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A Beacon to Space
A Beacon to Space
In this infrared photograph taken on June 2, 2025, the Optical Communications Telescope Laboratory at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Table Mountain Facility near Wrightwood, California, beams its eight-laser beacon to the Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) flight laser transceiver aboard NASA’s Psyche spacecraft. At the time, when Psyche was about 143 million miles (230 million kilometers) from Earth.
Managed by JPL, DSOC successfully demonstrated that data encoded in laser photons could be reliably transmitted, received, and then decoded after traveling millions of miles from Earth out to Mars distances. Nearly two years after launching aboard the agency’s Psyche mission in 2023, the demonstration completed its 65th and final “pass” on Sept. 2, 2025, sending a laser signal to Psyche and receiving the return signal from 218 million miles (350 million kilometers) away.
Text credit: Ian J. O’Neill
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
A Beacon to Space
In this infrared photograph taken on June 2, 2025, the Optical Communications Telescope Laboratory at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Table Mountain Facility near Wrightwood, California, beams its eight-laser beacon to the Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) flight laser transceiver aboard NASA’s Psyche spacecraft. At the time, when Psyche was about 143 million miles (230 million kilometers) from Earth.
Managed by JPL, DSOC successfully demonstrated that data encoded in laser photons could be reliably transmitted, received, and then decoded after traveling millions of miles from Earth out to Mars distances. Nearly two years after launching aboard the agency’s Psyche mission in 2023, the demonstration completed its 65th and final “pass” on Sept. 2, 2025, sending a laser signal to Psyche and receiving the return signal from 218 million miles (350 million kilometers) away.
Text credit: Ian J. O’Neill
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Go Ahead, Write in the Margins—It’s Good for Your Brain
Annotating the margins of books is an important part of deep reading and has a long legacy of merit in both science and literature
Where you store fat may influence the effect it has on your brain
Where you store fat may influence the effect it has on your brain
Week in images: 15-19 September 2025
Week in images: 15-19 September 2025
Discover our week through the lens
Hubble Images Celestial Cigar’s Smoldering Heart
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2 min read
Hubble Images Celestial Cigar’s Smoldering Heart This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the central region of spiral galaxy Messier 82. ESA/Hubble & NASA, W. D. Vacca
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image reveals new details in Messier 82 (M82), home to brilliant stars whose light is shaded by sculptural clouds made of clumps and streaks of dust and gas. This image features the star-powered heart of the galaxy, located just 12 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major (the Great Bear). Popularly known as the Cigar Galaxy, M82 is considered a nearby galaxy.
It’s no surprise that M82 is packed with stars. The galaxy forms stars 10 times faster than the Milky Way. Astronomers call it a starburst galaxy. The intense starbirth period that grips this galaxy gave rise to super star clusters in the galaxy’s heart. Each of these super star clusters holds hundreds of thousands of stars and is more luminous than a typical star cluster. Researchers used Hubble to home in on these massive clusters and reveal how they form and evolve.
Hubble’s previous views of the galaxy captured ultraviolet and visible light in 2012 and near-infrared and visible light in 2006 to celebrate Hubble’s 16th anniversary. NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and Spitzer Space Telescope also imaged this starburst galaxy. Combining the visible and near-infrared light Hubble data with Chandra’s x-ray and Spitzer’s deeper infrared view provides a detailed look at the galaxy’s stars, along with the dust and gas from which stars form. More recently the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope turned its eye toward the galaxy, producing infrared images in 2024 and earlier this year. These multiple views at different wavelengths of light provide us with a more accurate and complete picture of this galaxy so that we can better understand its environment. Each of these NASA observatories delivers unique and complementary information about the galaxy’s physical processes. Combining their data yields insights that enhance our understanding in a way that no single observatory could accomplish alone. This image features something not seen in previously released Hubble images of the galaxy: data from the High Resolution Channel of the Advanced Camera for Surveys.
Explore MoreExplore the Night Sky: Messier 82
Happy Sweet Sixteen, Hubble Telescope!
Facebook logo @NASAHubble @NASAHubble Instagram logo @NASAHubble
Media Contact:
Claire Andreoli (claire.andreoli@nasa.gov)
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
Since its 1990 launch, the Hubble Space Telescope has changed our fundamental understanding of the universe.
Hubble Science Highlights
Hubble e-Books
Hubble Images
NASA Records More Than 6,000 Exoplanets and Counting
It’s a crowded galaxy, the latest exoplanet tally shows
Hubble Images Celestial Cigar’s Smoldering Heart
- Hubble Home
- Overview
- Impact & Benefits
- Science
- Observatory
- Team
- Multimedia
- News
- More
2 min read
Hubble Images Celestial Cigar’s Smoldering Heart This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the central region of spiral galaxy Messier 82. ESA/Hubble & NASA, W. D. VaccaThis NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image reveals new details in Messier 82 (M82), home to brilliant stars whose light is shaded by sculptural clouds made of clumps and streaks of dust and gas. This image features the star-powered heart of the galaxy, located just 12 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major (the Great Bear). Popularly known as the Cigar Galaxy, M82 is considered a nearby galaxy.
It’s no surprise that M82 is packed with stars. The galaxy forms stars 10 times faster than the Milky Way. Astronomers call it a starburst galaxy. The intense starbirth period that grips this galaxy gave rise to super star clusters in the galaxy’s heart. Each of these super star clusters holds hundreds of thousands of stars and is more luminous than a typical star cluster. Researchers used Hubble to home in on these massive clusters and reveal how they form and evolve.
Hubble’s previous views of the galaxy captured ultraviolet and visible light in 2012 and near-infrared and visible light in 2006 to celebrate Hubble’s 16th anniversary. NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and Spitzer Space Telescope also imaged this starburst galaxy. Combining the visible and near-infrared light Hubble data with Chandra’s x-ray and Spitzer’s deeper infrared view provides a detailed look at the galaxy’s stars, along with the dust and gas from which stars form. More recently the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope turned its eye toward the galaxy, producing infrared images in 2024 and earlier this year. These multiple views at different wavelengths of light provide us with a more accurate and complete picture of this galaxy so that we can better understand its environment. Each of these NASA observatories delivers unique and complementary information about the galaxy’s physical processes. Combining their data yields insights that enhance our understanding in a way that no single observatory could accomplish alone. This image features something not seen in previously released Hubble images of the galaxy: data from the High Resolution Channel of the Advanced Camera for Surveys.
Explore MoreExplore the Night Sky: Messier 82
Happy Sweet Sixteen, Hubble Telescope!
Facebook logo @NASAHubble @NASAHubble Instagram logo @NASAHubble
Media Contact:
Claire Andreoli (claire.andreoli@nasa.gov)
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
Since its 1990 launch, the Hubble Space Telescope has changed our fundamental understanding of the universe.
Hubble Science Highlights
Hubble e-Books
Hubble Images
How to Weigh a Black Hole
Gauging the mass of a black hole is tricky, but astronomers have devised multiple methods to measure the heft of these galactic gluttons
Quantum computers have finally achieved unconditional supremacy
Quantum computers have finally achieved unconditional supremacy
'Etymology Nerd' Adam Aleksic on How Internet Culture Is Transforming the Way We Talk
Linguist Adam Aleksic explains how viral slang and algorithm-driven speech aren’t destroying language––they’re accelerating its natural evolution.
85 new subglacial lakes detected below Antarctica
Hidden beneath the biggest ice mass on Earth, hundreds of subglacial lakes form a crucial part of Antarctica’s icy structure, affecting the movement and stability of glaciers, and consequentially influencing global sea level rise.
Thanks to a decade of data from the European Space Agency’s CryoSat satellite, researchers have identified 85 previously unknown lakes several kilometres under the frozen surface surrounding the South Pole. This increases the number of known active subglacial lakes below Antarctica by more than half to 231.