Looking somewhat like a swarm of bees returning to their hive, this NASA Hubble Space Telescope image released on June 12, 2026, features the galaxy cluster MACS0329-0211. Galaxy clusters like MACS0329-0211 are important signposts in the story of how the structure of the universe evolved, and are the ultimate telescopic lenses, placing gravitationally lensed galaxies from the earliest stages of the universe into our view.

Zoom into this galaxy swarm and you will find large, oval-shaped elliptical galaxies, and thin spiral and lenticular galaxies viewed from the edge. We can also see the full, face-on view of spiral galaxies and their curving spiral arms. The image’s upper-right quadrant holds faint arcs of distant galaxies gravitationally lensed by the cluster’s massive gravity. The largest of these arcs appears above the bright oval shape of a giant elliptical galaxy. Closer inspection of the image’s center reveals several bright-white intersecting curves that appear as a distorted figure eight. This may be another distant galaxy whose light was magnified and distorted by this massive cluster’s gravity.

Hubble looked at MACS0329-0211 as part of an observing program of X-ray bright galaxy clusters. Researchers used Hubble’s two main cameras, the Advanced Camera for Surveys and its Wide Field Camera 3, to gather data visible and infrared light from the cluster. Hubble’s ability to see such a broad spectrum of light makes it a valuable tool in understanding the very nature of these galaxy clusters.

Image credit: NASA, ESA, M. Postman (STScI); Image Processing: G. Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)

Low Water at San Carlos Reservoir

2026-06-17 04:01

June 7, 2023

May 22, 2026

The reservoir appears lake-like and expansive in an image acquired in June 2023.

NASA Earth Observatory/Michala Garrison

The reservoir is nearly empty by May 2026. The Gila River’s natural channel is now visible and flanked with green vegetation in what had been the bottom of the reservoir.

NASA Earth Observatory/Michala Garrison

The reservoir appears lake-like and expansive in an image acquired in June 2023.

NASA Earth Observatory/Michala Garrison

The reservoir is nearly empty by May 2026. The Gila River’s natural channel is now visible and flanked with green vegetation in what had been the bottom of the reservoir.

NASA Earth Observatory/Michala Garrison

June 7, 2023

May 22, 2026

Little water remains in the San Carlos Reservoir in May 2026 (right) compared to fuller conditions in June 2023 (left). Images were captured by the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on the Landsat 9 and 8 satellites, respectively. NASA Earth Observatory images by Michala Garrison.

The Gila River is among the Southwest’s most important rivers, delivering water for people, farms, and wildlife while linking the snow-fed mountains of southwestern New Mexico to the desert lowlands of southwestern Arizona.

In wetter years, seasonal snowfall on the Mogollon Mountains and Black Range provides much of the river’s spring flow and helps refill San Carlos Reservoir, which is formed by the Coolidge Dam. When filled to capacity, the reservoir is one of Arizona’s largest bodies of water.

However, in 2026, lackluster snowfall left the mountain snowpack in the Gila River watershed at 2 percent of the 1991-2020 March median. The limited snowpack pushed April streamflow to 39 percent of normal. By June, after mandatory water releases for downstream agriculture, the reservoir held less than 400 acre-feet of water.

The Landsat image above (right) shows the near-empty reservoir on May 22, 2026, when it stored 389 acre-feet of water—less than 1 percent full; the other image (left) shows the same area in June 2023, when it was about 60 percent full. The green vegetation growing along the river channel and reservoir edge includes a mixture of tamarisk, willow, cottonwood, sedges, and grasses.

Officials closed the reservoir indefinitely on June 5, 2026, after the declining water levels contributed to low oxygen levels—hypoxia—that killed virtually all of its fish. Species living in the reservoir included largemouth bass, black crappie, bluegill, channel catfish, flathead catfish, and several stocked species, including brown trout and rainbow trout. The decomposing fish may pose health risks to people attempting to boat or fish, the San Carlos Recreation and Wildlife Department warned.

The reservoir has hit similarly low water levels in the past, running out of water at least 20 times since it was filled in 1930, according to news reports. Even when the dam and reservoir were first dedicated, there was enough grass growing on the dried reservoir bottom that humorist Will Rogers famously quipped to President Calvin Coolidge: “If that was my lake, I’d mow it.”

Other years with major fish kills include 1976 and 2018. After more than 5 million fish died during a similar event in 1976, the Gila Herald reported that it took five years for the lake’s ecosystem to rebound.

The region is currently in the midst of a multi-year dry period that has left much of the Gila River’s headwaters in New Mexico in a state of severe drought, according to data from the U.S. Drought Monitor.

However, the river’s flow is highly variable, and heavy rains during the coming wet season could help the reservoir recover. A seasonal monsoon outlook released by NOAA in May 2026 projected a 33 to 50 percent chance that an above-average amount of rain would fall in the region that summer. El Niño in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific, which was strengthening in late spring 2026, can make heavy rains in the U.S. Southwest more likely.

NASA Earth Observatory images by Michala Garrison, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Story by Adam Voiland.

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References & Resources

Arizona Silver Belt (2026, April 23) Low water levels prompt lifted fishing limits at San Carlos Lake. Accessed June 16, 2026.
Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation (2015, March 4) 85 Years of the Coolidge Dam! Accessed June 16, 2026.
Gila Herald (2026, June 7) San Carlos Lake Closed Indefinitely Following Catastrophic “100% Fish Kill.” Accessed June 16, 2026.
Natural Resources Conservation Service (2026, April 1) New Mexico Water Supply Outlook Report. Accessed June 16, 2026.
National Weather Service (2026, May 21) 2026 Arizona Monsoon Outlook. Accessed June 16, 2026.
National Integrated Drought Information System (2026, June 9) Lower Colorado Region Watershed Drought Information. Accessed June 16, 2026.
National Weather Service (2026, May 4) Drought Information Statement for Southern NM/Far West TX. Accessed June 16, 2026.
Pinal Central (2026, June 6) San Carlos Reservoir level very low, but not unprecedented. Accessed June 16, 2026.
San Carlos Recreation and Wildlife Department (2026, June 5) San Carlos Lake Closure. Accessed June 16, 2026.
True West (2016, February 1) Will Rogers in Arizona. Accessed June 16, 2026.
The University of Arizona (2026, May 28) Southwest Climate Outlook. Accessed June 16, 2026.
U.S. Geological Survey (2026, June 15) San Carlos Reservoir at Coolidge Dam, AZ. Accessed June 16, 2026.
USA Today (2026, June 9) Massive fish kill forces indefinite closure of Arizona lake. Accessed June 16, 2026.
Western-Water (2026, June 8) San Carlos Reservoir: Drought kills every fish. Accessed June 16, 2026.

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NASA’s Webb Catches Exoplanet Getting Roasted

2026-06-16 21:15

4 Min Read

NASA’s Webb Catches Exoplanet Getting Roasted

Illustration of a planet and a star, labeled artist’s concept at the bottom left. The planet fills more than a quarter of the image to the upper right, with the bright star to its lower left. The planet is white hot on the star side, fading to yellow that mixes with swirls of bright red across its middle, and eventually fading to black on the side most distant from the star. Distant stars dot the background of space, which is black near the edges of the frame.

This artist’s concept shows exoplanet HD 80606 b being “roasted” as its orbit approaches periastron, the point at which it is closest to its host star, which is similar to our Sun.

Credits:
Artwork: NASA, ESA, CSA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI)

4 min read

NASA’s Webb Catches Exoplanet Getting Roasted

One well-done gas giant, coming right up! That’s the latest from researchers analyzing NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s observations of HD 80606 b, an exoplanet four times the mass of Jupiter with an extremely elliptical orbit that sweeps close by its Sun-like star. The research team is presenting their study and preliminary findings Tuesday at the 248th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Pasadena, California.

“Hot Jupiters are already considered some of the most extreme exoplanets we know of, but even among that population, HD 80606 b is one of the most extreme,” said Tiffany Kataria, the study’s principal investigator at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “We typically think of hot Jupiters as hot gas giants sitting right next to their stars, but this planet’s highly eccentric orbit creates a completely different beast.”

As the planet plunges close to its star, Webb shows its temperature skyrockets by 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit. Previous studies have shown that radical temperature swings can cause an exoplanet’s chemistry and clouds to change in real time. According to the research team, the dynamic conditions of HD 80606 b make the planet an ideal target to observe these changes with Webb’s powerful instruments.

Image: Artist’s concept exoplanet HD 80606 b

Illustration of a planet and a star, labeled artistu2019s concept at the bottom left. The planet fills more than a quarter of the image to the upper right, with the bright star to its lower left. The planet is white hot on the star side, fading to yellow that mixes with swirls of bright red across its middle, and eventually fading to black on the side most distant from the star. Distant stars dot the background of space, which is black near the edges of the frame.

This artist’s concept shows exoplanet HD 80606 b being “roasted” as its orbit approaches periastron, the point at which it is closest to its host star, which is similar to our Sun.

Artwork: NASA, ESA, CSA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI)

“Observing a planet like HD 80606 b is actually very efficient because its unusual orbit, with the corresponding swings in temperature and chemical composition, allow us to gather data under varying conditions in just hours and apply those findings to other hot Jupiters or more conventional exoplanets,” said Laura C. Mayorga, co-investigator on the study and an exoplanet astronomer at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.

Measurements of temperature and chemical composition were done with spectroscopy, a technique scientists use to break light into its component colors to reveal information about the composition, temperature, motion, and physical properties of objects in space. The team used Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) for an extended observation of HD 80606 b before, during, and after its periastron, or closest pass by its star. During periastron, the planet also passed behind the star from Webb’s perspective in what’s known as a secondary eclipse. The observation was years in the planning, as scheduling the time to catch the planet at this point was complex given its extremely elliptical 111-day orbit, and Webb’s own restrictions on where it can look during specific times of the year, based on Earth’s position in orbit around the Sun.

Researchers say they have only begun to peel back the layers of an incredibly rich dataset, but they can clearly see a dramatic shift in the exoplanet’s temperature. “Webb has shown that the planet’s increase in temperature was even more extreme than we anticipated based on Spitzer data,” said Kataria.

In fact, the planet had already been dubbed the “roasted exoplanet” and even got its own poster in NASA’s popular series. NASA’s now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope laid the groundwork of infrared observations of HD 80606 b, showing that more detailed spectroscopic data from Webb would be especially compelling.

“Spitzer did amazing work on this exoplanet, and now Webb is building on that legacy by enabling us to drill down to distinguish specific chemical signatures like methane and carbon dioxide, which is just amazing progress,” said Ryan Challener, co-author and research associate at the Cornell Center for Astrophysics and Planetary Science. “There’s so much to learn from this one dataset here — we really are just getting started deciphering what Webb has to tell us.”

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).

For more information on Webb, visit:

science.nasa.gov/webb

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HD 80606 b (Artist’s Concept)

This artist’s concept shows exoplanet HD 80606 b being “roasted” as its orbit approaches periastron, the point at which it is closest to its host star, which is similar to our Sun.

Este Artículo en Español – “Telescopio Webb de la NASA Detecta un Exoplaneto Asandose”

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Jun 17, 2026

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Astronaut Jessica Meir Assists With Hardware Updates for NASA’s Cold Atom Lab

2026-06-16 20:41

2 Min Read

Astronaut Jessica Meir Assists With Hardware Updates for NASA’s Cold Atom Lab

A woman in a black T-shirt with a headlamp affixed to her head and her hair floating up above her wears latex gloves to handle cabling that she’s working on. Wires, a laptop computer, and other equipment surround her.

PIA26725

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Astronaut Jessica Meir Assists With Hardware Updates for NASA’s Cold Atom Lab

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NASA astronaut Jessica Meir inspects optical fibers while installing hardware updates to the agency’s Cold Atom Lab, or CAL, aboard the International Space Station on May 8, 2026.

About the size of a minifridge and operated from Earth, CAL chills atoms to temperatures below minus 459 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 273.15 degrees Celsius), so close to absolute zero that they form a large quantum object called a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) — a fifth state of matter distinct from solids, liquids, gases, and plasma. In a BEC, scientists can observe the quantum properties of atoms at a scale visible to the naked eye. For instance, atoms and particles sometimes behave like solid objects and sometimes behave like waves, a quantum property called “wave-particle duality.”

Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory designed, built, and operates Cold Atom Lab, which is sponsored by the Biological and Physical Sciences (BPS) division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. The BPS division pioneers scientific discovery and enables exploration by using space environments to conduct investigations that are not possible on Earth. Studying biological and physical phenomena under extreme conditions allows researchers to advance the fundamental scientific knowledge required to go farther and stay longer in space, while also benefiting life on Earth. 

To learn more about Cold Atom Lab, visit:

https://coldatomlab.jpl.nasa.gov/

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NASA Webb, Hubble Reveal History of Relic of Milky Way’s Formation

2026-06-16 17:15

7 Min Read

NASA Webb, Hubble Reveal History of Relic of Milky Way’s Formation

A dramatically crowded starfield that looks like a just-shaken snow globe. The black background of space, which is clearer at the edges, is covered by thousands of tiny white, orange, and blue points of light, which are stars. The stars are most concentrated in the center, forming a roughly circular orb, and sparser at the edges of the image. Several larger orange stars, particularly those largest near the edges of the frame, have prominent diffraction spikes.

New observations from Webb combined with multiple observations from Hubble prove that Terzan 5 is a self-contained, self-enriching stellar system that contains up to four distinct star populations. It orbits within our Milky Way galaxy’s central bulge.

Credits:
Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Giorgia Zullo (University of Bologna), Francesco Ferraro (University of Bologna); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

Researchers using two of humanity’s most powerful observatories — NASA’s James Webb and Hubble Space Telescopes — have definitively shown that Terzan 5 is not a globular star cluster as it was once classified, offering new insight into how galaxies like our own form and evolve over time. A globular star cluster typically has only one ancient star population. New data not only confirms the existence of two distinct populations of stars in Terzan 5, but also provides evidence for two more recent rounds of star formation. Although located within the crowded bulge of our Milky Way, our galaxy’s central, spherical region of older stars, Terzan 5 was massive enough to maintain its separate identity while lighter weight systems spread out and mixed to form the bulge billions of years ago. It’s like a lump in an otherwise well-mixed cake batter.

“Webb’s new near-infrared observations, cross-referenced with Hubble’s archival observations, have given us a much clearer picture of the history of Terzan 5,” said Giorgia Zullo, who led the research and is a PhD student at the University of Bologna in Italy.

These results were presented at a press conference Tuesday at the 248th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Pasadena, and were published in Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Image: Bulge Fossil Fragment Terzan 5 (Webb and Hubble Image)

Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Giorgia Zullo (University of Bologna), Francesco Ferraro (University of Bologna); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

Four generations of stars

Discovered in 1968 by astronomer Azop Terzan, Terzan 5 resembles a globular cluster in many ways. However, in 2009 this system was discovered to harbor two distinct populations of stars. In 2016 Hubble provided the first estimate of their ages, showing that one formed roughly 12 billion years ago — as the Milky Way itself was assembling — and the other about 5 billion years ago, just before Earth started forming. This pointed to a more complex history than a typical globular cluster.

Studying Terzan 5 is complicated by its location in a region of our galaxy crowded with stars and heavily obscured by dust. This is where Webb stepped in. Its infrared view allowed the research team to peer through the dust and catalog many more stars, and fainter stars, than previous work. By measuring star colors and brightnesses, astronomers can classify them into populations of different ages and chemistries.

Webb was able to measure these key properties for every star within the field of view in the sky — both stars within Terzan 5 and unrelated foreground stars. To isolate the stars of Terzan 5, the team relied on the power and longevity of Hubble. The 12-year separation allowed the team to measure very small movements of individual stars, known as proper motions, to determine which stars belong to Terzan 5 and which are part of the Milky Way bulge.

By combining data from both Webb and Hubble, the researchers found strong evidence for two more stellar populations, one that formed 3.8 billion years ago and another only 2.5 billion years ago. They also were able to determine the ages of the previously known stellar populations with unprecedented precision, finding that they formed 12.5 billion and 4.7 billion years ago.

With the previously known two generations of stars, astronomers could not rule out the possibility that Terzan 5 interacted with another object, like a globular cluster or a giant molecular cloud, becoming enriched with new gas and dust that set off a second round of star formation. With four stellar generations, those explanations are ruled out.

Measurements of the stellar composition of Terzan 5 populations made at the W. M. Keck Observatory and European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope also point toward very distinct populations. “Along with the ages of these populations, the cluster preserves a fossil record of progressive enrichment of heavy elements by supernovae,” said co-author R. Michael Rich, a research astronomer at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Terzan 5 formed multiple generations of stars because it was able to retain the necessary raw materials. There is evidence of powerful supernova explosions in Terzan 5 that forged heavier elements that were swept up by subsequent generations of stars. In lighter weight systems, the force of the explosions themselves could have ejected the resulting elements as well as sweeping out leftover gas and dust. The progenitor of Terzan 5 had enough mass to retain those stars’ ejections, allowing new generations of stars to form over billions of years.

‘Bulge fossil fragment’

The results show that Terzan 5 is most likely the remnant of a much more massive stellar system that initially formed 12.5 billion years ago. Terzan 5 is extraordinary because it survived — and never merged or fully “mixed in” with the Milky Way’s bulge. “For some reason, this peculiar clump of stars formed separately from the bulge and was not destroyed as the bulge itself formed,” said Francesco R. Ferraro, a professor at the University of Bologna and principal investigator of the Webb observations. “Terzan 5 is what we now call a bulge fossil fragment because it resembles the primordial clumps that contributed to the formation of the bulge.”

To date, there’s one other known cosmic object like Terzan 5. Liller 1 was the second to be reclassified from a globular star cluster to a bulge fossil fragment. It also contains multiple generations of stars. There may be more objects like it. Between 40 to 50 additional globular clusters that orbit within the bulge will be examined by Ferraro’s team to determine if their stellar populations are all the same, like globular clusters, or have several generations, like bulge fossil fragments.

Video: Zoom to See Terzan 5 Near Our Milky Way Galaxy’s Bulge

Zoom in to Terzan 5, a star cluster that lies within the crowded central region of our Milky Way galaxy known as the bulge. The scene starts with a ground-based image of our Milky Way bulge and zooms in on and circles Terzan 5, ending with the composite image of the star system from the James Webb and Hubble Space Telescopes.

Video: NASA, ESA, CSA, Alyssa Pagan (STScI); Acknowledgment: ESO, Pan-STARRS, DSS2, Akira Fujii

Potential parallels for galaxy formation near, far

Ultimately, this research may improve what we know about how the central bulges of galaxies form over hundreds of millions of years. “Based on observations and in-depth simulations, we think that galaxies in the early universe had huge disks of gas that fragmented into clumps and formed stars. These clumps migrated to the center of the galaxies, and many merged to form their bulges,” said Barbara Lanzoni, a co-author and associate professor at the University of Bologna. For example, Webb has turned up several examples of “clumpy” galaxies that were actively forming when the universe was only a few hundred million years old, like the clumps in the Firefly Sparkle galaxy. “Terzan 5 may provide direct evidence that can help explain how bulges formed in galaxies throughout the universe,” Lanzoni said.

The Hubble Space Telescope has been operating for over three decades and continues to make ground-breaking discoveries that shape our fundamental understanding of the universe. Hubble is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope and mission operations. Lockheed Martin Space, based in Denver, also supports mission operations at Goddard. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, conducts Hubble science operations for NASA.

To learn more about Webb, visit:

https://science.nasa.gov/webb

To learn more about Hubble, visit:

https://science.nasa.gov/hubble

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Bulge Fossil Fragment Terzan 5 (Webb and Hubble Image)

Image titled u201cJames Webb and Hubble Space Telescopes; Terzan 5,u201d with compass arrows and color key. A dramatically crowded starfield that looks like a just-shaken snow globe. The black background of space is covered by thousands of tiny white, orange, and blue points of light, which are stars. The stars are most concentrated in the center, forming a roughly circular orb. At the bottom left are compass arrows indicating the orientation of the image on the sky. The east arrow points toward 12 ou2019clock. The north arrow points toward 3 ou2019clock. At the bottom right is a scale bar labeled 2 light-years. The length of the scale bar is about one seventh of the total image. Below the image is a color key showing which Hubble ACS/WFC and Webb NIRCam filters were used to create the image, and which visible-light color is assigned to each filter. Hubble ACS filters, from left to right: F606W is blue and F814W is teal. Webb NIRCam filters: F115W is orange, F200W is red.

Terzan 5 (Webb and Hubble Compass Image)

This image of bulge fossil fragment Terzan 5 was captured by the James Webb and Hubble space telescopes. Webb’s data are from its NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and Hubble’s from its Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). The image shows a scale bar, compass arrows, and co…