Announcements

What is a black hole? Astro-Investigates Episode 1

Project News • May 8th, 2024

Black holes - what are they really? Learn this and more with “Astro-Investigates,” a new video series that explores and explains big astrophysics topics with the help of NASA scientists. Caltech/IPAC's Keith Miller (Editor/Director/Co-Producer) and Robert Hurt (Science Visualizations/Co-Producer)...

How NASA’s Roman Mission Will Hunt for Primordial Black Holes

Project News • May 8th, 2024

Astronomers have discovered black holes ranging from a few times the Sun's mass to tens of billions. Now a group of scientists has predicted that NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope could find a class of "featherweight" black holes that has so far eluded detection.

IPAC Executive Director George Helou Stepping Down at the End of 2024

IPAC News • May 3rd, 2024

It’s the end of an era for IPAC, and the start of a new one. After more than four decades of dedicated service to IPAC, 25 years of which he was serving as IPAC Executive Director, George Helou announced he is stepping down from the role at the end of the year.

NASA’s Roman Space Telescope’s ‘Eyes’ Pass First Vision Test

Project News • April 17th, 2024

Engineers at L3Harris Technologies in Rochester, New York, have combined all 10 mirrors for NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. Preliminary tests show the newly aligned optics, collectively called the IOA (Imaging Optics Assembly), will direct light into Roman’s science instruments...

How NASA’s Roman Telescope Will Measure Ages of Stars

Project News • April 4th, 2024

Guessing your age might be a popular carnival game, but for astronomers it’s a real challenge to determine the ages of stars. Once a star like our Sun has settled into steady nuclear fusion, or the mature phase of its life, it changes little for billions of years. One exception to that rule is...

NEOWISE 2024 Data Release

Project News • March 21st, 2024

The Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) and IPAC at the California Institute of Technology announce the NEOWISE 2024 Data Release.

Discovering 3 Worlds All at Once!

Project News • March 19th, 2024

What's better than discovering an exoplanet? How about discovering THREE exoplanets...all at once! Early-career researcher Dr. Emily Gilbert talks about the exoplanet bonanza of the TOI-700 system that made headline news around the world in 2020. Emily also reveals her favorite fictional planet...

NASA’s Roman Team Selects Survey to Map Our Galaxy’s Far Side

Project News • March 12th, 2024

NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope team has announced plans for an unprecedented survey of the plane of our Milky Way galaxy. It will peer deeper into this region than any other survey, mapping more of our galaxy’s stars than all previous observations combined.

IPAC Names Tracy Chen the New Task Lead of Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) Science Data System

IPAC News • February 15th, 2024

Dr. Tracy Chen, a member of IPAC since 2009, was appointed the new Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) Science Data System Lead, starting on January 2nd, 2024.

New NASA Mission will Study Ultraviolet Sky, Stars, Stellar Explosions

Project News • February 13th, 2024

As NASA explores the unknown in air and space, a new mission to survey ultraviolet light across the entire sky will provide the agency with more insight into how galaxies and stars evolve. The space telescope, called UVEX (UltraViolet EXplorer), is targeted to launch in 2030 as NASA’s next...