Every Cosmic Herald story on Space Telescope Science Institute — missions, launches, discoveries, and the business of space, newest first.
JWST resolved over 10,000 faint stars in the ancient dwarf galaxy Boötes I and found its initial mass function matches the Milky Way's, hinting that the rules of star formation may not change even in near-primordial conditions.
Read the story →A JWST/NIRSpec study of eight ultramassive galaxies finds that sheer size doesn't guarantee a giant black hole — one galaxy shows a stellar velocity dip, not a peak, hinting its central black hole may have been kicked out entirely.
A nearby spiral nicknamed 'the Saguaro' just gave astronomers the missing piece of the little red dot puzzle: faint, buried X-rays confirming these mysterious JWST objects are ordinary black holes caught in an unusually obscured growth spurt.
Hubble imagery reported July 24, 2026 shows a nova launching dense clumps of ejected material across the galaxy at roughly 20 million mph — and astronomers still can't explain where the projectiles come from.
Four stacked JWST/MIRI eclipses of the super-Earth GJ 3929 b rule out thick CO2 or water atmospheres at high confidence, giving the Rocky Worlds program its first finished case file — and a warm, dark rock instead of a habitable world.
Astronomers used Hubble to catch ionizing UV light escaping a small, furiously star-forming galaxy in the reionization epoch — the first such detection, and direct evidence for how the early universe became transparent.
Webb found unexpected dust-making in Sextans A, a chemically primitive dwarf galaxy — evidence that the earliest galaxies could forge solid grains by pathways unlike those that dominate today.
Free daily briefing — missions, discoveries, and what's overhead tonight.
You're in. ✓
Check your inbox to confirm your subscription.No spam. Unsubscribe any time. Read our privacy policy.
