NASA
Every Cosmic Herald story on NASA — missions, launches, discoveries, and the business of space, newest first.
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Science & Discovery
From one solar system to six thousand worlds
Thirty years after the first planet was found around a Sun-like star, NASA's confirmed exoplanet count has passed 6,000 — almost none of them ever directly imaged. The methods that found them now drive a far harder pursuit: reading their atmospheres for signs of life.
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Science & Discovery
A nearby dwarf galaxy is a blueprint for the universe's first dust
Webb found unexpected dust-making in Sextans A, a chemically primitive dwarf galaxy — evidence that the earliest galaxies could forge solid grains by pathways unlike those that dominate today.
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Science & Discovery
Saturn's wandering spin was never real — Webb found the culprit
For decades Saturn appeared to change its rotation rate, which should be impossible. Using Webb, researchers showed the 'change' was aurora-driven winds distorting the measurement — a planetary heat pump feeding itself.
