Corey S. Powell

This chart shows the location of the nearby spiral galaxy NGC 253 within the constellation of Sculptor. This map shows most of the stars visible to the unaided eye under good conditions, and the galaxy itself is marked with a red circle. This galaxy is bright enough to be easily seen as an elongated haze through binoculars from a dark site. Credit: ESO, IAU and Sky & Telescope

With a decent pair of binoculars, you can see the Sculptor Galaxy (NGC 253) for yourself.

You'll need dark skies & a clear view of the southern sky, and it'll be faint--but you'll be looking over 100 quintillion kilometers into space!

www.eso.org/public/image...

A beautiful panorama of cosmic life & death:

These images of the Sculptor Galaxy combine 100 exposures in thousands of colors, 300 gigs of data. They show 500 planetary nebulae (the demise of other Suns) + a central "chimney" caused by a burst of newly formed stars. 🧪🔭

www.eso.org/public/news/...

I know this isn't the point, but if Heathcliff lives in the northern hemisphere this scene is taking place at approximately 5am.

I see what you did there and damn

This image represents the discovery of what may be the most distant protocluster, or developing galaxy cluster, ever found. The white box in the main version marks the field of view of Chandra X-ray Observatory data (blue) that are overlaid on an infrared image from the James Webb Space Telescope. Together, these data reveal the presence of a forming cluster, called JADES-1, just one to two billion years after the big bang. Up until now, most ideas about how the formation of galaxy clusters — the largest structures known to be held together by gravity — predict that they could not reach this stage until about two to three billion years after the universe started.

Meanwhile, JWST and the Chandra X-ray Observatory teamed up to discover JADES-ID1, the most distant known galaxy cluster.

Enormous structures (galaxies & galaxy clusters) formed surprising quickly in the early universe. This one is from 12.7 billion years ago! 🧪🔭

chandra.si.edu/photo/2026/p...

The galaxy designated MoM-z14 is currently the farthest galaxy ever detected, spotted by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and confirmed spectroscopically with its NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) instrument. Through Webb, we are seeing this galaxy as it appeared in the distant past, only 280 million years after the universe began in the big bang. Its light has traveled through space for more than 13 billion years to reach us. Like some other galaxies Webb has discovered in the early universe, MoM-z14 is brighter, more compact, and more chemically enriched than astronomers expected to find in this early era. While it may pass out of record books quickly as the farthest galaxy, MoM-z14 will still play a role in helping astronomers and theorists reach new understanding of the earliest chapters in the universe’s story.

News from the edge of the visible universe:

JWST has confirmed this galaxy, MoM-z14, as the most distant one yet studied. We're seeing it as it was 13.5 billion years ago, 98% of the way back to the beginning of time.

(MoM stands for "miracle or mirage.") 🧪🔭

science.nasa.gov/missions/web...

Six previously-undiscovered, weird and fascinating astrophysical objects are displayed in this new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. These were discovered by researchers from the European Space Agency using a new AI-assisted method. The AI tool allowed them to search nearly 100 million image cutouts and uncover anomalous objects including gravitational lenses, jellyfish galaxies with gaseous ‘tentacles’, merging and interacting galaxies, galaxies featuring rings and arcs and more.

Here's a good use for "AI" (a rebranded neural net, really): sorting through 100 million Hubble images & identifying hundreds of celestial anomalies.

The set includes peculiar colliding galaxies, gravitational lenses, planet-forming hamburgers, and true enigmas. 🔭🧪

www.esa.int/Science_Expl...

Yeah, I could use more silence, too

Intriguing question: is "darkness" a natural resource that could or should be protected? The trend of modern life has been to treat darkness as a threat to be eliminated, but a lot of people are pushing back to preserve dark skies & natural ecosystems. 🧪

My first thought as well

If it's a WIMP, we'll know within a decade. If not, we'll know...someday maybe.

Worst case scenario is a particle that interacts with baryonic matter through gravity alone (and does not self-annihilate). In that case, there are no existing experiments that could detect it.

Star Trek computer shorting out

Containing nearly 800,000 galaxies, this image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is overlaid with a map of dark matter, represented in blue. Researchers used Webb data to find the invisible substance via its gravitational influence on regular matter. NASA/STScI/J. DePasquale/A. Pagan

Forgot to include alt-text with the first dark matter image. Here it is again.

This is pretty technical but here goes: Galaxy overdensity significance map ( Σ/σ), weighted by the weak lensing sensitivity function g(z), tracing the projected distribution of luminous matter, with white κ contours marking the total mass.

One thing that's striking in the new cosmic map is how dark matter closely, but not exactly, traces the distribution of visible matter. The galaxies we see are "surfing" on an ocean of dark matter, it seems.

Fabulous detective work here. 🧪🔭

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

This is the most detailed map yet of dark matter in the universe, based on JWST observations of 800,000 galaxies.

The background image shows those galaxies in infrared light. Yellow indicates the location of dark matter, inferred from its gravitational pull. 🧪🔭

www.nasa.gov/missions/web...

A full Moon is seen shining over NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) and Orion spacecraft, atop the mobile launcher in the early hours of February 1, 2026. The rocket is currently at Launch Pad 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, as teams are preparing for a wet dress rehearsal to practice timelines and procedures for the launch of Artemis II. NASA/Sam Lott

NASA's Artemis II flight, which will send a crew around the Moon for the first time since 1972, has been delayed due to a hydrogen leak.

The flight is tentatively rescheduled for early March. 🧪🔭

arstechnica.com/space/2026/0...

Moe from The Simpsons has a serious eye twitch

Tried the AI prompt again

This is what taxpayer-funded open science plus decades of hard-won investment and expertise looks like

Not exactly! I was digging through the RAS archives for material related to William Herschel and his discovery of infrared radiation. My book focuses on the discovery of the universe beyond visible light. Although the Sun does figure prominently in my story...

I'm still writing! So it's about a year away from bookstores, I'm afraid.

Sunspots of 1 September 1859, as sketched by Richard Carrington. A and B mark the initial positions of an intensely bright event, which moved over the course of five minutes to C and D before disappearing.

British Geological Survey magnetogram recorded during the Carrington Event on Sept 2, 1859

The archivist who uncovered the photo of Carrington was also very kind & helpful while I was researching my book, so I feel a special connection to this story.

More about the scary significance of the Carrington Event on the Sun: 🔭🧪

geomag.bgs.ac.uk/education/ca...
www.itu.int/hub/2024/08/...

The Maull & Polyblank photograph of Richard C Carrington, with its telltale writing just visible to the right of the figure. Richard C Carrington (1826–75) was the astronomer who, on 1 September 1859, recorded the first observed solar flare, and speculated about its possible link to the extreme geomagnetic disturbance that began some 17 hours later. This, the largest known geomagnetic storm, now bears his name: the Carrington event.

In 1859, Richard Carrington observed the 1st solar flare--an eruption so powerful it spawned brilliant auroras & knocked out telegraph lines around the world.

We have Carrington's drawings but, amazingly, there was no known picture of the man himself--until now. 🧪🔭

academic.oup.com/astrogeo/art...

Scientists talk about magnetic field lines and reconnection events, which can sound quite abstract. Here they are for real: These are lines of magnetic plasma on the Sun twisting, snapping, and releasing tremendous amounts of energy.

(The scale bar is 2000 km.) 🧪🔭

www.esa.int/ESA_Multimed...

On Earth, avalanches are terrifying. On the Sun, they are simply overwhelming.

ESA's Solar Orbiter captured this magnetic avalanche on the Sun as it triggered a major solar flare. There's an outline of the Earth at the beginning for scale.

www.esa.int/Science_Expl...

A massive hotspot — larger the Earth’s Lake Superior — can be seen just to the right of Io’s south pole in this annotated image taken by the JIRAM infrared imager aboard NASA’s Juno on Dec. 27, 2024, during the spacecraft’s flyby of the Jovian moon. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/ASI/INAF/JIRAM

NASA's Juno spacecraft detected the largest volcanic hotspot ever seen in our solar system. It appeared on Jupiter's moon Io, it covers 100,000 square kilometers (bigger than Lake Superior), and it radiates 80 trillion watts of heat. 🧪🔭

www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-ju...

yes, THANK YOU for saying this

The HARPS3 spectrograph, the key instrument for the Terra Hunting Experiment, will search for signs of Earthlike planets for next ten years.

Here's more information about the Terra Hunting Experiment project: www.terrahunting.org/index.html

The 2.2-metre-telescope on La Silla, site of the 2ES survey that will seek out Earthlike planets.

A second, complementary survey called 2ES (the Second Earth Spectrograph) will soon begin looking at stars in the southern hemisphere.

Both surveys will measure stellar motions to an accuracy of 10 cm/sec--about the speed of a crawling baby! Amazing how far the tech has come. 🧪🔭

www.2es.dk

The Isaac Newton Telescope in the Canary Islands, where the Terra Hunting Experiment is taking place.

After 3 decades, astronomers have found >6000 planets, but nothing quite like our own. The new Terra Hunting Experiment in the Canary Islands is designed to find what we're really looking for: an Earth-size planet in an Earth-like orbit around a Sun-like star. 🧪🔭

www.sciencenews.org/article/eart...

I remember how much fun it was when I'd have a computer problem at work, call IT, and they'd seize control of my computer. I got to sit back and watch someone else move my cursor.

Just imagine having an AI that could recreate the experience of sending in a help ticket!