away from Earth, between the constellations of Monoceros (The Unicorn) and Canis Major (The Great Dog), lie three expansive clouds of gas. These clouds, Sharpless 2-292, Sharpless 2-296, and Sharpless 2-297, form a shape that looks like a seagull in flight. Sharpless 2-292 represents the head of the nebulous bird and is pictured here.

The spectacular pink and blue colors of this nebula are caused by the rich star formation within it. When stars are born in molecular clouds, they emit ultraviolet radiation hot enough to ionize, or energize, the surrounding hydrogen gas and cause it to glow. The pressure of this radiation sweeps away light-obscuring material, such as dust, and makes the glowing hydrogen gas visible. In this image these regions appear pink. The contrasting blue haze is composed of dust particles reflecting the light of the other young stars in the area.

Sharpless 2-292 is a cloud of ionized hydrogen gas, known as an H II region, within IC 2177. The source of Sharpless 2-292 is HD 53367, a triple star system of massive young stars that sits at the top of the dark, jagged ridge in this image where it represents the Seagull’s blue eye.

With just 144 megapixels, ComCam is much smaller than the 3200-megapixel LSST Camera, which is now mounted on the Simonyi Survey Telescope and executing the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). LSSTCam’s field of view is 21 times larger than ComCam’s, which enables it to capture images of the entire southern hemisphere sky every 3–4 nights. Until LSST collects more data, this image is the deepest and sharpest view of this region.

This ComCam image of the Seagull Nebula gave Rubin’s image processing team early experience working with the complex structures found in star-forming regions. That experience helped the team identify and solve processing challenges that would also arise with the much larger LSST Camera images, including the Trifid and Lagoon Nebulae, one of the Rubin First Look images released in June 2025.

With its job on the telescope completed, ComCam now serves as a test stand in the summit clean room, supporting LSST Camera software testing and the regular cycling of spare vacuum pumps and refrigeration compressors to keep them in good working order. Although ComCam is no longer taking images of the sky, it continues to play an important role in supporting Rubin behind the scenes as the Legacy Survey of Space and Time gets underway.

Source: NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory (NOIRLab)/News

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More information

NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory, funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science, is a groundbreaking new astronomy and astrophysics observatory on Cerro Pachón in Chile. It is named after astronomer Vera Rubin, who provided the first convincing evidence for the existence of dark matter. Using the largest camera ever built, Rubin is repeatedly scanning the sky for 10 years to create an ultra-wide, ultra-high-definition, time-lapse record of our Universe.

NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory is a joint initiative of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science (DOE/SC). Its primary mission is to carry out the Legacy Survey of Space and Time, providing an unprecedented data set for scientific research supported by both agencies. Rubin is operated jointly by NSF NOIRLab and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. NSF NOIRLab is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) and SLAC is operated by Stanford University for the DOE. France provides key support to the construction and operations of Rubin Observatory through contributions from CNRS/IN2P3. Rubin Observatory is privileged to conduct research in Chile and gratefully acknowledges additional contributions from more than 40 international organizations and teams.

The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1950 to promote the progress of science. NSF supports basic research and people to create knowledge that transforms the future.

The DOE’s Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time.

NSF NOIRLab, the U.S. National Science Foundation center for ground-based optical-infrared astronomy, operates the International Gemini Observatory (a facility of NSF, NRC–Canada, ANID–Chile, MCTIC–Brazil, MINCyT–Argentina, and KASI–Republic of Korea), NSF Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), NSF Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), the Community Science and Data Center (CSDC), and NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory (in cooperation with DOE’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory). It is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with NSF and is headquartered in Tucson, Arizona.

The scientific community is honored to have the opportunity to conduct astronomical research on I’oligam Du’ag (Kitt Peak) in Arizona, on Maunakea in Hawai‘i, and on Cerro Tololo and Cerro Pachón in Chile. We recognize and acknowledge the very significant cultural role and reverence of I’oligam Du’ag to the Tohono O’odham Nation, and Maunakea to the Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians) community.

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory explores how the universe works at the biggest, smallest, and fastest scales and invents powerful tools used by researchers around the globe. As world leaders in ultrafast science and bold explorers of the physics of the universe, we forge new ground in understanding our origins and building a healthier and more sustainable future. Our discovery and innovation help develop new materials and chemical processes and open unprecedented views of the cosmos and life’s most delicate machinery. Building on more than 60 years of visionary research, we help shape the future by advancing areas such as quantum technology, scientific computing, and the development of next-generation accelerators. SLAC is operated by Stanford University for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.

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Links

• Explore the Seagull Nebula in more detail


• Press release on rubinobservatory.org


• Vera C. Rubin Observatory website


• Vera C. Rubin Observatory image gallery


• More Rubin images


• More Rubin videos


• Check out other NOIRLab Photo Releases

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Contacts:

Josie Fenske
Public Information Officer
NSF NOIRLab
Email: josie.fenske@noirlab.edu

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