News

University of Arizona students and faculty members completed a comprehensive study to track and characterize satellites, using a ground-based sensor they developed to measure satellites' brightness, speed and paths through the sky.

After decades of development, a nail-biting launch and months of space travel and commissioning, NASA has released the first images captured by the James Webb Space Telescope. The images hint at the beginning of years of space science, made possible in part by the 21 UArizona researchers who have played a role in developing and managing Webb's onboard instruments.

Before-and-after data from the few seconds it took the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft to collect a sample from asteroid Bennu revealed a surprise: The particles of Bennu's exterior are so loosely packed, they act more like a fluid than a solid.

Evidence suggests that carbon nanotubes, tiny tubes consisting of pure carbon, could be forged in the envelopes of dust and gas surrounding dying stars. The findings propose a simple, yet elegant mechanism for the formation and survival of complex carbon molecules in space.

Astronomers have discovered a new type of stellar system that contains only young, blue stars. The structures are thought to be created when galaxies collide with hot gas in something of a galactic belly flop.

Extreme supergiant stars known as hypergiants are very rare, with only a few known to exist in the Milky Way. Astronomers have created a detailed, three-dimensional image of one dying hypergiant, providing new insights into what happens at the end of these rare stars' lives.

UArizona scientists took part in an international planetary defense exercise that used asteroid Apophis – a large, potentially hazardous asteroid – to test the planetary defense response chain.

Snapping an image of a black hole is just the beginning, says researcher Chi-Kwan "CK" Chan. To really understand the image, it must be compared with black hole simulations. UArizona worked with partners to create the world's largest simulation library.

After years of anticipation, the international Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration presented the first image of the black hole located at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy, called Sagittarius A*. Scientists had previously suggested the presence of a black hole at this location, but there was no direct visual evidence until now. 

UArizona astrophysicists Feryal Özel and Dimitrios Psaltis identified Sagittarius A* as an ideal target black hole more than 20 years ago. They call it a "Goldilocks black hole," with an environment "just right" for capturing an image.