Webb Reveals Centaurus A's Hidden Core

🌌 Webb transforms familiar galaxy view

☢️ Nuclear spacecraft heads to orbit

🔭 7,000 galaxy clusters cataloged

🧑‍🚀 Artemis II astronaut steps down

🚀 NASA's Roman telescope goes vertical

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope team released fourth-anniversary images of Centaurus A, a galaxy located 11 million light-years away that underwent a major collision approximately two billion years ago.

Webb's MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) and NIRCam revealed millions of individual stars previously obscured by dust, including an unusual S-shaped feature and a warped parallelogram-like band cutting across the galaxy's center.

Shawn Domagal-Goldman, NASA Astrophysics division director, stated Webb enables astronomers to examine structures other telescopes could not see, transforming Centaurus A into a vivid record of cosmic history.

Miami-based City Labs developed the BOHR (Betavoltaic Orbital High-Reliability) satellite, preparing to launch what CEO Peter Cabauy calls the world's first commercial nuclear-powered spacecraft aboard SpaceX's mission.

The CubeSat launched July 7 on a Falcon 9 from Vandenberg Space Force Base carrying a NanoTritium betavoltaic technology payload designed to orbit approximately 10 years while demonstrating low-power nuclear capabilities.

Cabauy explained the mission opens commercial nuclear space pathways essential for lunar colonization, particularly for areas without sunlight where Tritium devices producing tens of watts of heat are needed.

Argonne National Laboratory physicist Lindsey Bleem led a multi-institutional team analyzing five years of SPT-3G (South Pole Telescope third-generation camera) observations to catalog massive galaxy clusters across the universe.

The SPT-3G's 16,000 detectors surveyed 1,600 square degrees, confirming 7,190 galaxy clusters through Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect distortions in CMB light, with 1,800 clusters dating back over 7.8 billion years.

Bleem stated this catalog represents a new milestone for cluster cosmology, providing resources for probing dark matter, dark energy, and cosmic structure formation over the past ten billion years.

Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, who flew on the historic Artemis II lunar mission earlier this year, announced his retirement effective September 2026 while remaining a Royal Canadian Air Force reservist.

Hansen joined Americans Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch, and Victor Glover on Artemis II, which traveled farther into space than anyone before, capturing thousands of photographs during humanity's return to lunar vicinity.

Prime Minister Mark Carney recognized Hansen as the first Canadian to venture to the far side of the moon, crediting him with placing Canada's human space exploration role on the world stage.

NASA engineers at Kennedy Space Center raised the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope from horizontal to vertical orientation, marking a critical prelaunch milestone as the observatory prepares for launch nine months ahead of schedule.

Roman offers a field of view 100 times larger than Hubble's, and NASA is targeting launch no earlier than August 30, 2026, aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A.

Named for NASA's first chief astronomer, Roman will enable deep, sweeping cosmic explorations that advance understanding of dark energy, exoplanets, and infrared astrophysics across unprecedented sky coverage areas.