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NASA is exploring commercial space industry options to keep the Hubble Space Telescope operational longer, according to statements emphasizing the observatory's continued scientific value. The agency says it wants to examine innovative, cost-effective methods for extending the life of the orbiting asset.
NASA has issued a Request for Information asking commercial companies to describe their capabilities for capturing the Hubble Space Telescope, raising it to an altitude of at least 373 miles, servicing it, or guiding it to a controlled reentry. The agency says any mission must not damage Hubble and should occur by 2032, with the telescope otherwise expected to fall out of orbit and burn up around 2033-2034.
NASA has asked commercial space companies for help servicing or boosting the aging Hubble Space Telescope, which faces declining orbit and no current method for astronaut repair since the shuttle program ended. The agency's constrained budget leaves it unable to fund a dedicated servicing mission on its own.
NASA released a Request For Information on Thursday seeking commercial ideas for extending Hubble's life, including capturing the telescope to boost it above 373 miles, servicing its systems, or guiding it to a controlled reentry. Companies have until November 30 to respond, and any mission would need to happen by 2032 without damaging the observatory. NASA says it is not yet committing to purchase such a mission but wants to gauge industry interest and cost.
Reanalyzing 1999 Hubble data with an updated chemical database, University of Warwick-led researchers identified roughly 100 previously unexplained chemical signatures around white dwarf HS 0209+0832 as niobium, an element formed only in extreme stellar conditions. Niobium levels were about 1,000 times higher than in our sun, which the team says points to a planet formed from material shed by the dying star itself rather than from its original birth cloud.
NASA says a precise SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch and flawless early course correction have left the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope with enough propellant for at least 22 years of operations, more than double the mission's original five-year baseline plan. The $4.3 billion observatory launched August 30 from Kennedy Space Center and is now heading to its observation post to survey wide swaths of the sky with Hubble-level resolution.
A team led by Xin Li at Westlake University identified an intermediate-mass black hole, roughly 35,000 times the sun's mass, sitting outside the star-forming disk of the dwarf galaxy UGCA 320, about 20 million light-years away. Hubble imaging and MUSE spectroscopy showing broad Balmer emission confirmed the object is actively accreting material as it drifts through the galaxy, dragging surrounding gas behind it.
NASA launched the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on August 30, marking the first space telescope named after a woman. The mission, previously known as WFIRST, will study dark matter, dark energy, and exoplanets, continuing work in the field Roman helped establish as NASA's first chief of astronomy in 1959.
Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have identified a ten-sided cloud formation encircling Saturn's south pole, a counterpart to the long-known hexagon at the planet's north pole. The decagon, detailed in a new Science Advances study, has sides roughly 16,800 kilometers long and sits near a jet stream blowing close to 260 miles per hour, even though the shape itself drifts at less than 6 mph.
Scientists at the LUX-ZEPLIN experiment, which uses 10 tonnes of liquid xenon buried in South Dakota's Sanford Underground Research Facility, recorded one unusual flash consistent with a WIMP particle striking a xenon nucleus. The result, described in a preprint that has not yet been peer-reviewed, is far from confirmed but has generated excitement because it could represent the long-sought direct detection of dark matter.
Researchers on the LUX-ZEPLIN experiment at South Dakota's Sanford Underground Research Facility reported a lone high-energy event in their 10-tonne liquid xenon detector, recorded sometime in 2023 or 2024, that matches the expected signature of a dark matter particle striking an atomic nucleus. The team announced the finding at a physics conference in Japan and posted details in a preprint, while cautioning that a single event is not proof.
NASA sent the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope into orbit on Sunday, equipping it with a 2.4-meter mirror matching Hubble's but pairing it with a 300-megapixel Wide Field Instrument. That camera can capture images at least 100 times larger than Hubble's per shot and scan the sky roughly 1,000 times faster, letting it map billions of stars and galaxies and search for around 100,000 exoplanets.