Announcements

Runaway Star Plows Through Space

Project News • January 24th, 2011

A massive star flung away from its former companion is plowing through space dust. The result is a brilliant bow shock, seen in a new image from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE. The star, named Zeta Ophiuchi, is huge, with a mass of about 20 times that of our sun. In this...

Partner Galaxies Wildly Different In New WISE Image

Project News • January 13th, 2011

NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer has captured a new view of two companion galaxies -- a somewhat tranquil spiral beauty and its rambunctious partner blazing with smoky star formation. The unlikely pair, named Messier 81 and Messier 82, got to know each other a lot better during an...

NASA's Kepler Mission Discovers Its First Rocky Planet

Project News • January 10th, 2011

NASA's Kepler mission confirmed the discovery of its first rocky planet, named Kepler-10b. Measuring 1.4 times the size of Earth, it is the smallest planet ever discovered outside our solar system. The discovery of this so-called exoplanet is based on more than eight months of data collected by...

Decadal Survey 2010 Information and Updates

Community News • October 19th, 2010

In May 2008, in preparation for the Decadal Survey, and in celebration of the 25th anniversary of IRAS, IPAC hosted a workshop to discuss strategies and plans for the future of far-infrared space astronomy.