NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory has ended its science mission now that the spacecraft is orbiting less than 171 miles (275 kilometers) above Earth’s surface. The greater atmospheric drag at this height prevents the satellite’s telescopes from steadily gazing at their astronomical targets. Swift conducted its final observation on Oct. 20. It is expected to
A sweeping barred spiral galaxy marks the spot in this image, but the real treasure is the gravitational lens in the lower-right corner, where a distant background galaxy is being magnified and distorted by the gravity of a closer galaxy. This observation is one of many gravitational lensing images taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope
This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image features the edge-on, intermediate spiral galaxy NGC 1827, located roughly 37 million light-years away in the constellation Columba, the Dove. Hubble captured the image as part of a survey looking at 260 satellite galaxies around 22 Milky Way-like host galaxies within a radius of about 32 million light-years from
After a quiet start to the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season, Isaias became the season’s first hurricane on October 8 as it tracked toward the U.S. Gulf Coast. The storm brought heavy rain and flash flooding to parts of the Southeast, including Alabama and the Florida Panhandle, and winds that toppled trees and downed power lines,
A phenomenon rarer than a solar eclipse and more powerful than any single storm system is unfolding this fall, and NASA is tracking it closely. El Niño is a natural climate pattern that emerges roughly every two to seven years marked by warmer-than-normal water temperatures in parts of the equatorial Pacific. NASA scientists are keeping
Using data from the Japan-led XRISM (X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission) observatory, astronomers have directly observed a giant star’s outflow, called a stellar wind, being captured by its compact companion and providing the power source for strong X-ray flares. The research is part of NASA’s exploration of the extreme universe to better understand how the
