Corey S. Powell

@coreyspowell

Fascinated by things very big, very small, and beyond the limits of the human senses. Founder of OpenMind: www.openmindmag.org Creator of the Invisible Universe column:

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Corey S. Powell@coreyspowell· 26d

It's hard to describe how challenging it is to detect air on a planet 49 light years from Earth. Imagine figuring out how to collect these data...then to look at these results and realize, "I see traces of a helium atmosphere!" But they did it. Full paper: 🔭🧪 www.science.org/content/arti...

Mean helium absorption, calculated from 10,833 to 10,834 Å, as a function of time, measured relative to the mid-transit time () of LHS 1140b. Gray points are all observed spectra, and black points have been binned by a factor of three (17 min). The pink shaded regions indicate the data used to construct the stellar template.

Corey S. Powell@coreyspowell· 26d

Very exciting! First clear detection of an atmosphere around an Earth-size planet in the habitable zone of another star. This is a big step forward in figuring out if "potentially habitable" planets are actually habitable & if red dwarf stars could sustain life. 🧪🔭 www.science.org/content/arti...

This artist conceptualization shows the exoplanet LHS 1140 b in the foreground surrounded by a helium-rich atmosphere. In the distance is its red dwarf star orbited by another rocky planet. Melissa Weiss/Center for Astrophysics

Corey S. Powell@coreyspowell· 27d

At such low temperatures, atoms turn into a Bose Einstein Condensate--a quantum blur in which the quantum waves of matter become observable on a macroscopic scale. The Space Station is a great place to study this state, where it isn't disturbed by gravity's pull. 🔭🧪 science.nasa.gov/mission/cold...

(Top) Condensate atom cloud imaged in the IR with decreasing temperature. (Bottom) Temperature contour plot showing the atom cloud.

Corey S. Powell@coreyspowell· 27d

It boggles my brain that the coldest place in all of known outer space is sitting in a box on the International Space Station, where temperatures go as low as 1/20,000,000,000th of a degree above absolute zero. And NASA's Cold Atom Lab just got an upgrade. 🧪🔭 www.techtimes.com/articles/318...

Astronaut Jessica Meir inspects optical fibers while installing hardware updates to NASA’s Cold Atom Lab, or CAL, aboard the International Space Station on May 8, 2026. About the size of a minifridge, CAL enables researchers to explore quantum physics. Image: NASA

Corey S. Powell@coreyspowell· 28d

It's a fine line between a Bussard ramjet and a cocktail shaker.

Bussard ramjet. Or is it a cocktail shaker?

Cocktail shaker. Or is it a Bussard ramjet?

Corey S. Powell@coreyspowell· 28d

We now know that interstellar clouds are full of water, alcohols, sugars, and esters. All the basic molecular components you need to make an Old Fashioned or a Margarita. 🧪🔭 www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/cheers-...

This stunning new mosaic of images from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope showcases the nearby star-forming cluster, NGC 1333, which contains IRAS 2A. The nebula is in the Perseus molecular cloud, and located approximately 960 light-years away.

Webb’s superb sensitivity allows astronomers to investigate young objects with extremely low masses. Some of the faintest ‘stars’ in the picture are in fact newly born free-floating brown dwarfs with masses comparable to those of giant planets.

Corey S. Powell@coreyspowell· 28d

For the first time, astronomers have detected sugar molecules (erythrulose, to be precise) in deep space, floating near the center of our galaxy. It adds to the evidence for complex prebiotic carbon chemistry in interstellar clouds, even before planets form. 🧪🔭 cen.acs.org/physical-che...

An image of the Milky Way captured by the MeerKAT radio telescope array spans 1,000 light-years. At the center of the MeerKAT image the region surrounding the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole blazes bright. Huge vertical filamentary structures echo those captured on a smaller scale by Webb in Sagittarius C’s blue-green hydrogen cloud. Like a super-long exposure photograph, MeerKAT shows the bubble-like remnants of supernovas that exploded over millennia, capturing the dynamic nature of the Milky Way’s chaotic core.

Corey S. Powell@coreyspowell· Jul 12

Five years ago, an experiment at the south pole detected a neutrino 500 trillion times as energetic as visible light. Now we've spotted the likely source: the "Shadow Blaster" galaxy, a staggering 11 billion light years away. 🔭🧪 noirlab.edu/public/news/...

Left: the field around the gravitationally lensed galaxy nicknamed “Shadow Blaster.” This galaxy lies 11 billion light-years away and sits just behind the bright red galaxy at the center of this image.

Center: a close-up of the gravitational lens in which the red foreground galaxy is causing the light from the more distant Shadow Blaster galaxy to bend around it, creating multiple distorted images of the galaxy that appear as yellow arcs.

Right: a close-up of the gravitationally lensed Shadow Blaster galaxy.

Corey S. Powell@coreyspowell· Jul 8

Theorists call this type of hybrid, double-star-death a "superkilonova." Physical conditions in a supernova are so extreme that new neutron stars can be created and destroyed in a matter of hours. Full paper at link. 🧪🔭 iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3...

The discovery of the superkilonova "ZTF 25abjmnps."

Upper left: zoomed-in sky map of S250818k, with the 50% and 95% contours marked by gray lines, and the position of ZTF 25abjmnps marked by a white star. The other excluded ZTF candidates are marked by black dots. ZTF 25abjmnps lies within the central 50% region, close to the center. Center: zoomed-out sky map of S250818k. Lower left: line-of-sight distance at the position of ZTF 25abjmnps. The median GW distance (262 Mpc) at the location of ZTF 25abjmnps is illustrated with the vertical dotted black line, and the shaded regions correspond to the ±1σ, ±2σ, and ±3σ regions. The luminosity distance of ZTF 25abjmnps is illustrated with the dashed red line and lies within 2σ of the median value. Right: false-color ZTF discovery image of ZTF 25abjmnps in the g band and r band (top), alongside the template reference image (center) and difference image (bottom). Differencing yields a clean PSF-like excess in both filters at the location of the transient.

Corey S. Powell@coreyspowell· Jul 8

A supernova marks the death of a star. But in the case of supernova AT2025ulz, it seems a star died twice. A massive star exploded. Its dense, spinning remains then clumped into two neutron stars, like newborn planets, which collided & exploded again. Wild! 🧪🔭 keckobservatory.org/superkilonova/

Artist interpretation depicts a hypothesized event known as a superkilonova. Initially, a massive star explodes in a supernova, which generates elements like carbon and iron (left). In the aftermath, two neutron stars are born, at least one of which is believed to be less massive than our Sun (middle). The neutron stars spiral together, sending gravitational waves rippling through the cosmos, before merging in a dramatic kilonova (right). Kilonovae seed the universe with the heaviest elements, such as gold at platinum, which glow in red light as depicted in the animation. Credit: Caltech/K. Miller and R. Hurt (IPAC)

Corey S. Powell@coreyspowell· Jul 8

"Thank you for sharing your thoughts about about IRAN, UKRAINE, and the unfolding situation in MAINE..."

Corey S. Powell@coreyspowell· Jul 7

There is so much happening in the heart of Centaurus A. A massive black hole (within the bright central dot) birthing and disrupting new stars. Birth & death intertwined. And complex structures, puzzling, never seen before. A lot of cosmic mystery to untangle. 🧪🔭 esawebb.org/images/weic2...

The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) reveals the nearby galaxy Centaurus A, exposing the dusty structures and hidden activity that shape this unusual system. Webb’s infrared vision pierces thick lanes of dust that obscure much of the galaxy in visible light, unveiling intricate filaments, loops, and glowing clouds of warm dust stretching across its centre. At the heart of the galaxy, an actively feeding supermassive black hole shines brightly, surrounded by complex structures sculpted by a past galactic collision and ongoing activity.

Corey S. Powell@coreyspowell· Jul 7

Infrared images from JWST pierce the gloom & reveal Centaurus A's inner workings: Streams of stars from two colliding galaxies. New stars forming from the wreckage. A black hole, 100 million times as massive as the Sun, shooting jet & disrupting its surroundings. 🧪🔭 esawebb.org/news/weic2615/

This ground-based image of nearby galaxy Centaurus A from the European Southern Observatory (top left) puts the near-infrared and mid-infrared views from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope image into context.

Corey S. Powell@coreyspowell· Jul 7

Centaurus A is the quintessential "peculiar" galaxy. It's a powerful source of radio & x-rays. It looks like two galaxies that smashed into each other. I stared at photos of it for years, wondering what was going on. Now observations from JWST are providing answers. 🧪🔭 esawebb.org/news/weic2615/

Centaurus A is one of the foremost examples of a radio-loud active galactic nucleus (AGN). On images obtained at optical wavelengths, thick dust layers almost completely obscure the galaxy's centre. This structure was first reported by Sir John Herschel in 1847. Until 1949, NGC 5128 was thought to be a strange object in the Milky Way, but it was then identified as a powerful radio galaxy and designated Centaurus A. The distance is about 10-13 million light-years (3-4 Mpc) and the apparent visual magnitude is about 8, or 5 times too faint to be seen with the unaided eye.There is strong evidence that Centaurus A is a merger of an elliptical with a spiral galaxy, since elliptical galaxies would not have had enough dust and gas to form the young, blue stars seen along the edges of the dust lane. The core of Centaurus A is the smallest known extragalactic radio source, only 10 light-days across. A jet of high-energy particles from this center is observed in radio and X-ray images. The core probably contains a supermassive black hole with a mass of about 100 million solar masses.

Corey S. Powell@coreyspowell· Jul 7

Hayabusa2 is continuing on to a strange little object called 1998 KY26, which rotates once every 5 minutes--so fast that objects at its equator fly off into space. It also changes its orbit slightly, perhaps by emitting gas or flinging off rocks. 🔭🧪 www.isas.jaxa.jp/en/missions/...

Three views of a computer model of 1998 KY26, derived from radar observations in 1998

Corey S. Powell@coreyspowell· Jul 6

If all goes well, Tianwen-2 will have a spectacular second act. Its next target is an intriguing "rock comet" called 311P/PanSTARRS, an active asteroid that seems to be shooting out tails of rubble. 🧪🔭 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/311P/Pa...

Comet 311P/PanSTARRS imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope on 10–23 September 2013.

Corey S. Powell@coreyspowell· Jul 6

Kamoʻoalewa is tiny--the smallest asteroid yet observed up close. It's less than 30 meters (100 feet) wide! 🔭🧪

Kamo'oalewa is the smallest asteroid visited by humanity to date, with a maximum dimension of only ~30 meters. The record was previously held by Dimorphos (~170 meters across), the impact target for the DART mission in 2022.

Corey S. Powell@coreyspowell· Jul 6

China's Tianwen-2 also just arrived at near-Earth asteroid Kamoʻoalewa, a "quasi-satellite" of our planet. The spacecraft will study the asteroid & retrieve samples. We're making great strides in exploring the millions of small objects in our solar system. 🔭🧪 www.xinhuanet.com/20260706/eb8...

On July 2, 2026, the Tianwen-2 probe took an image of asteroid 2016HO3 at a distance of approximately 20 kilometers. (Image provided by China National Space Administration)

Corey S. Powell@coreyspowell· Jul 6

Amazing flyby: Japan's Hayabusa2 just made a high-precision flyby of previously unexplored asteroid Torifune. The probe was traveling at 3 miles per second, and skimmed just about half a mile from the asteroid! First images coming in now. 🧪🔭 www.jaxa.jp/press/2026/0...

Asteroid Trifune as seen by the Telephoto Optical Navigation Camera (ONC-T) on the Hayabusa2 probe.

Corey S. Powell@coreyspowell· Jul 5

NASA & Katalyst Space are attempting to rescue the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, a powerful gamma-ray telescope that's on a death-spiral toward Earth. A booster spacecraft, called Link, is now on its way. It will attempt to grab Swift & lift it to safety. 🧪🔭 spacenews.com/pegasus-laun...

An illustration of Katalyst Space’s Link spacecraft (left) approaching NASA’s Swift gamma-ray observatory. Credit: Katalyst Space

Corey S. Powell@coreyspowell· Jul 4

There are many strange and wonderful things about WD 1856b. It is 7 times the diameter of its star. It orbits at 1/50th the distance from Earth to the Sun. It survived being baked & blasted. And yet it seems like a fairly normal, Jupiter-like planet. 🧪🔭 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

JWST NIRSpec PRISM transit observations of the white dwarf planet WD 1856 b integrated over two broadband wavelength regions: 0.55–1.71 μm (blue data points) and 4.19–4.96 μm (red data points). The best-fitting model transit light curves are overplotted (blue and red curves). The transit event is shallower at longer wavelengths owing to planetary thermal emission diluting the transit depth. The top schematic depicts the grazing transit geometry of the WD 1856 system, with the planet and white dwarf shown to scale.

Corey S. Powell@coreyspowell· Jul 4

Somehow, planet WD 1856b survived the death of its star intact, and then migrated into a tight, stable orbit around the star's collapsed remains. Astronomers have found that planets are remarkably resilient, forming & persisting in the most unlikely places. 🧪🔭 science.nasa.gov/missions/web...

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope measured the constituents of exoplanet WD 1856 b as it passed in front of its star, finding signs of methane. WD 1856 b orbits a white dwarf star the size of Earth. As a result, the planet blocks more than half of the star’s light. The main image is an illustration of the likely appearance of the system.

Corey S. Powell@coreyspowell· Jul 1

In three years, the Deep Synoptic Array will apply the same concept to the radio sky. It will be the first celestial "radio camera," providing constantly updated images of the universe seen in radio waves. 🔭🧪 www.deepsynoptic.org

Plan for the Deep Synoptic Array, under construction in Nevada

Corey S. Powell@coreyspowell· Jul 1

The largest camera ever built is making the greatest cosmic movie ever shot, scanning a "frame" of the entire universe every few days for 10 years. And it all starts...now. 🧪🔭 rubinobservatory.org/news/action-...

This 1.7-gigapixel image of a field of stars in the constellation Lupus showcases the unprecedented view of the Universe that NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory gives us. Equipped with the LSST Camera — the largest digital camera in the world — Rubin combines a wide view of the sky with the ability to detect extremely faint objects. With this capability, Rubin can reveal details of the cosmos across an enormous range of scales, from distant galaxies, to individual stars, to the wispy clouds of dust spread throughout our galaxy.

Corey S. Powell@coreyspowell· Jun 26

While Artemis II astronauts looped the Moon, the PUNCH satellites monitored the Sun for dangerous radiation. This time, levels of solar protons were modest--but PUNCH will be increasingly important as more astronauts venture outside Earth's magnetic field. 🧪🔭 punch.space.swri.edu/punch_news.p...

The coronal mass ejection (CME) of April 1-2 2026 started fast and low in the corona, blasting its way out through the solar wind to a distance more than halfway to Earth's orbit as viewed by the PUNCH spacecraft (2026-04-02 12:00 UT).

Corey S. Powell@coreyspowell· Jun 23

Comet 3I/ATLAS, the interstellar visitor that blew through our solar system, might have been a truly ancient relic. A new analysis of its unusual composition suggests the comet could be up to 12 billion years old, dating from the earliest era of our galaxy. 🧪🔭 esawebb.org/news/weic2613/

Measurements of specific element varieties by Webb’s NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) instrument show how different the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is from comets originating in our own Solar System. Researchers used NIRSpec to measure carbon-13, which contains an extra neutron, relative to the more common carbon-12. They also measured the abundance of heavy hydrogen, which is a hydrogen atom with an added neutron.

Webb’s NIRSpec found a surprisingly large amount of heavy hydrogen, with a low abundance of carbon-13, indicating that 3I/ATLAS came from a place very different from our own Solar System. Researchers say early analysis of these results indicates that 3I/ATLAS was ejected from its origin system billions of years ago.

Corey S. Powell@coreyspowell· Jun 17

For the first time, scientists have detected the wind from a black hole. New images show the supermassive one at the center of our galaxy is puffing away, clearing out a void about 20 trillion miles wide. 🧪🔭 www.almaobservatory.org/en/press-rel...

Composite image of the region around Sagittarius A* (marked by the white dot). Orange colors show ALMA observations at 230 GHz, which traces cold clouds of carbon monoxide gas. Blue colors show x-ray emission measured by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, which traces hot plasma. The lack of cold gas in the highlighted cone—which is 3 light-years across—is evidence of an outflowing wind.

Corey S. Powell@coreyspowell· Jun 14

Then there are the puzzling "little red dots" seen by JWST, which seemed confound standard models of the early universe. Now it looks like we have a sensible explanation: At least some of them are pseudo-stars that are really black holes in thick cocoons of gas. 🔭🧪 esawebb.org/news/weic2610/

The little red dot that would come to be known as GLIMPSE-17775 was fortunately included in the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope’s field of view as it was observing galaxy cluster Abell S1063 for a different scientific purpose. GLIMPSE-17775 is located behind the galaxy cluster and has a cosmological redshift of 3.5, meaning it existed about 1.8 billion years after the Big Bang.

Since galaxy clusters like Abell S1063 are some of the most massive objects in the Universe, light emitted by objects farther away can become distorted as it reaches the telescope. This effect is known as gravitational lensing. The combination of Webb’s 30 hours of observing time and gravitational lensing enabled scientists to obtain the deepest spectrum to date of a little red dot. The result: the strongest evidence to date of a hot, dense gas cocoon known as a “black hole star.”

Corey S. Powell@coreyspowell· Jun 14

Our modern picture of the universe is strange, but the evidence keeps supporting it. A new study refutes an earlier claim questioning our ideas about dark energy. As far as we can tell, hidden energy is still making the universe expand faster & faster. 🔭🧪 ras.ac.uk/news-and-pre...