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Photographing faint objects close to bright stars is incredibly difficult. Yet, by combining data from ESA's Gaia space telescope with ESO’s GRAVITY instrument on the ground, scientists managed just that. They took the first pictures of so far unseen dim companions of eight luminous stars. The technique unlocks the tantalising possibility to capture images of planets orbiting close to their host stars.

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    • By NASA
      This video sparkles with synthetic supernovae from the OpenUniverse project, which simulates observations from NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. More than a million exploding stars flare into visibility and then slowly fade away. The true brightness of each transient event has been magnified by a factor of 10,000 for visibility, and no background light has been added to the simulated images. The pattern of squares shows Roman’s full field of view.Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and M. Troxel The universe is ballooning outward at an ever-faster clip under the power of an unknown force dubbed dark energy. One of the major goals for NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is to help astronomers gather clues to the mystery. One team is setting the stage now to help astronomers prepare for this exciting science.
      “Roman will scan the cosmos a thousand times faster than NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope can while offering Hubble-like image quality,” said Rebekah Hounsell, an assistant research scientist at the University of Maryland-Baltimore county working at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and a co-principal investigator of the Supernova Cosmology Project Infrastructure Team preparing for the mission’s High-Latitude Time-Domain Survey. “We’re going to have an overwhelming amount of data, and we want to make it so scientists can use it from day one.”
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      To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video
      This data sonification transforms a vast simulation of a cosmic survey from NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope into a symphony of stellar explosions. Each supernova’s brightness controls its volume, while its color sets its pitch –– redder, more distant supernovae correspond to deep, low tones while bluer, nearer ones correspond to higher frequencies. The sound in stereo mirrors their locations in the sky. The result sounds like celestial wind chimes, offering a way to “listen” to cosmic fireworks. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, M. Troxel, SYSTEM Sounds (M. Russo, A. Santaguida) Cosmic Radar Guns
      Scientists estimate around half a dozen stars explode somewhere in the observable universe every minute. On average, one of them will be a special variety called type Ia that can help astronomers measure the universe.
      These explosions peak at a similar intrinsic brightness, allowing scientists to find their distances simply by measuring how bright they appear.
      Scientists can also study the light of these supernovae to find out how quickly they are moving away from us. By comparing how fast they’re receding at different distances, scientists will trace cosmic expansion over time.
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      Scientists will continue using the synthetic data even after Roman begins observing, tweaking all aspects of the simulation and correcting unknowns to see which resulting images best match real observations. Scientists can then fine-tune our understanding of the universe’s underlying physics.
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      For more information about the Roman Space Telescope visit www.nasa.gov/roman.
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      By Ashley Balzer
      NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
      Media contact:
      Claire Andreoli
      NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
      301-286-1940
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      Last Updated Mar 11, 2025 EditorAshley BalzerContactAshley Balzerashley.m.balzer@nasa.govLocationGoddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
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      Download this image

      An open cluster of stars shines through misty, cocoon-like gas clouds in this Hubble Space Telescope image of NGC 460.
      NGC 460 is located in a region of the Small Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy that orbits the Milky Way. This particular region contains a number of young star clusters and nebulae of different sizes ― all likely related to each other. The clouds of gas and dust can give rise to stars as portions of them collapse, and radiation and stellar winds from those hot, young bright stars in turn shape and compress the clouds, triggering new waves of star formation. The hydrogen clouds are ionized by the radiation of nearby stars, causing them to glow.
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      Hubble’s Star Clusters

      Facebook logo @NASAHubble @NASAHubble Instagram logo @NASAHubble Media Contact:
      Claire Andreoli
      NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
      claire.andreoli@nasa.gov
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      Details
      Last Updated Mar 08, 2025 Location NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
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