Students in Hawai‘i Name Mesmerizing Image Ua ʻŌhiʻa Lani for the International Gemini Observatory’s 25th Anniversary

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Ua ʻŌhiʻa Lani: An Image to Celebrate Gemini North’s 25th Anniversary

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Project Hōkūlani Gemini Interns

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Project Hōkūlani Gemini Interns visit Hilo Base Facility

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Project Hōkūlani Gemini Intern Zoe Russo

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Smoke and Mirrors

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Videos


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Pan across Ua ʻŌhiʻa Lani


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Zooming into Ua ʻŌhiʻa Lani


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Cosmoview Ep. 103: Ua ʻŌhiʻa Lani: An Emission Nebula to Celebrate Gemini North’s 25th Anniversary


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Cosmoview Ep. 103: Ua ʻŌhiʻa Lani: Una nebulosa de emisión paar celebrar el aniversario 25 de Gemini Norte

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Gaseous pillars and a sparkling star cluster, reminiscent of rain in ʻŌhiʻa forests, feature in this new image from the Gemini North telescope

To celebrate 25 years since the completion of the International Gemini Observatory, students in Hawai‘i voted for the Gemini North telescope to image NGC 6820 — a striking emission nebula and open star cluster. The image was named Ua ʻŌhiʻa Lani, which means the Heavenly ʻŌhiʻa Rains. The International Gemini Observatory is partly funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and operated by NSF NOIRLab.

In July 2025, four Hawaiʻi Island high school students participated in a summer internship during which they researched, selected, and named the image released today to celebrate the International Gemini Observatory’s 25th anniversary. Inspired by a traditional Hawaiian story, they chose the name Ua ʻŌhiʻa Lani, which means the Heavenly ʻŌhiʻa Rains. The image features the emission nebula NGC 6820, as well as its embedded open star cluster NGC 6823, captured in incredible detail by the Gemini North telescope on Maunakea. The Gemini North telescope celebrated First Light in June 1999, and the Observatory was completed 25 years ago when its Southern Hemisphere twin, the Gemini South telescope, saw First Light in November 2000.

“This image is crimson and red like lava because of the abundance of hydrogen gas present in the nebula,” explains Gemini intern Hope Arthur. “One of Pele’s most well-known stories is that of ʻŌhiʻa and Lehua. Their story is about regrowth after tragedy and the act of new beginnings, which we felt was evocative of the cycle of stellar life, death, and rebirth.”

The selection of this target for Gemini North’s anniversary image began with the Gemini First Light Anniversary Image Contest. This contest engaged students in Hawai‘i and Chile — the host locations of the Gemini telescopes — to choose which type of astronomical object each telescope should image. Before voting, students took part in educational activities that taught them about different astronomical phenomena.

The top contenders from the contest were then narrowed down by four students from Kamehameha Schools in Keaʻau and Parker School in Waimea who were participating in Gemini’s first-ever Project Hōkūlani summer internship, in partnership with CLD TEAMS at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Interns Hope Arthur, Iolani Sanches, Zoe Russo, and Isabella Branco researched the top four contenders and presented their findings before reaching a group consensus on which astronomical object to image.

“It was so important to me that our interns gained a solid understanding of not just the astronomical science that takes place on Maunakea, but also the cultural and environmental significance of the mauna,” said Leinani Lozi, Hawaiʻi Education and Engagement Manager at Gemini North and internship mentor. “The depth of their learning is evident in the name they created, and I’m so impressed and proud of them.”

In addition to the research and presentation portions of their internship, the students also engaged in telescope operations, the astronomical imaging process, visits to the summit of Maunakea, Native Hawaiian protocol for entering wahi pana (sacred spaces), and stargazing at the Visitor Information Station and Liliʻuokalani Gardens. These experiences introduced the students to the variety of career options at observatories.

Russo had this to share about her experience: “I realized that we have so many science opportunities here, thanks to where we live. Project Hōkūlani has allowed us to dive deeper into our interests and make amazing connections. It's a great way to become established in a field or try something new for a little bit.”

The emission nebula NGC 6820 is located within the faint constellation Vulpecula, around 6000 light-years away from Earth. Vulpecula can be seen in the middle of the Summer Triangle: a famous asterism consisting of the bright stars Deneb, Vega, and Altair. In Hawaiʻi, this area of the sky is known as Mānaiakalani, the Great Fishhook of Maui.

Emission nebulae are clouds of interstellar gas and dust that glow from being energized by ultraviolet radiation emitted by nearby stars. The stars fueling NGC 6820’s emission are those of the open star cluster NGC 6823, seen in this image as scattered specks of blue-white light dotting the veil of red gas. The intense radiation emitted by these hot, massive stars is blowing away the gas in the nebula, creating the dark, pillar-like structures seen emerging from the interstellar medium.

“The baby blue stars in the image reminded us of rain and how, in the story of ʻŌhiʻa and Lehua, when you pick the lehua blossoms, it rains. The fact that these are all young stars and that we learned this story when we were children felt important,” says Sanches.

This image was taken as part of the NOIRLab Legacy Imaging Program — a continuation of the program started at the International Gemini Observatory in 2002, called the Gemini Legacy Imaging Program. Its aim is to use observing time on NOIRLab telescopes that is dedicated to acquiring data specifically for color images to share with the public. Stay tuned for the upcoming Photo Release featuring the image contest winner for the Gemini South telescope in Chile.

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

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More information

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.

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Links

• Explore Ua ʻŌhiʻa Lani in more detail
• Read about the formation of the International Gemini Observatory in Part I of NOIRLab’s Gemini Anniversary Blog series
• Photos of Gemini North
• Videos of Gemini North
• Check out other NOIRLab Photo Releases

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Contacts:

Leinani Lozi
Hawaiʻi Education & Engagement Manager
NSF NOIRLab
Email: leinani.lozi@noirlab.edu

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

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Astronomers Discover Fastest-Evolving Radio Signals Ever Observed from Black Hole Tearing Apart Star

Artist’s interpretation of two massive black holes (MBHs) within a galaxy. A tidal disruption event unfolds around the MBH that resides away from the galactic center and matter from a disrupted star swirls into a bright accretion disk, launching an energetic outflow and resulting in two bright radio flares. Credit: NSF/AUI/NSF NRAO/P.Vosteen

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An international team of astronomers has discovered the first radio-bright tidal disruption event (TDE) occurring outside a galaxy's center, combining data from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and from the Very Large Array (VLA) of the U.S. National Science Foundation National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NSF NRAO), along with several partner telescopes. The event, designated AT 2024tvd, revealed the fastest-evolving radio signals ever observed from this type of cosmic catastrophe.

The discovery, led by principal investigators Itai Sfaradi and Raffaella Margutti of the University of California, Berkeley, and others, represents a significant breakthrough in understanding how massive black holes can hide in unexpected places throughout the universe.

"This is truly extraordinary," said Sfaradi, lead author of the study. "Not only is this the first time we've observed such bright radio emission from a tidal disruption event happening away from a galaxy's center, but it's also evolving faster than anything we've seen before."

Tidal disruption events occur when a star ventures too close to a massive black hole and is torn apart by the black hole's immense gravitational forces. While these events typically occur at the centers of galaxies where supermassive black holes reside, AT 2024tvd was discovered approximately 0.8 kiloparsecs (about 2,600 light-years) away from its host galaxy's center.

The international team observed the event in great detail using a network of radio telescopes that covered a wide range of wavelengths, from centimeters to millimeters. Their data revealed an exceptionally fast and unusual evolution never before seen in this kind of phenomenon. The event produced two separate bursts of radio waves that brightened and faded far more rapidly than any known tidal disruption event. The first burst increased in brightness over a very short period of time and then dimmed almost as quickly, while the second flared up and faded even faster. These dramatic changes occurred on timescales many times shorter than those astronomers typically observe, showing that this was an extraordinarily dynamic and short-lived event.

"The radio emission from AT 2024tvd evolves so rapidly that it stands out even among the most extreme cosmic events we know," explained co-principal investigator Raffaella Margutti. "These observations are revealing new physics about how material behaves when launched from the vicinity of black holes," added Kate Alexander, PI of the VLA Program and professor at the University of Arizona.

The discovery utilized an extensive network of radio telescopes, including NSF NRAO's VLA and ALMA, the Arcminute Micro-Kelvin Imager Large Array (AMI-LA), the Allen Telescope Array (ATA), and the Submillimeter Array (SMA). This multi-telescope approach allowed the team to track the event's evolution across a wide range of radio frequencies over approximately 300 days.

The research suggests that the rapid radio evolution results from at least one—and possibly two—outflows launched significantly after the initial stellar disruption. The team's analysis indicates these outflows were likely launched 80 and 170 days after the optical discovery, challenging traditional models of how tidal disruption events unfold.

"What makes this discovery even more remarkable is that it reveals a massive black hole that would otherwise be invisible to us," said Raffaella Margutti, "The only reason we can detect this wandering black hole is because it happened to tear apart a star and produce these incredibly bright radio signals."

The off-nuclear position of this TDE provides crucial insights into the population of massive black holes that may be wandering through galaxies or recoiling from past interactions. Current theories suggest such black holes could result from triple black hole interactions or be remnants from galaxy mergers.

The team's sophisticated analysis also marks the first time that both free-free absorption and inverse-Compton cooling have been considered together in modeling TDE radio emission, providing new tools for understanding these extreme events.

"This discovery opens up entirely new possibilities for finding hidden black holes throughout the universe," noted Itai Sfaradi. "With upcoming sky surveys, we may discover that these off-nuclear tidal disruption events are more common than we thought."

The research also revealed a potential connection between the launch of radio-emitting outflows and changes in the event's X-ray emission, suggesting a link to accretion processes around the black hole.

AT 2024tvd was initially discovered by the Zwicky Transient Facility on August 25, 2024, at optical wavelengths before follow-up observations revealed its radio brightness and off-nuclear nature.

Source: ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array)/Press Releases
Science Paper

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Additional Information

The findings are published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters,and you can read them HERE.

This text is based on the press release by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), aALMA partner on behalf of North America.

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 leaders,/divhip and management of ALMA's construction, commissioning, and operation.

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Contacts:

Nicolás Lira
Education and Public Outreach Officer
Joint ALMA Observatory, Santiago - Chile
Phone: +56 2 2467 6519
Cel: +56 9 9445 7726
Email: nicolas.lira@alma.cl

Jill Malusky
Public Information Officer
NRAO
Phone: +1 304-456-2236
Email: jmalusky@nrao.edu

Yuichi Matsuda
Education and Public Outreach Officer
NAOJ
Email: yuichi.matsuda@nao.ac.jp

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Webb First to Show 4 Dust Shells 'Spiraling' Apep, Limits Long Orbit View All Press Releases

Wolf-Rayet Apep (MIRI Image)

Webb’s mid-infrared image shows four coiled shells of dust around a pair of Wolf-Rayet stars known as Apep for the first time. Previous observations by other telescopes showed only one. Webb’s data also confirmed that there are three stars gravitationally bound to one another.nCredits: Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Science: Yinuo Han (Caltech), Ryan White (Macquarie University); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

Wolf-Rayet Apep (MIRI Compass Image)
This image was created with Webb data from proposal: 5842 (Y. Han). Image processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI).

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NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has delivered a first of its kind: a crisp mid-infrared image of a system of four serpentine spirals of dust, one expanding beyond the next in precisely the same pattern. (The fourth is almost transparent, at the edges of Webb’s image.) Observations taken prior to Webb only detected one shell, and while the existence of outer shells was hypothesized, searches using ground-based telescopes were unable to uncover any. These shells were emitted over the last 700 years by two aging Wolf-Rayet stars in a system known as Apep, a nod to the Egyptian god of chaos.

Webb’s image combined with several years of data from the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile narrowed down how often the pair swing by one another: once every 190 years. Over each incredibly long orbit, they pass closely for 25 years and form dust.

Webb also confirmed that there are three stars gravitationally bound to one another in this system. The dust ejected by the two Wolf-Rayet stars is “slashed” by a third star, a massive supergiant, which carves holes into each expanding cloud of dust from its wider orbit. (All three stars are shown as a single bright point of light in Webb’s image.)

“Looking at Webb’s new observations was like walking into a dark room and switching on the light — everything came into view,” said Yinuo Han, the lead author of a new paper in The Astrophysical Journal and postdoctoral researcher at Caltech in Pasadena, California. “There is dust everywhere in Webb’s image, and the telescope shows that most of it was cast off in repetitive, predictable structures.” Han’s paper coincides with the publication of Ryan White’s paper in The Astrophysical Journal, a PhD student at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia.

Han, White, and their co-authors refined the Wolf-Rayet stars’ orbit by combining precise measurements of the ring location from Webb’s image with the speed of the shells’ expansion from observations taken by the VLT over eight years.

“This is a one-of-a-kind system with an incredibly rare orbital period,” White said. “The next longest orbit for a dusty Wolf-Rayet binary is about 30 years. Most have orbits between two and 10 years.”

When the two Wolf-Rayet stars approach and pass one another, their strong stellar winds collide and mix, forming and casting out heaps of carbon-rich dust for a quarter century at a time. In similar systems, dust is shot out over mere months, like the shells in Wolf-Rayet 140.
High-speed ‘skirmish’

The dust-producing Wolf-Rayet stars in Apep aren’t exactly on a tranquil cruise. They are whipping through space and sending out dust at 1,200 to 2,000 miles per second (2,000 to 3,000 kilometers per second).

That dust is also very dense. The specific makeup of the dust is another reason why Webb was able to observe so much more: It largely consists of amorphous carbon. “Carbon dust grains retain a higher temperature even as they coast far away from the star,” Han said. While the exceptionally tiny dust grains are considered warm in space, the light they emit is also extremely faint, which is why it can only be detected from space by Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument).

Slicing dust

To find the holes the third star has cut like a knife through the dust, look for the central point of light and trace a V shape from about 10 o’clock to 2 o’clock. “The cavity is more or less in the same place in each shell and looks like a funnel,” White said.

“I was shocked when I saw the updated calculations play out in our simulations,” he said. “Webb gave us the ‘smoking gun’ to prove the third star is gravitationally bound to this system.” Researchers have known about the third star since the VLT observed the brightest innermost shell and the stars in 2018, but Webb’s observations led to an updated geometric model, clinching the connection. (See the system in 3D by watching the visualization below.)

Video A: Wolf-Rayet Apep Visualization

This scientific visualization models what three of the four dust shells sent out by two Wolf-Rayet stars in the Apep system look like in 3D based on mid-infrared observations from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Apep is made up of two Wolf-Rayet binary stars . Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Simulation: Yinuo Han (Caltech), Ryan White (Macquarie University); Visualization: Christian Nieves (STScI); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

“We solved several mysteries with Webb,” Han said. “The remaining mystery is the precise distance to the stars from Earth, which will require future observations.”

Future of Apep

The two Wolf-Rayet stars were initially more massive than their supergiant companion, but have shed most of their mass. It’s likely that both Wolf-Rayet stars are between 10 and 20 times the mass of the Sun, and that the supergiant is 40 or 50 times as massive compared to the Sun. Eventually, the Wolf-Rayet stars will explode as supernovae, quickly sending their contents into space. Either may also emit a gamma-ray burst, one of the most powerful events in the universe, before possibly becoming a black hole.

Wolf-Rayet stars are incredibly rare in the universe. Only a thousand are estimated to exist in our Milky Way galaxy, which contains hundreds of billions of stars overall. Of the few hundred Wolf-Rayet binaries that have been observed to date, Apep is the only example that contains two Wolf-Rayet stars of these types in our galaxy — most only have one.

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: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/webb/

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Related Information

Read more: Webb Watches Carbon-Rich Dust Shells Form, Expand in Star System

Read more:Webb Reveals Shells of Dust Surrounding Brilliant Binary Star System

Explore more: View Space Star Death: Cassiopeia A

Explore more: ViewSpace Variable stars: V838 Mon

More Webb News

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Webb Science Themes

Webb Mission Page

Related For Kids

What is the Webb Telescope?

. SpacePlace for Kids

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Finding star clusters in the Lost Galaxy

NGC 4535

A close-in view of a spiral galaxy that faces the viewer. Brightly lit spiral arms swing outwards through the galaxy’s disc, starting from an elliptical region in the centre. Thick strands of dark reddish dust are spread across the disc, mostly following the spiral arms. The arms also contain many glowing pink-red spots where stars form. The galaxy is a bit fainter beyond the arms, but speckled with blue stars. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, F. Belfiore, J. Lee and the PHANGS-HST Team

Today’s ESA/Hubble Picture of the Week features the spiral galaxy NGC 4535, which is situated about 50 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo (The Maiden). This galaxy has been nicknamed the ‘Lost Galaxy’ because it’s extremely faint when viewed through a small telescope. With a mirror spanning 2.4 metres across, Hubble is well equipped to observe dim galaxies like NGC 4535 and pick out features like its massive spiral arms and central bar of stars.

On full display in this Hubble image are NGC 4535’s young star clusters, which dot the galaxy’s spiral arms. Many of the groupings of bright blue stars are enclosed by glowing pink clouds. These clouds, called H II (‘H-two’) regions, are a sign that the galaxy is home to especially young, hot, and massive stars that are blazing with high-energy radiation. By heating the clouds in which they were born, shooting out powerful stellar winds, and eventually exploding as supernovae, massive stars certainly shake up their surroundings.

This Hubble image incorporates data from an observing programme that will catesa/alogue roughly 50 000 H II regions in nearby star-forming galaxies like NGC 4535. A previous image of NGC 4535 was released in 2021. Both the 2021 image and today’s image incorporate observations from the PHANGS programme, which seeks to understand the connections between young stars and cold gas. Today’s image adds a new dimension to our understanding of NGC 4535 by capturing the brilliant red glow of the nebulae that encircle massive stars in their first few million years of life.

Source: ESA/Hubble/potw

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The Sun Left Home in a Hurry

An open star cluster named NGC 2002, as viewed by the Hubble Space Telescope. The Sun may have been born in a similar cluster. Credit: NASA, ESA and G. Gilmore (University of Cambridge); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)

By simulating how the orbits of distant solar system objects were altered by close encounters with other stars early in the Sun’s life, astronomers have placed tight constraints on how long our home star stuck around its siblings after birth.

The Hubble Space Telescope’s view of a collection of young stars still embedded within their natal nebula. Credit: NASA, ESA, G. Duchene (Universite de Grenoble I); Image Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)

Born in Batches

Though our Sun currently travels on a solitary trajectory through the galaxy, its earliest childhood was not spent so lonely. Instead, the Sun was likely born as part of a litter of many other stars all collapsing out of the same cloud of precursor gas and dust. As a consequence, its early adolescence was spent in the company of dozens of other young stars, all zipping along on their own paths, destined to drift apart but initially packed close together.

Despite their kinship, these young stars were not kind to one another when they passed nearby. When two stars grow close, the intense gravity of the encounter can severely disrupt their proto-planetary systems, scattering the objects orbiting farthest from their stars and potentially even ejecting some objects altogether. These early years likely left scars on the edges of our solar system that persist even today, billions of years after the early tussles.

Recent research led by Amir Siraj, Princeton University, leverages these scars or their apparent absence to ask the question: given the structure we observe in the outer solar system today, what limits can we place on the number of stars born near the Sun and the amount of time the Sun spent in its birth cluster?

An illustration of the orbits for some of the distant sednoids considered in this study.
Credit: NAOJ

Distance is Power

Several authors have asked this question over the past several decades, but Siraj and collaborators added a new twist: instead of studying either the giant planets or the cold classical Kuiper Belt, they instead focused exclusively on the “distant sednoids.” This rarefied collection of only nine known objects includes only the most distant minor planets in our solar system: the sednoids never come within 40 au of the Sun, and they spend much of their orbits beyond 400 au. Interestingly, however, all of them orbit on planes that are fairly aligned with that of the planets, and none ever strays farther than 20° from the ecliptic.

Through a suite of numerical simulations, Siraj and collaborators demonstrate that this relatively tight distribution of inclinations implies that the Sun couldn’t have been too roughed up on its way out of the cluster. By simulating many different close flybys and their influence on the distant sednoids, the researchers constrained the product of the number of stars in the Sun’s birth cluster and the time the Sun spent there to be less than or equal to 5 billion years per cubic parsec. Assuming a typical cluster density of 100 stars per cubic parsec, this suggests that the Sun cleared out of the densest and most dangerous part of the cluster within just 50 million years.

The authors stress that this conclusion leans on the assumption that the distant sednoids arrived on their extreme orbits essentially immediately, though in fact astronomers aren’t sure exactly how and when these objects ended up on the outskirts of the solar system. If the sednoids were in fact implanted onto their orbits early on, this limit on how long it took the Sun to leave its siblings is by far the strongest to date. With the Vera C. Rubin Observatory poised to discover thousands of new distant solar system objects, it’s likely that the bound will grow even more stringent in the next few years.

By Ben Cassese

Citation

“Limits on Stellar Flybys in the Solar Birth Cluster,” Amir Siraj et al 2025 ApJL 993 L4. doi:10.3847/2041-8213/ae1025

Source: American Astronomical Society/AAS-Nova

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Researchers Submit Record Number of Ambitious Proposals for Webb's Fifth Year of Science

James Webb Space Telescope Artist’s Montage

The Space Telescope Science Institute recently conducted the call for proposals to astronomers worldwide for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s fifth year of science operations. The response was record-breaking – more than 2,900 proposals were submitted, shattering the previous record of 2,377 proposals.
This artist’s illustration displays some of the most recognizable of Webb’s images and spectra over its more than four years of science operations. Credits/Artwork: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Zena Levy (STScI)

Webb Cycle 5 Proposals By Science Category

The proposals for the fifth cycle of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s science operations span everything from exoplanets and the solar system to the farthest galaxies and the dawn of the universe, showing just how widely Webb inspires the scientific community. Distant galaxies, stars and stellar populations, and exoplanet atmospheres are among the top science categories among proposals. Credits/Illustration: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Zena Levy (STScI)

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The astronomical community’s enthusiasm for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope shows no sign of slowing. For Webb’s fifth annual cycle of observations, scientists around the world have submitted a record-breaking more than 2,900 proposals, which include some of the most ambitious in the mission’s history across a wide range of astronomical disciplines.

“This record-breaking response reflects Webb’s exceptional performance and unprecedented capacity to inspire the scientific community and to transform our understanding of the universe,” said STScI Director Jen Lotz. “While the results of Cycle 5 are yet to be determined, I congratulate all who submitted a proposal and look forward to the discoveries yet to come.”

The proposals span a wide range of science categories, from exoplanets and the solar system to distant galaxies and the early universe, underscoring Webb’s broad appeal across science disciplines. Distant galaxies, stars and stellar populations, and exoplanet atmospheres are among the top science categories among proposals.

This year’s submissions include unprecedented requests for telescope time across all scientific categories, several as part of the new Long-Term Monitoring Initiative. This initiative enables studies that unfold over multiple observing cycles. The reception to the program by astronomers signals shifts toward time-domain science that tracks changes in the universe.

“We’re at a time where the mission is maturing enough that researchers can think more about long-term strategic scientific questions,” said Tom Brown, head of the Webb Mission Office at STScI. “Scientists want to tackle bolder and more complex subjects, and this initiative is one way we are facilitating that, with consideration to Webb’s expected extended lifetime and outstanding performance.”

The unprecedented proposal number is also driven in part by an increase in the number of investigators proposing for time on Webb. This year, the number of scientists leading Webb proposals grew by almost 17 percent.

As in previous years, most of the requested time, 77 percent, uses spectroscopy, the technique that allows Webb to reveal the chemistry and physics of celestial objects.

Collaboration across observatories also remains strong. Researchers submitted dozens of joint proposals that hope to combine Webb observations with data from other major facilities, including 42 with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, 32 with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), and 35 proposals under the new Roman Preparatory Science program, which aims to maximize future discoveries with NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.

Beyond the numbers, Cycle 5 also highlights the dedication of the astronomical community. The proposal process, managed by the Science Policy Division at STScI, is supported by nearly 550 volunteer reviewers, called the Telescope Allocation Committee (TAC), who carefully evaluate each submission on a dual-anonymous basis.

The Cycle 5 TAC will meet in the first two weeks of February 2026, with selections planned to be announced in March 2026. STScI expects to allocate 8,000 hours of time on Webb in Cycle 5, and the competition for this limited resource is fierce. It’s expected only 8 percent of proposals will be accepted for Cycle 5, which officially begins in July 2026.

The Space Telescope Science Institute is expanding the frontiers of space astronomy by hosting the science operations center of the Hubble Space Telescope, the science and mission operations centers for the James Webb Space Telescope, and the science operations center for the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. STScI also houses the Barbara A. Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST) which is a NASA-funded project to support and provide to the astronomical community a variety of astronomical data archives, and is the data repository for the Hubble, Webb, Roman, Kepler, K2, TESS missions and more. STScI is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy in Washington, D.C.

Source: Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI)/Press Releases

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About This Release

Credits:

Media Contact

Hannah Braun
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore

Christine Pulliam
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore

Permissions: Content Use Policy

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First confirmed sighting of explosive burst on nearby star

Artist's impression of an explosion on another star
Credit: Olena Shmahalo/Callingham et al.

A coronal mass ejection coming from the Sun on 27 May 2024
Credit: SOHO (ESA & NASA), NASA/SDO/AIA, JHelioviewer/D. Müller

XMM-Newton
Credit: ESA-C. Carreau

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Astronomers using the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton space observatory and the LOFAR telescope have definitively spotted an explosive burst of material thrown out into space by another star – a burst powerful enough to strip away the atmosphere of any unlucky planet in its path.

The burst was a coronal mass ejection (CME), eruptions we often see coming from the Sun. During a CME, massive amounts of material are flung out from our star, flooding the surrounding space. These dramatic expulsions shape and drive space weather, such as the dazzling auroras we see on Earth, and can chip away at the atmospheres of any nearby planets.

But while CMEs are commonplace at the Sun, we hadn’t convincingly spotted one on another star – until now.

“Astronomers have wanted to spot a CME on another star for decades,” says Joe Callingham of the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON), author of the new research published in Nature. “Previous findings have inferred that they exist, or hinted at their presence, but haven’t actually confirmed that material has definitively escaped out into space. We’ve now managed to do this for the first time.”

As a CME travels through the layers of a star out into interplanetary space, it produces a shock wave and associated burst of radio waves (a type of light). This short, intense radio signal was picked up by Joe and colleagues and found to come from a star lying around 130 light-years away.

“This kind of radio signal just wouldn’t exist unless material had completely left the star’s bubble of powerful magnetism,” adds Joe. “In other words: it’s caused by a CME.”

A danger to any planets

The matter-flinging star is a red dwarf – a type of star far fainter, cooler, and smaller than the Sun. It is nothing like our own star: it has roughly half the mass, it rotates 20 times faster, and has a magnetic field 300 times more powerful. Most of the planets known to exist in the Milky Way orbit this kind of star.

The radio signal was spotted using the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) radio telescope thanks to new data processing methods developed by co-authors Cyril Tasse and Philippe Zarka at the Observatoire de Paris-PSL. The team then used ESA’s XMM-Newton to determine the star’s temperature, rotation, and brightness in X-ray light. This was essential to interpret the radio signal and figure out what was actually going on.

We needed the sensitivity and frequency of LOFAR to detect the radio waves,” says co-author David Konijn, a PhD student working with Joe at ASTRON. “And without XMM-Newton, we wouldn’t have been able to determine the CME’s motion or put it in a solar context, both crucial for proving what we’d found. Neither telescope alone would have been enough – we needed both.”

The researchers determined the CME to be moving at a super-fast 2400 km per second, a speed only seen in 1 of every 2000 CMEs taking place on the Sun. The ejection was both fast and dense enough to completely strip away the atmospheres of any planets closely orbiting the star.

In search of life

The atmosphere-stripping ability of the CME is an exciting discovery for our hunt for life around other stars. A planet’s habitability for life as we know it is defined by its distance from its parent star – whether or not it sits within the star’s ‘habitable zone’, a region where liquid water can exist on the surface of planets with suitable atmospheres. This is a Goldilocks scenario: too close to the star is too hot, too far is too cold, and in between is just right.

But what if that star is especially active, regularly throwing out dangerous eruptions of material and triggering violent storms? A planet regularly bombarded by powerful coronal mass ejections may lose its atmosphere entirely, leaving a barren rock behind – an uninhabitable world, despite its orbit being ‘just right’.

“This work opens up a new observational frontier for studying and understanding eruptions and space weather around other stars,” adds Henrik Eklund, an ESA research fellow based at the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in Noordwijk, The Netherlands.uninhabitable world, despite its orbit being ‘just right’.
 

“We’re no longer limited to extrapolating our understanding of the Sun's CMEs to other stars. It seems that intense space weather may be even more extreme around smaller stars – the primary hosts of potentially habitable exoplanets. This has important implications for how these planets keep hold of their atmospheres and possibly remain habitable over time.”

The finding also informs our understanding of space weather, something that’s long been a focus for ESA missions and is currently being explored by SOHO, the Proba missions, Swarm, and Solar Orbiter.uninhabitable world, despite its orbit being ‘just right’.

XMM-Newton, meanwhile, is a leading explorer of the hot and extreme Universe. Launched in 1999, the space telescope has gazed into the cores of galaxies, studied stars to understand how they evolve, investigated the environs of black holes, and spotted intense bursts of energetic radiation from distant stars and galaxies.

“XMM-Newton is now helping us discover how CMEs vary by star, something that’s not only interesting in our study of stars and our Sun, but also our hunt for habitable worlds around other stars,” says ESA XMM-Newton Project Scientist Erik Kuulkers. “It also demonstrates the immense power of collaboration, which underpins all successful science. The discovery was a true team effort, and resolves the decades-long search for CMEs beyond the Sun.”

Notes for editors

The paper, “Radio Burst from a Stellar Coronal Mass Ejection” by Callingham et al., is published in Nature on 12 November. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09715-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09715-3

XMM-Newton is part of the portfolio of science missions in ESA’s Science Programme, which includes several missions dedicated to the detection and characterisation of exoplanets. ESA’s next generation X-ray mission – NewAthena – is poised to transform X-ray astronomy with pioneering European-developed optics, paving the way for groundbreaking discoveries for decades to come.

For more information, please contact:

ESA Media Relations, media@esa.int

Source: ESA/Science & Exploration

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Unique shape of star’s explosion revealed just a day after detection

PR Image eso2520a
Artist’s impression of the initial shape of a supernova explosion

PR Image eso2520b
The supernova SN 2024ggi in the NGC 3621 galaxy

PR Image eso2520c
NGC 3621 in the constellation of Hydra

PR Image eso2520d
A galaxy full of surprises — the spiral galaxy NGC 3621

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Videos


PR Video eso2520a
What’s the true shape of a supernova? | ESO News


PR Video eso2520b
Artist’s animation of a supernova explosion

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Swift observations with the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) have revealed the explosive death of a star just as the blast was breaking through the star’s surface. For the first time, astronomers unveiled the shape of the explosion at its earliest, fleeting stage. This brief initial phase wouldn’t have been observable a day later and helps address a whole set of questions about how massive stars go supernova.

When the supernova explosion SN 2024ggi was first detected on the night of 10 April 2024 local time, Yi Yang, an assistant professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, and the lead author of the new study, had just landed in San Francisco after a long-haul flight. He knew he had to act quickly. Twelve hours later, he had sent an observing proposal to ESO, which, after a very quick approval process, pointed its VLT telescope in Chile at the supernova on 11 April, just 26 hours after the initial detection.

SN 2024ggi is located in the galaxy NGC 3621 in the direction of the constellation Hydra ‘only’ 22 million light-years away, close by in astronomical terms. With a large telescope and the right instrument, the international team knew they had a rare opportunity to unravel the shape of the explosion shortly after it happened. “The first VLT observations captured the phase during which matter accelerated by the explosion near the centre of the star shot through the star’s surface. For a few hours, the geometry of the star and its explosion could be, and were, observed together,” says Dietrich Baade, an ESO astronomer in Germany, and co-author of the study published today in Science Advances.

“The geometry of a supernova explosion provides fundamental information on stellar evolution and the physical processes leading to these cosmic fireworks,” Yang explains. The exact mechanisms behind supernova explosions of massive stars, those with more than eight times the mass of the Sun, are still debated and are one of the fundamental questions scientists want to address. This supernova’s progenitor was a red supergiant star, with a mass 12 to 15 times that of the Sun and a radius 500 times larger, making SN 2024ggi a classical example of a massive-star explosion.

We know that during its life a typical star keeps its spherical shape as a result of a very precise equilibrium of the gravitational force that wants to squeeze it and the pressure of its nuclear engine that wants to expand it. When it runs out of its last source of fuel, the nuclear engine starts sputtering. For massive stars this marks the beginning of a supernova: the core of the dying star collapses, the mass shells around fall onto it and bounce off. This rebound shock then propagates outward, disrupting the star.

Once the shock breaks through the surface, it unleashes immense amounts of energy — the supernova then brightens dramatically and becomes observable. During a short-lived phase, the supernova’s initial ‘breakout’ shape can be studied before the explosion interacts with the material surrounding the dying star.

This is what astronomers have now achieved for the very first time with ESO's VLT, using a technique called ‘spectropolarimetry’. “Spectropolarimetry delivers information about the geometry of the explosion that other types of observation cannot provide because the angular scales are too tiny,” says Lifan Wang, co-author and professor at the Texas A&M University in the US, who was a student at ESO at the start of his astronomy career. Even though the exploding star appears as a single point, the polarisation of its light carries hidden clues about its geometry, which the team were able to unravel. [1]

The only facility in the southern hemisphere capable of capturing the shape of a supernova through such a measurement is the FORS2 instrument installed on the VLT. With the FORS2 data, the astronomers found that the initial blast of material was shaped like an olive. As the explosion spread outwards and collided with the matter around the star, the shape flattened but the axis of symmetry of the ejecta remained the same. "These findings suggest a common physical mechanism that drives the explosion of many massive stars, which manifests a well-defined axial symmetry and acts on large scales,” according to Yang.

With this knowledge astronomers can already rule out some of the current supernova models and add new information to improve other ones, providing insights into the powerful deaths of massive stars. "This discovery not only reshapes our understanding of stellar explosions, but also demonstrates what can be achieved when science transcends borders,” says co-author and ESO astronomer Ferdinando Patat. “It’s a powerful reminder that curiosity, collaboration, and swift action can unlock profound insights into the physics shaping our Universe."

Source: ESO/News/Press Releases

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Notes

[1] Light particles (photons) have a property called polarisation. In a sphere, the shape of most stars, the polarisation of the individual photons cancels out so that the net polarisation of the object is zero. When astronomers measure a non-zero net polarisation, they can use that measurement to infer the shape of the object — a star or a supernova — emitting the observed light.

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More information

This research was presented in a paper to appear in Science Advances (doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adx2925).

The team is composed of Y. Yang (Department of Physics, Tsinghua University, China [Tsinghua University]), X. Wen (School of Physics and Astronomy, Beijing Normal University, China [Beijing Normal University] and Tsinghua University), L. Wang (Department of Physics and Astronomy, Texas A&M University, USA [Texas A&M University] and George P. and Cynthia Woods Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics & Astronomy Texas A&M University, USA [IFPA Texas A&M University]), D. Baade (European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere, Germany [ESO]), J. C. Wheeler (University of Texas at Austin, USA), A. V. Filippenko (Department of Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley, USA [UC Berkeley] and Hagler Institute for Advanced Study, Texas A&M University, USA), A. Gal-Yam (Department of Particle Physics and Astrophysics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel), J. Maund (Department of Physics, Royal Holloway, University of London, United Kingdom), S. Schulze (Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics, Northwestern University, USA), X. Wang (Tsinghua University), C. Ashall (Department of Physics, Virginia Tech, USA and Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawai’i at Manoa, USA), M. Bulla (Department of Physics and Earth Science, University of Ferrara, Italy and INFN, Sezione di Ferrara, Italy and INAF, Osservatorio Astronomico d’Abruzzo, Italy), A. Cikota (Gemini Observatory/NSF NOIRLab, Chile), H. Gao (Beijing Normal University and Institute for Frontier in Astronomy and Astrophysics, Beijing Normal University, China), P. Hoeflich (Department of Physics, Florida State University, USA), G. Li (Tsinghua University), D. Mishra (Texas A&M University and IFPA Texas A&M University), Ferdinando Patat (ESO), K. C. Patra (California and Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz, USA), S. S. Vasylyev (UC Berkeley), S. Yan (Tsinghua University).

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

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Contacts:

Yi Yang
Department of Physics, Tsinghua University,
Beijing, China
Tel: +86 13581896137
Email: yi_yang@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn, yiyangtamu@gmail.com

Dietrich Baade
European Southern Observatory
Garching bei München, Germany
Tel: +49 89 6096 295
Email: dbaade@eso.org

Lifan Wang
Department of Physics & Astronomy, College of Arts & Sciences, Texas A&M University
College Station, Texas, United States
Email: lifan@tamu.edu

Ferdinando Patat
European Southern Observatory
Garching bei München, Germany
Tel: +49 89 3200 6744
Email: fpatat@eso.org

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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Superheated star factory is discovered in early universe

Glowing deep red from the distant past, the galaxy Y1 shines because of dust grains heated by newly-formed stars (circled in this image from the James Webb Space Telescope). Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, J. Diego (Instituto de Física de Cantabria, Spain), J. D’Silva (U. Western Australia), A. Koekemoer (STScI), J. Summers & R. Windhorst (ASU), and H. Yan (U. Missouri)

Licence type:Attribution (CC BY 4.

The discovery of a superheated star factory that forms stars 180 times faster than our own Milky Way could help solve a long-standing puzzle about how galaxies grew so quickly in the early universe.

Astronomers uncovered the previously unknown, extreme kind of star factory by taking the temperature of a distant galaxy glowing intensely in superheated cosmic dust.

The first generations of stars formed under conditions very different from anywhere we can see in the nearby universe today, which is why the new research published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society is so fascinating.

Experts are studying these differences using powerful telescopes such as the ALMA telescope, which can detect galaxies so far away their light has taken billions of years to reach us.

In the study, an international team of astronomers led by postdoctoral researcher Tom Bakx, of Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, measured the temperature of one of the most distant-known star factories.

The galaxy, known as Y1, is so far away that its light has taken over 13 billion years to reach us.

"We're looking back to a time when the universe was making stars much faster than today," said Bakx. "Previous observations revealed the presence of dust in this galaxy, making it the furthest away we've ever directly detected light from glowing dust.

"That made us suspect that this galaxy might be running a different, superheated kind of star factory. To be sure, we set out to measure its temperature."

Stars like our Sun are forged in huge, dense clouds of gas in space. The Orion Nebula and the Carina Nebula are two examples of such star factories. They shine brightly in the night sky, powered by their youngest and most massive stars, which light up clouds of gas and dust in many different colours.

At wavelengths longer than the human eye can see, star factories shine brightly thanks to huge numbers of tiny grains of cosmic dust, heated by starlight.

To be able to probe the galaxy's temperature, the scientists needed the superior sensitivity of ALMA. One of the world's largest telescopes, ALMA's dry, high-altitude location made it possible to image the galaxy in just the right colour, at a wavelength of 0.44 millimetres using its Band 9 instrument.

Galaxy Y1 and its surroundings as seen by the James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCAM (blue and green) and by ALMA (red). Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA (JWST), T. Bakx/ALMA (ESO/NRAO/NAOJ)

Licence type: Attribution (CC BY 4.0)

"At wavelengths like this, the galaxy is lit up by billowing clouds of glowing dust grains. When we saw how bright this galaxy shines compared to other wavelengths, we immediately knew we were looking at something truly special," Bakx added.

The detection showed the galaxy's dust glowing at a temperature of 90 Kelvin – around -180 degrees Celsius.

"The temperature is certainly chilly compared to household dust on Earth, but it's much warmer than any other comparable galaxy we’ve seen," said co-researcher Yoichi Tamura, an astronomer at Nagoya University in Japan.

"This confirmed that it really is an extreme star factory. Even though it's the first time we've seen a galaxy like this, we think that there could be many more out there. Star factories like Y1 could have been common in the early universe."

Y1 is manufacturing stars at the extreme rate of over 180 solar masses per year, an unsustainable pace that cannot last long on cosmological scales. On average, our galaxy, the Milky Way, creates only about one solar mass per year.

But scientists suspect that brief, hidden bursts of star formation, as seen in Y1, may have been common in the early universe.

"We don't know how common such phases might be in the early universe, so in the future we want to look for more examples of star factories like this. We also plan to use the high-resolution capabilities of ALMA to take a closer look at how this galaxy works," said Bakx.

His team believes that galaxy Y1 may help solve another cosmic mystery. Earlier studies have shown that galaxies in the early universe appear to have far more dust than their stars could have produced in the short time they have been shining.

Astronomers have been puzzled by this, but Y1's unusual temperature points to a solution.

"Galaxies in the early universe seem to be too young for the amount of dust they contain. That's strange, because they don't have enough old stars, around which most dust grains are created," said fellow researcher Laura Sommovigo, of the Flatiron Institute and Columbia University in the US.

"But a small amount of warm dust can be just as bright as large amounts of cool dust, and that's exactly what we’re seeing in Y1. Even though these galaxies are still young and don't yet contain much heavy elements or dust, what they do have is both hot and bright."

Source: Royal Astronomical Society (RAS)

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Media contacts:

Sam Tonkin
Royal Astronomical Society
Mob: +44 (0)7802 877 700
press@ras.ac.uk

Dr Robert Massey
Royal Astronomical Society
Mob: +44 (0)7802 877 699
press@ras.ac.uk

Science contacts:

Tom Bakx
Chalmers University of Technology
tom.bakx@chalmers.se
Tel: +46 79 304 5668

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Images & video

Superheated star factory

Caption: Glowing deep red from the distant past, the galaxy Y1 shines because of dust grains heated by newly-formed stars (circled in this image from the James Webb Space Telescope). Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, J. Diego (Instituto de Física de Cantabria, Spain), J. D’Silva (U. Western Australia), A. Koekemoer (STScI), J. Summers & R. Windhorst (ASU), and H. Yan (U. Missouri)

Y1 close-up

Caption: Galaxy Y1 and its surroundings as seen by the James Webb Space Telescope's NIRCAM (blue and green) and by ALMA (red). Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA (JWST), T. Bakx/ALMA (ESO/NRAO/NAOJ)

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Further information

The paper 'A warm ultraluminous infrared galaxy just 600 million years after the big bang’ by Tom Bakx et al. has been published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. DOI: 10.1093/mnras/staf1714.

About galaxy Y1

The galaxy is known by its catalogue number, MACS0416_Y1. It lies so far from Earth that its light is stretched out by the expansion of the universe; astronomers refer to its distance as redshift 8.3. It was discovered behind a cluster of galaxies called MACS0416, which itself lies only 4 billion light years away in the direction of the constellation Eridanus, the River.

Previous observations by the same team showed that the galaxy holds the record for the furthest away detection of light from cosmic dust.

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Notes for editors

About the Royal Astronomical Society

The Royal Astronomical Society (RAS), founded in 1820, encourages and promotes the study of astronomy, solar-system science, geophysics and closely related branches of science.

The RAS organises scientific meetings, publishes international research and review journals, recognises outstanding achievements by the award of medals and prizes, maintains an extensive library, supports education through grants and outreach activities and represents UK astronomy nationally and internationally. Its more than 4,000 members (Fellows), a third based overseas, include scientific researchers in universities, observatories and laboratories as well as historians of astronomy and others.

The RAS accepts papers for its journals based on the principle of peer review, in which fellow experts on the editorial boards accept the paper as worth considering. The Society issues press releases based on a similar principle, but the organisations and scientists concerned have overall responsibility for their content.

Keep up with the RAS on Instagram, Bluesky, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube.

Submitted by Sam Tonkin on Wed, 12/11/2025 - 06:00

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