These images show Jupiter moon Io obtained at different infrared wavelengths with the W. M. Keck Observatory 10-meter Keck II telescope on Aug. 15, 2013 a-c, and the Gemini North telescope on Aug. 29, 2013 d.

At the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii, NASA astronomers have linked the two 10-meter 33-foot telescopes at the W. M. Keck Observatory. The linked telescopes, together are called the Keck Interferometer, the world most powerful optical telescope system.

At the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii, NASA astronomers have linked the two 10-meter 33-foot telescopes at the W. M. Keck Observatory. The linked telescopes, together are called the Keck Interferometer, the world most powerful optical telescope system.

A dusty planetary system left is compared to another system with little dust in this artist concept. Dust can make it difficult for telescopes to image planets because light from the dust can outshine that of the planets.

Red-Hot Saturn

Saturn Hot Spot

This frame from an artist animation shows the view from a hypothetical moon in orbit around the first known planet to reside in a tight-knit triple-star system. HD 188553 Ab is a gas giant planet, about 1.14 times the mass of Jupiter.

This frame from an artist animation shows the clockwork-like orbits of a triple-star system called HD 188753, which was discovered to harbor a gas giant, or hot Jupiter, planet.

This image shows the dusty disk of planetary material surrounding the young star HD 141569, located 380 light-years away from Earth. It was taken using the vortex coronagraph on the W.M. Keck Observatory. The vortex suppressed light from the star in the center, revealing light from the innermost ring of planetary material around the star (blue). The disk around the star, made of olivine particles, extends from 23 to 70 astronomical units from the star. By comparison, Uranus is over 19 astronomical units from our sun, and Neptune about 30 astronomical units. One astronomical unit is the distance between Earth and our sun. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA21090

This image shows brown dwarf HIP 79124 B, located 23 times as far from its host star as Earth is from the sun. The vortex coronagraph, an instrument at the W.M. Keck Observatory, was used to suppress light from the much brighter host star, allowing its dim companion to be imaged for the first time. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA21417

This plot shows that a pulsar, the remnant of a stellar explosion, is surrounded by a disk of its own ashes. The disk, revealed by the two data points at the far right from NASA Spitzer Space Telescope, is the first ever found around a pulsar.

This is a Hubble Space Telescope image of the farthest spectroscopically confirmed galaxy observed to date (inset). It was identified in this Hubble image of a field of galaxies in the CANDELS survey (Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey). NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope also observed the unique galaxy. The W. M. Keck Observatory was used to obtain a spectroscopic redshift (z=7.7), extending the previous redshift record. Measurements of the stretching of light, or redshift, give the most reliable distances to other galaxies. This source is thus currently the most distant confirmed galaxy known, and it appears to also be one of the brightest and most massive sources at that time. The galaxy existed over 13 billion years ago. The near-infrared light image of the galaxy (inset) has been colored blue as suggestive of its young, and hence very blue, stars. The CANDELS field is a combination of visible-light and near-infrared exposures. Credits: NASA, ESA, P. Oesch (Yale U.)

This is a Hubble Space Telescope image of the farthest spectroscopically confirmed galaxy observed to date (inset). It was identified in this Hubble image of a field of galaxies in the CANDELS survey (Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey). NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope also observed the unique galaxy. The W. M. Keck Observatory was used to obtain a spectroscopic redshift (z=7.7), extending the previous redshift record. Measurements of the stretching of light, or redshift, give the most reliable distances to other galaxies. This source is thus currently the most distant confirmed galaxy known, and it appears to also be one of the brightest and most massive sources at that time. The galaxy existed over 13 billion years ago. The near-infrared light image of the galaxy (inset) has been colored blue as suggestive of its young, and hence very blue, stars. The CANDELS field is a combination of visible-light and near-infrared exposures. Read more: <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/astronomers-set-a-new-galaxy-distance-record" rel="nofollow">www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/astronomers-set-a-new-galaxy...</a> Credits: NASA, ESA, P. Oesch (Yale U.) <b><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelines.html" rel="nofollow">NASA image use policy.</a></b> <b><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/home/index.html" rel="nofollow">NASA Goddard Space Flight Center</a></b> enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission. <b>Follow us on <a href="http://twitter.com/NASAGoddardPix" rel="nofollow">Twitter</a></b> <b>Like us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Greenbelt-MD/NASA-Goddard/395013845897?ref=tsd" rel="nofollow">Facebook</a></b> <b>Find us on <a href="http://instagrid.me/nasagoddard/?vm=grid" rel="nofollow">Instagram</a></b>

This is a Hubble Space Telescope image of the farthest spectroscopically confirmed galaxy observed to date (inset). It was identified in this Hubble image of a field of galaxies in the CANDELS survey (Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey). NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope also observed the unique galaxy. The W. M. Keck Observatory was used to obtain a spectroscopic redshift (z=7.7), extending the previous redshift record. Measurements of the stretching of light, or redshift, give the most reliable distances to other galaxies. This source is thus currently the most distant confirmed galaxy known, and it appears to also be one of the brightest and most massive sources at that time. The galaxy existed over 13 billion years ago. The near-infrared light image of the galaxy (inset) has been colored blue as suggestive of its young, and hence very blue, stars. The CANDELS field is a combination of visible-light and near-infrared exposures. Read more: <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/astronomers-set-a-new-galaxy-distance-record" rel="nofollow">www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/astronomers-set-a-new-galaxy...</a> Credits: NASA, ESA, P. Oesch (Yale U.) <b><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelines.html" rel="nofollow">NASA image use policy.</a></b> <b><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/home/index.html" rel="nofollow">NASA Goddard Space Flight Center</a></b> enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission. <b>Follow us on <a href="http://twitter.com/NASAGoddardPix" rel="nofollow">Twitter</a></b> <b>Like us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Greenbelt-MD/NASA-Goddard/395013845897?ref=tsd" rel="nofollow">Facebook</a></b> <b>Find us on <a href="http://instagrid.me/nasagoddard/?vm=grid" rel="nofollow">Instagram</a></b>

This image shows data from NASA's Near-Earth Object Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE), launched in 2009 under the moniker WISE. The object in the bottom left corner is a brown dwarf officially named WISEA J153429.75-104303.3 and nicknamed “The Accident.” The Accident was discovered by citizen scientist Dan Caselden, who was using an online program he built to find brown dwarfs in NEOWISE data. Caselden's program attempted to remove the stationary objects emitting infrared light (like distant stars) from the NEOWISE maps and highlight moving objects that had characteristics similar to those of known brown dwarfs. He was looking at one such brown dwarf candidate when he spotted WISEA J153429.75-104303.3, which hadn't been highlighted by the program because it did not match the program's profile of a brown dwarf. The Accident confused scientists because it was faint in some key wavelengths, suggesting it was very cold (and old), but bright in others, indicating a higher temperature. A study in the Astrophysical Journal Letters posits that The Accident might be 10 billion to 13 billion years old – at least double the median age of other known brown dwarfs. That means it would have formed when our galaxy was much younger and had a different chemical makeup. The paper's authors think The Accident's brightness in certain wavelengths is an indicator that it contains very little methane, meaning it probably formed when the Milky Way was still young and carbon-poor. (Methane is composed of hydrogen and carbon). The study relies on additional observations using the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii and NASA's Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes. Movie available at https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA24578

A trip past the sun may have selectively altered the production of one form of water in a comet – an effect not seen by astronomers before, a new NASA study suggests. Astronomers from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, observed the Oort cloud comet C/2014 Q2, also called Lovejoy, when it passed near Earth in early 2015. Through NASA’s partnership in the W. M. Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, the team observed the comet at infrared wavelengths a few days after Lovejoy passed its perihelion – or closest point to the sun. The team focused on Lovejoy’s water, simultaneously measuring the release of H2O along with production of a heavier form of water, HDO. Water molecules consist of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. A hydrogen atom has one proton, but when it also includes a neutron, that heavier hydrogen isotope is called deuterium, or the “D” in HDO. From these measurements, the researchers calculated the D-to-H ratio – a chemical fingerprint that provides clues about exactly where comets (or asteroids) formed within the cloud of material that surrounded the young sun in the early days of the solar system. Researchers also use the D-to-H value to try to understand how much of Earth’s water may have come from comets versus asteroids. Read more: <a href="http://go.nasa.gov/2lvd6Vt" rel="nofollow">go.nasa.gov/2lvd6Vt</a> <b><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelines.html" rel="nofollow">NASA image use policy.</a></b> <b><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/home/index.html" rel="nofollow">NASA Goddard Space Flight Center</a></b> enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission. <b>Follow us on <a href="http://twitter.com/NASAGoddardPix" rel="nofollow">Twitter</a></b> <b>Like us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Greenbelt-MD/NASA-Goddard/395013845897?ref=tsd" rel="nofollow">Facebook</a></b> <b>Find us on <a href="http://instagrid.me/nasagoddard/?vm=grid" rel="nofollow">Instagram</a></b>