Stars

Stars are spherical balls of hot, ionized gas, or plasma, held together by their own gravity. Stars are the most fundamental building blocks of our universe.

JWST images of six candidate massive galaxies, seen 500 million to 800 million years after the Big Bang. Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/I. Labbe

Galaxies, Science, Stars

Those puzzling JWST images can be explained by ‘bursty’ star formation

JWST image of the Pillars of Creation

If protostars aren’t yet generating light through fusion, how can JWST see them?

JADES-GS-z6

Galaxies, Stars

JWST finds carbon-rich dust grains earlier than expected

Artist's rendition of a tidal disruption event

Exotic Objects, Science, Stars

A torn-up star is revealing the intensity of a supermassive black hole’s grip

Supernova 1987A, as seen by JWST's NIRcam instrument.

JWST views Supernova 1987A

Herbig-Haro 211

JWST captures an infant star’s outflow

The Ring Nebula in Infrared

JWST sees the Ring Nebula in a new light

Exotic Objects, Stars

Bizarre star may one day become a magnetar

Galaxies, Stars

JWST takes a peek at the most distant known star

Exotic Objects, Science, Stars

Astronomers find a brown dwarf that’s hotter than the Sun

Do the stars move in the sky?

Solar System, Stars

Why is Jupiter not a star or a brown dwarf?

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The new study suggests that miniture solar systems would not necessarily look like our own. This composite of planets in our solar system was taken by various NASA spacecraft. Included in the image are (from top to bottom) Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Credit: NASA/JPL.

Solar system

Our solar system hosts a plethora of fascinating planets and other objects.

Credit: Marco Lorenzi.

Stars

These giant, glowing balls of gas are vital to the evolution of the cosmos.

Artist’s conception of the Milky Way. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (SSC-Caltech).

Milky Way

Our home galaxy hosts hundreds of billions of stars orbited by countless worlds.

Located 12 million light-years away, M82 appears high in the northern spring sky in the direction of the constellation Ursa Major, the Great Bear. It is also called the “Cigar Galaxy” because of the elliptical shape produced by the oblique tilt of its starry disk relative to our line of sight. Credit: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA).

Galaxies

These sprawling star factories are home to millions to trillions of stars.

In this artist’s rendition, the newly discovered planet is shown as a hot, rocky, geologically-active world glowing in the deep red light of its nearby parent star, the M dwarf Gliese 876. Credit: Trent Schindler, National Science Foundation.

Exoplanets

Our cosmos is filled with countless bizarre worlds around other stars.

An artist’s imagination of hydrocarbon pools, icy and rocky terrain on the surface of Saturn’s largest moon. Credit: Steven Hobbs (Brisbane, Queensland, Australia).

Alien life

Only one planet we know of hosts life. But the hunt for extraterrestrial life is on.

This artist’s conception illustrates one of the most primitive supermassive black holes known (central black dot) at the core of a young, star-rich galaxy. Astronomers using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope have uncovered two of these early objects, dating back to about 13 billion years ago. The monstrous black holes are among the most distant known, and appear to be in the very earliest stages of formation, earlier than any observed so far. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

Exotic objects

The universe is filled with extreme objects, from black holes to pulsars and more.

Based on the study, astronomers have updated the timeline of the universe to reflect when the first stars are now thought to have appeared, some 180 million years after the Big Bang. Credit: N. R. Fuller/National Science Foundation.

Cosmology

The origin, evolution, and fate of the universe is shrouded in mystery.

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