Announcements

Black Hole Collision May Have Exploded with Light

Project News • June 25th, 2020

When two black holes spiral around each other and ultimately collide, they send out ripples in space and time called gravitational waves. Because black holes do not give off light, these events are not expected to shine with any light waves, or electromagnetic radiation. But some theorists have...

Public Data Release 3

Project News • June 24th, 2020

The Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) and IPAC at the California Institute of Technology announce the third ZTF Public Data Release. ZTF is an optical time-domain survey covering the northern sky visible from Palomar Observatory.

Astronomers' Discovery Sheds New Light On Famous Einstein Ring

Project News • June 1st, 2020

Determined to find a needle in a cosmic haystack, a pair of astronomers time traveled through archives of old data from W. M. Keck Observatory on Mauankea in Hawaii and old X-ray data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory to unlock a mystery surrounding a bright, lensed, heavily obscured quasar.

NASA Telescope Named For ‘Mother of Hubble’ Nancy Grace Roman

Project News • May 20th, 2020

NASA is naming its next-generation space telescope currently under development, the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), in honor of Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first chief astronomer, who paved the way for space telescopes focused on the broader universe.

Message from the Director

IPAC News • May 15th, 2020

Dear Colleagues and Friends, Like the rest of the science ecosystem, we at IPAC have been adapting to the challenges of the time, protecting the health and safety of our staff while pursuing our mission of advancing the exploration of the universe.

A Tale of Two Telescopes: WFIRST and Hubble

Project News • April 20th, 2020

NASA’s Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), planned for launch in the mid-2020s, will create enormous cosmic panoramas. Using them, astronomers will explore everything from our solar system to the edge of the observable universe, including planets throughout our galaxy and the nature of...

Warped Space-time to Help WFIRST Find Exoplanets

Project News • March 30th, 2020

To date, astronomers have found most planets when they pass in front of their host star in events called transits, which temporarily dim the star's light. WFIRST data can spot transits too, but the mission will primarily watch for microlensing.

NEOWISE 2020 Data Release

Project News • March 26th, 2020

The NEOWISE Reactivation 2020 Release adds approximately 2.5 million image sets and 18.7 billion source detections to the public archive. These data were acquired during the sixth year of the NEOWISE Reactivation Mission.

NASA Awards Prize Postdoctoral Fellowships For 2020

Community News • March 25th, 2020

NASA has selected 24 new Fellows for its prestigious NASA Hubble Fellowship Program (NHFP). The program enables outstanding postdoctoral scientists to pursue independent research across NASA Astrophysics.

NASA Approves Development of Universe-Studying, Planet-Finding Mission

Project News • March 2nd, 2020

NASA’s Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) project has passed a critical programmatic and technical milestone, giving the mission the official green light to begin hardware development and testing.