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As comet C/2025 R2 (SWAN) made its closest approach to us, it passed in front of the core of our galaxy. In this wide-field image of the comet on October 19, Comet SWAN is the bright green dot on the left. To the right, the bright Eagle Nebula and Swan Nebula are in view along with several star clusters. CIERA Graduate Student Imran Sultan captured this image from dark skies in northern Illinois, using a 50mm camera lens and a filter that isolates light emitted by ionized gas in nebulae in our galaxy.

This image of Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) was captured in the early morning of October 14 by CIERA Graduate Student Imran Sultan. This was shortly before the comet made its closest approach to our planet on October 21. The comet’s green coma, and long dust and ion tails, are prominent. Imran took the image remotely using a telephoto camera lens system installed at a remote observatory under dark skies in Texas.

The main image at the left shows a Webb and Hubble view of spiral galaxy NGC 1637. Panels at the right show a detailed view of a red supergiant star before and after it exploded. Before exploding, it is not visible by Hubble, only by Webb. Hubble shows the glowing aftermath. 

A cone-shaped cavity defined by an absence of cold gas points to a hot plasma wind blowing out from Sagittarius A*.

An international team of astrophysicists, led by Northwestern University and the University of Leicester in England, has uncovered a possible origin of fast X-ray transients (FXTs) — mysterious, fleeting bursts of X-rays that have long puzzled astronomers. Using a combination of telescopes around the globe and in space, the team studied the closest FXT associated

CIERA’s Tjitske Starkenburg, Northwestern Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, and Assistant Director for Research Operations at SkAI Institute, shares her excitement about Rubin Observatory’s First Light Watch Party and the new science that will result.

The blood moon was visible during a total lunar eclipse, when Earth cast its shadow over the moon. This photo was taken by CIERA graduate student Imran Sultan, amateur astrophotographer and member of Professor Claude-André Faucher-Giguère‘s research group. Sultan photographed the entire event, which lasted about four hours early Friday morning (12-4am), using a refractor

The blood moon was visible during a total lunar eclipse, when Earth cast its shadow over the moon. This photo was taken by CIERA graduate student Imran Sultan, amateur astrophotographer and member of Professor Claude-André Faucher-Giguère‘s research group. Sultan photographed the entire event, which lasted about four hours early Friday morning (12-4am), using a refractor

The blood moon was visible during a total lunar eclipse, when Earth cast its shadow over the moon. This photo was taken by CIERA graduate student Imran Sultan, amateur astrophotographer and member of Professor Claude-André Faucher-Giguère‘s research group. Sultan photographed the entire event, which lasted about four hours early Friday morning (12-4am), using a refractor

The blood moon was visible during a total lunar eclipse, when Earth cast its shadow over the moon. This photo was taken by CIERA graduate student Imran Sultan, amateur astrophotographer and member of Professor Claude-André Faucher-Giguère‘s research group. Sultan photographed the entire event, which lasted about four hours early Friday morning (12-4am), using a refractor

This is the largest photomosaic ever assembled from Hubble Space Telescope observations. It is a panoramic view of the neighboring Andromeda galaxy, located 2.5 million light-years away. It took over 10 years to make this vast and colorful portrait of the galaxy, requiring over 600 Hubble overlapping snapshots that were challenging to stitch together. The

In a study fit for Valentine’s Day, Northwestern University astrophysicists discovered that binary black holes — when formed in crowded clusters of stars — align their spins before merging together. As the black holes orbit one another, each object has its own spin. Previous research indicated these spins should be chaotic and random. However, in

Just days after comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas (C/2023 A3) peaked at a brilliant +2 magnitude on October 12, 2024, the Lake Forest College Astronomy Club hosted a campus-wide viewing event led by senior Dean Kousiounelos in collaboration with the Physics department. During this time, the comet’s tail was visible with a good pair of binoculars, drawing in