The stuff of stars is not always easy to see. Thanks to the Herschel Space Observatory, invisible pools of gas in our galaxy are being mapped better than before.

By comparing infrared and X-ray background signals across the same stretch of sky, an international team of astronomers has discovered evidence of a significant number of black holes that accompanied the first stars in the universe.

New views from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope show blooming stars in our Milky Way galaxy's more barren territories, far from its crowded core.

Japan has reached an important milestone for the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). 1,244 million yen (approximately $12.2 million U.S.) of the current fiscal year budget has been allotted to fund a portion of the expenses for the preparation and construction of TMT. Along with the recent funding allotment, TMT has been newly added to the list of major projects promoted by Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) through its Promotion of Large Scientific Research Projects. There are 8 projects in this special budget category including the Super-Kamiokande neutrino observatory in Japan, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, and the Subaru Telescope, which like TMT is also in Hawaii.

A massive and rare merging of two galaxies has been spotted in images taken by the Herschel space observatory, a European Space Agency mission with important NASA participation.

This galaxy's ring of fire "burns, burns, burns" with young stars.

Scientists at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., now have the capability to systematically investigate the molecular evolution of cosmic carbon. For the first time, these scientists are able to automatically interpret previously unknown infrared emissions from space that come from surprisingly complex organic molecules, called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which are abundant and important across the universe. This allows scientists at Ames were able to interpret the cosmic infrared maps made by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.

The supermassive black hole at the core of our Milky Way galaxy is gobbling up hot gas, according to a new study from the Herschel space observatory.

NEOWISE and the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC) announce the 2013 NEOWISE Post-Cryo Data Release on May 22, 2013.

Information about NASA's 2009 Decadal Process.

The NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) released an update on 25 April 2013. Content highlights include the addition of 310,514 new objects and 1.7 million cross-identifications across the electromagnetic spectrum based on data integrated from 3,167 new publications. Over 27,000 new images contributed by authors of journal articles have been included, and eight new review articles with contextual links to database queries are available in the Level 5 knowledgebase.

ESA, NASA, the Planck Collaboration, and IRSA announce the first release of all sky temperature maps, foreground component maps and cosmology results from the Planck mission. The NASA Planck Archive is hosted at IRSA within IPAC.

A number of IPAC projects, teams and individuals were honored today with NASA Achievement Awards. These recognitions reflect the dedication and creativity of these individuals and teams as well as the support and contributions by many others at IPAC that make each success possible.