Southern Ring Nebula – Two Stars at Center Revealed | James Webb Space Telescope

Southern Ring Nebula – Two Stars at Center Revealed | James Webb Space Telescope

The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Telescope has revealed the cloak of dust around the second star, shown at left in red, at the center of the Southern Ring Nebula for the first time. It is a hot, dense white dwarf star.

As it transformed into a white dwarf, the star periodically ejected mass — the shells of material you see here. As if on repeat, it contracted, heated up, and then, unable to push out more material, pulsated.

At this stage, it should have shed its last layers. So why is the red star still cloaked in dust? Was material transferred from its companion? Researchers will begin to pursue answers soon.

The bluer star at right in this image has also shaped the scene. It helps stir up the ejected material. The disc around the stars is also wobbling, shooting out spirals of gas and dust over long periods of time. This scene is like witnessing a rotating sprinkler that’s finished shooting out material in all directions over thousands of years.

Webb captured this scene in mid-infrared light — most of which can only be observed from space. Mid-infrared light helps researchers detect objects enshrouded in dust, like the red star.

This Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) image also offers an incredible amount of detail, including a cache of distant galaxies in the background. Most of the multi-coloured points of light are galaxies, not stars. Tiny triangles mark the circular edges of stars, including a blue one within the nebula’s red bottom-most edges, while galaxies look like misshapen circles, straight lines, and spirals.

MIRI was contributed by ESA and NASA, and the instrument was designed and built by a consortium of nationally funded European Institutes (The MIRI European Consortium) in partnership with JPL and the University of Arizona.

Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI

Release Date: July 12, 2022

#NASA #ESA #Astronomy #Space #Stars #SouthernRingNebula #NGC3132 #Nebula #NIRCam #Science #JamesWebb #WebbTelescope #JWST #Telescope #Cosmos #Universe #UnfoldTheUniverse #Europe #CSA #Canada #Goddard #GSFC #STScI #STEM #Education

Webb Space Telescope Reveals Atmosphere of Distant Planet in Exquisite Detail

Webb Space Telescope Reveals Atmosphere of Distant Planet in Exquisite Detail

Webb’s enormous mirror and precision instrumentation join forces to capture the most detailed spectrum of an exoplanet atmosphere to date

In a dream come true for exoplaneteers, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has demonstrated its unprecedented ability to analyze the atmosphere of a planet more than 1,000 light-years away. With the combined forces of its 270-square-foot mirror, precision spectrographs, and sensitive detectors, Webb has – in a single observation – revealed the unambiguous signature of water, indications of haze, and evidence for clouds that were thought not to exist based on prior observations. The transmission spectrum of the hot gas giant WASP-96 b, made using Webb’s Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph, provides just a glimpse into the brilliant future of exoplanet research with Webb.

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured the distinct signature of water, along with evidence for clouds and haze, in the atmosphere surrounding a hot, puffy gas giant planet orbiting a distant Sun-like star.

The observation, which reveals the presence of specific gas molecules based on tiny decreases in the brightness of precise colors of light, is the most detailed of its kind to date, demonstrating Webb’s unprecedented ability to analyze atmospheres hundreds of light-years away.

While the Hubble Space Telescope has analyzed numerous exoplanet atmospheres over the past two decades, capturing the first clear detection of water in 2013, Webb’s immediate and more detailed observation marks a giant leap forward in the quest to characterize potentially habitable planets beyond Earth. 

WASP-96 b is one of more than 5,000 confirmed exoplanets in the Milky Way. Located roughly 1,150 light-years away in the southern-sky constellation Phoenix, it represents a type of gas giant that has no direct analog in our solar system. With a mass less than half that of Jupiter and a diameter 1.2 times greater, WASP-96 b is much puffier than any planet orbiting our Sun. And with a temperature greater than 1000°F, it is significantly hotter. WASP-96 b orbits extremely close to its Sun-like star, just one-ninth of the distance between Mercury and the Sun, completing one circuit every 3½ Earth-days. 

The combination of large size, short orbital period, puffy atmosphere, and lack of contaminating light from objects nearby in the sky makes WASP-96 b an ideal target for atmospheric observations.

On June 21, Webb’s Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) measured light from the WASP-96 system for 6.4 hours as the planet moved across the star. The result is a light curve showing the overall dimming of starlight during the transit, and a transmission spectrum revealing the brightness change of individual wavelengths of infrared light between 0.6 and 2.8 microns.  

While the light curve confirms properties of the planet that had already been determined from other observations – the existence, size, and orbit of the planet – the transmission spectrum reveals previously hidden details of the atmosphere: the unambiguous signature of water, indications of haze, and evidence of clouds that were thought not to exist based on prior observations. 

A transmission spectrum is made by comparing starlight filtered through a planet’s atmosphere as it moves across the star to the unfiltered starlight detected when the planet is beside the star. Researchers are able to detect and measure the abundances of key gases in a planet’s atmosphere based on the absorption pattern – the locations and heights of peaks on the graph. In the same way that people have distinctive fingerprints and DNA sequences, atoms and molecules have characteristic patterns of wavelengths that they absorb. 

The spectrum of WASP-96 b captured by NIRISS is not only the most detailed near-infrared transmission spectrum of an exoplanet atmosphere captured to date, but it also covers a remarkably wide range of wavelengths, including visible red light and a portion of the spectrum that has not previously been accessible from other telescopes (wavelengths longer than 1.6 microns). This part of the spectrum is particularly sensitive to water as well as other key molecules like oxygen, methane, and carbon dioxide, which are not immediately obvious in the WASP-96 b spectrum but which should be detectable in other exoplanets planned for observation by Webb.

Researchers will be able to use the spectrum to measure the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere, constrain the abundance of various elements like carbon and oxygen, and estimate the temperature of the atmosphere with depth. They can then use this information to make inferences about the overall make-up of the planet, as well as how, when, and where it formed. The blue line on the graph is a best-fit model that takes into account the data, the known properties of WASP-96 b and its star (e.g., size, mass, temperature), and assumed characteristics of the atmosphere.

The exceptional detail and clarity of these measurements is possible because of Webb’s state-of-the-art design. Its 270-square-foot gold-coated mirror collects infrared light efficiently. Its precision spectrographs spread light out into rainbows of thousands of infrared colors. And its sensitive infrared detectors measure extremely subtle differences in brightness. NIRISS is able to detect color differences of only about one thousandth of a micron (the difference between green and yellow is about 50 microns), and differences in the brightness between those colors of a few hundred parts per million. 

In addition, Webb’s extreme stability and its orbital location around Lagrange Point 2, roughly a million miles away from the contaminating effects of Earth’s atmosphere, makes for an uninterrupted view and clean data that can be analyzed relatively quickly. 

The extraordinarily detailed spectrum – made by simultaneously analyzing 280 individual spectra captured over the observation – provides just a hint of what Webb has in store for exoplanet research. Over the coming year, researchers will use spectroscopy to analyze the surfaces and atmospheres of several dozen exoplanets, from small rocky planets to gas- and ice-rich giants . Nearly one-quarter of Webb’s Cycle 1 observation time is allocated to studying exoplanets and the materials that form them. 

This NIRISS observation demonstrates that Webb has the power to characterize the atmospheres of exoplanets – including those of potentially habitable planets – in exquisite detail. 

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world's premier space science observatory. Webb will solve mysteries in our solar system, look beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probe 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 the Canadian Space Agency.

NASA Headquarters oversees the mission for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages Webb for the agency and oversees work on the mission performed by the Space Telescope Science Institute, Northrop Grumman, and other mission partners. In addition to Goddard, several NASA centers contributed to the project, including the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, and others.

NIRISS was contributed by the Canadian Space Agency. The instrument was designed and built by Honeywell in collaboration with the Université de Montréal and the National Research Council Canada.

For a full array of Webb’s first images and spectra, including downloadable files, please visit: https://webbtelescope.org/news/first-images

Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI

Release Date: July 12, 2022

#NASA #ESA #Astronomy #Space #Explanet #WASP96b #Planet #Atmosphere #NIRISS #Science #JamesWebb #WebbTelescope #JWST #Telescope #Cosmos #Universe #UnfoldTheUniverse #Europe #CSA #Canada #Goddard #GSFC #STScI #Infographics #STEM #Education

Stephan’s Quintet – NIRCam & MIRI imaging | James Webb Space Telescope

Stephan’s Quintet – NIRCam & MIRI Imaging | James Webb Space Telescope

An enormous mosaic of Stephan’s Quintet is the largest image to date from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, covering about one-fifth of the Moon’s diameter. It contains over 150 million pixels and is constructed from almost 1,000 separate image files. The visual grouping of five galaxies was captured by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI).

With its powerful, infrared vision and extremely high spatial resolution, Webb shows never-before-seen details in this galaxy group. Sparkling clusters of millions of young stars and starburst regions of fresh star birth grace the image. Sweeping tails of gas, dust and stars are being pulled from several of the galaxies due to gravitational interactions. Most dramatically, Webb’s MIRI instrument captures huge shock waves as one of the galaxies, NGC 7318B, smashes through the cluster. These regions surrounding the central pair of galaxies are shown in the colours red and gold.

This composite NIRCam-MIRI image uses two of the three MIRI filters to best show and differentiate the hot dust and structure within the galaxy. MIRI sees a distinct difference in colour between the dust in the galaxies versus the shock waves between the interacting galaxies. The image processing specialists at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore opted to highlight that difference by giving MIRI data the distinct yellow and orange colours, in contrast to the blue and white colours assigned to stars at NIRCam’s wavelengths.

Together, the five galaxies of Stephan’s Quintet are also known as the Hickson Compact Group 92 (HCG 92). Although called a “quintet,” only four of the galaxies are truly close together and caught up in a cosmic dance. The fifth and leftmost galaxy, called NGC 7320, is well in the foreground compared with the other four. NGC 7320 resides 40 million light-years from Earth, while the other four galaxies (NGC 7317, NGC 7318A, NGC 7318B, and NGC 7319) are about 290 million light-years away. This is still fairly close in cosmic terms, compared with more distant galaxies billions of light-years away. Studying these relatively nearby galaxies helps scientists better understand structures seen in a much more distant universe.

This proximity provides astronomers a ringside seat for witnessing the merging of and interactions between galaxies that are so crucial to all of galaxy evolution. Rarely do scientists see in so much exquisite detail how interacting galaxies trigger star formation in each other, and how the gas in these galaxies is being disturbed. Stephan’s Quintet is a fantastic laboratory for studying these processes fundamental to all galaxies.

Tight groups like this may have been more common in the early Universe when their superheated, infalling material may have fueled very energetic black holes called quasars. Even today, the topmost galaxy in the group – NGC 7319 – harbors an active galactic nucleus, a supermassive black hole that is actively accreting material.

In NGC 7320, the leftmost and closest galaxy in the visual grouping, NIRCam was remarkably able to resolve individual stars and even the galaxy’s bright core. Old, dying stars that are producing dust clearly stand out as red points with NIRCam.

The new information from Webb provides invaluable insights into how galactic interactions may have driven galaxy evolution in the early Universe.

As a bonus, NIRCam and MIRI revealed a vast sea of many thousands of distant background galaxies reminiscent of Hubble’s Deep Fields.

NIRCam was built by a team at the University of Arizona and Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Technology Center.

MIRI was contributed by ESA and NASA, with the instrument designed and built by a consortium of nationally funded European Institutes (The MIRI European Consortium) in partnership with JPL and the University of Arizona.

Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI

Release Date: July 12, 2022

#NASA #ESA #Astronomy #Space #StephansQuintet #Galaxies #MIRI #NIRCam #Science #JamesWebb #WebbTelescope #JWST #Telescope #Cosmos #Universe #UnfoldTheUniverse #Europe #CSA #Canada #Goddard #GSFC #STScI #STEM #Education

First Images of The James Webb Space Telescope | ESA

First Images of The James Webb Space Telescope | ESA

Watch this special Space Sparks episode to see the first full-color images and spectroscopic data from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope!

Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI

Directed by: Bethany Downer and Nico Bartmann  

Editing: Nico Bartmann  

Web and technical support: Enciso Systems  

Written by: Bethany Downer  

Music: Stellardrone – The Belt of Orion  

Footage and photos: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO Production Team, ESA/Hubble, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab

Duration: 4 minutes, 12 seconds

Release Date: July 12, 2022

#NASA #ESA #Astronomy #Space #Nebulae #Galaxies #Exoplanets #DeepField #Science #JamesWebb #WebbTelescope #JWST #Telescope #Cosmos #Universe #UnfoldTheUniverse #Europe #CSA #Canada #Goddard #GSFC #STScI #STEM #Education #HD #Video

Cosmic Cliffs in Carina | James Webb Space Telescope

Cosmic Cliffs in Carina | James Webb Space Telescope

What looks much like craggy mountains on a moonlit evening is actually the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula. Captured in infrared light by the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) on the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, this image reveals previously obscured areas of star birth.

Called the Cosmic Cliffs, the region is actually the edge of a gigantic, gaseous cavity within NGC 3324, roughly 7,600 light-years away. The cavernous area has been carved from the nebula by the intense ultraviolet radiation and stellar winds from extremely massive, hot, young stars located in the center of the bubble, above the area shown in this image. The high-energy radiation from these stars is sculpting the nebula’s wall by slowly eroding it away. 

NIRCam – with its crisp resolution and unparalleled sensitivity – unveils hundreds of previously hidden stars, and even numerous background galaxies. Several prominent features in this image are described below.

·      The “steam” that appears to rise from the celestial “mountains” is actually hot, ionized gas and hot dust streaming away from the nebula due to intense, ultraviolet radiation.

·      Dramatic pillars rise above the glowing wall of gas, resisting the blistering ultraviolet radiation from the young stars.

·      Bubbles and cavities are being blown by the intense radiation and stellar winds of newborn stars.

·      Protostellar jets and outflows, which appear in gold, shoot from dust-enshrouded, nascent stars.

·      A “blow-out” erupts at the top-centre of the ridge, spewing gas and dust into the interstellar medium.

·      An unusual “arch” appears, looking like a bent-over cylinder.

This period of very early star formation is difficult to capture because, for an individual star, it lasts only about 50 000 to 100 000 years – but Webb’s extreme sensitivity and exquisite spatial resolution have chronicled this rare event.

Located roughly 7,600 light-years away, NGC 3324 was first catalogued by James Dunlop in 1826. Visible from the Southern Hemisphere, it is located at the northwest corner of the Carina Nebula (NGC 3372), which resides in the constellation Carina. The Carina Nebula is home to the Keyhole Nebula and the active, unstable supergiant star called Eta Carinae.

Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI

Release Date: July 12, 2022

#NASA #ESA #Astronomy #Space #CarinaNebula #Carina #Nebula #NIRCam #Science #JamesWebb #WebbTelescope #JWST #Telescope #Cosmos #Universe #UnfoldTheUniverse #Europe #CSA #Canada #Goddard #GSFC #STScI #STEM #Education

Stephan’s Quintet | James Webb Space Telescope

Stephan’s Quintet | James Webb Space Telescope

With its powerful, mid-infrared vision, MIRI shows never-before-seen details of Stephan’s Quintet, a visual grouping of five galaxies. MIRI pierced through dust-enshrouded regions to reveal huge shock waves and tidal tails, gas and stars stripped from the outer regions of the galaxies by interactions. It also unveiled hidden areas of star formation. The new information from MIRI provides invaluable insights into how galactic interactions may have driven galaxy evolution in the early Universe.

This image contains one more MIRI filter than was used in the NIRCam-MIRI composite picture. The image processing specialists at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore opted to use all three MIRI filters and the colours red, green and blue to most clearly differentiate the galaxy features from each other and the shock waves between the galaxies.

In this image, red denotes dusty, star-forming regions, as well as extremely distant, early galaxies and galaxies enshrouded in thick dust. Blue point sources show stars or star clusters without dust. Diffuse areas of blue indicate dust that has a significant amount of large hydrocarbon molecules. For small background galaxies scattered throughout the image, the green and yellow colors represent more distant, earlier galaxies that are rich in these hydrocarbons as well.

Stephan’s Quintet’s topmost galaxy – NGC 7319 – harbors a supermassive black hole 24 million times the mass of the Sun. It is actively accreting material and puts out light energy equivalent to 40 billion Suns. MIRI sees through the dust surrounding this black hole to unveil the strikingly bright active galactic nucleus.

As a bonus, the deep mid-infrared sensitivity of MIRI revealed a sea of previously unresolved background galaxies reminiscent of Hubble’s Deep Fields.

Together, the five galaxies of Stephan’s Quintet are also known as the Hickson Compact Group 92 (HCG 92). Although called a “quintet,” only four of the galaxies are truly close together and caught up in a cosmic dance. The fifth and leftmost galaxy, called NGC 7320, is well in the foreground compared with the other four. NGC 7320 resides 40 million light years from Earth, while the other four galaxies (NGC 7317, NGC 7318A, NGC 7318B, and NGC 7319) are about 290 million light years away. This is still fairly close in cosmic terms, compared with more distant galaxies billions of light years away. Studying these relatively nearby galaxies helps scientists better understand structures seen in a much more distant universe.

This proximity provides astronomers a ringside seat for witnessing the merging of and interactions between galaxies that are so crucial to all of galaxy evolution. Rarely do scientists see in so much exquisite detail how interacting galaxies trigger star formation in each other, and how the gas in these galaxies is being disturbed. Stephan’s Quintet is a fantastic laboratory for studying these processes fundamental to all galaxies.

Tight groups like this may have been more common in the early Universe when their superheated, infalling material may have fueled very energetic black holes called quasars. Even today, the topmost galaxy in the group – NGC 7319 – harbors an active galactic nucleus, a supermassive black hole that is actively pulling in material.

MIRI was contributed by ESA and NASA, with the instrument designed and built by a consortium of nationally funded European Institutes (The MIRI European Consortium) in partnership with JPL and the University of Arizona.

Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI

Release Date: July 12, 2022

#NASA #ESA #Astronomy #Space #StephansQuintet #Galaxies #MIRI #Science #JamesWebb #WebbTelescope #JWST #Telescope #Cosmos #Universe #UnfoldTheUniverse #Europe #CSA #Canada #Goddard #GSFC #STScI #STEM #Education

Southern Ring Nebula | James Webb Space Telescope

Southern Ring Nebula | James Webb Space Telescope

The bright star at the center of NGC 3132, while prominent when viewed by the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Telescope in near-infrared light, plays a supporting role in sculpting the surrounding nebula. A second star, barely visible at lower left along one of the bright star’s diffraction spikes, is the nebula’s source. It has ejected at least eight layers of gas and dust over thousands of years.

But the bright central star visible here has helped ‘stir the pot’, changing the shape of this planetary nebula’s highly intricate rings by creating turbulence. The pair of stars are locked in a tight orbit, which leads the dimmer star to spray ejected material in a range of directions as they orbit one another, resulting in these jagged rings.

Hundreds of straight, brightly-lit lines pierce through the rings of gas and dust. These ‘spotlights’ emanate from the bright star and stream through holes in the nebula like sunlight through gaps in a cloud.

But not all of the starlight can escape. The density of the central region, set off in teal, is reflected by how transparent or opaque it is. Areas that are a deeper teal indicate that the gas and dust are denser – and light is unable to break free.

Data from Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) were used to make this extremely detailed image. It is teeming with scientific information – and research will begin following its release.

This is not only a crisp image of a planetary nebula – it also shows us objects in the vast expanse of space behind it. The transparent red sections of the planetary nebula – and all the areas outside it – are filled with distant galaxies.

Look for the bright angled line at the upper left. It is not starlight – it is a faraway galaxy seen edge-on. Distant spirals, of many shapes and colours, also dot the scene. Those that are farthest away – or are very dusty – are small and red.

Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI

Release Date: July 12, 2022

#NASA #ESA #Astronomy #Space #SouthernRingNebula #NGC3132 #Nebula #NIRCam #Science #JamesWebb #WebbTelescope #JWST #Telescope #Cosmos #Universe #UnfoldTheUniverse #Europe #CSA #Canada #Goddard #GSFC #STScI #STEM #Education

Jessica & Samantha Visit BEAM | International Space Station

Jessica & Samantha Visit BEAM | International Space Station

Expedition 67 Flight Engineers (from left) Jessica Watkins of NASA and Samantha Cristoforetti of the European Space Agency (ESA) are pictured inside the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) during cargo stowage activities aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

Expedition 67 Flight Engineer and European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti is pictured inside the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) swapping batteries inside its sensor systems.

Expedition 67 Flight Engineer and NASA astronaut Jessica Watkins poses with the hatch cover belonging to the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) attached to the International Space Station's Tranquility module.

BEAM, the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, was pictured installed to the Tranquility module of the International Space Station with an external high definition camera. Image Date: April 16, 2017

The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) is an expandable habitat technology demonstration for the International Space Station. Expandable habitats greatly decrease the amount of transport volume for future space missions. These “expandables” require minimal payload volume on a rocket, but expand after being deployed in space to potentially provide a comfortable area for astronauts to live and work. They also provide a varying degree of protection from solar and cosmic radiation, space debris, atomic oxygen, ultraviolet radiation and other elements of the space environment. 

Jessica Watkins' Biography (NASA)

https://www.nasa.gov/astronauts/biographies/jessica-watkins/biography

Samantha Cristoforetti's Biography (ESA)

https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Human_and_Robotic_Exploration/Astronauts/Samantha_Cristoforetti

Learn about Samantha's Minerva Mission: 

https://bit.ly/MissionMinerva

Expedition 67 Crew

Commander Oleg Artemyev (Russia)

Roscosmos Flight Engineers: Denis Matveev and Sergey Korsakov (Russia)

NASA Flight Engineers: Kjell Lindgren, Bob Hines, Jessica Watkins (USA)

European Space Agency (ESA) Flight Engineer: Samantha Cristoforetti (Italy)

An international partnership of space agencies provides and operates the elements of the International Space Station (ISS). The principals are the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada. The ISS has been the most politically complex space exploration program ever undertaken.

Image Credit: NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC)

Crew Image Capture Date: June 10, 2022

#NASA #Space #ISS #ESA #BEAM #Bigelow #Astronauts #FlightEngineers #JessicaWatkins #SamanthaCristoforetti #Minerva #MissionMinerva #Italy #Italia #ASI #Science #Technology #HumanSpaceflight #Expedition67 #Europe #UnitedStates #International #STEM #Education

SpaceX Starlink Mission: July 10, 2022 | Vandenberg Space Force Base

SpaceX Starlink Mission: July 10, 2022 | Vandenberg Space Force Base

On Sunday, July 10, 2022 at 6:39 p.m. PT, a SpaceX Falcon 9 launched 46 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. This Falcon 9 first stage booster previously launched Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich, DART, and three Starlink missions.

SpaceX's July 10, 2022, launch was the 50th dedicated Starlink launch, and the 17th so far this year as SpaceX continues the rapid deployment of its communications constellation. This also marks the 29th launch of 2022 for SpaceX, keeping the company on target to conduct at least 50 orbital missions before the year is out.

Image Credit: SpaceX

Image Date: July 10, 2022

#NASA #Space #Earth #SpaceX #Satellites #Starlink #Broadband #Internet #Science #Technology #Engineering #Commerce #Telecommunications #ElonMusk #VandenburgSpaceForceBase #SpaceForce #California #UnitedStates #STEM #Education

NASA’s Perseverance Scouts Mars Sample Return Campaign Landing Sites | JPL

NASA’s Perseverance Scouts Mars Sample Return Campaign Landing Sites | JPL

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover used one of its navigation cameras to take these panoramas of a proposed landing site for the Mars Sample Return lander that would serve as part of the campaign to bring samples of Mars rock and sediment to Earth for intensive study. 

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover is conducting its science campaign, taking samples at Jezero Crater’s ancient river delta, but it is also been busy scouting. The six-wheeled rover is looking for locations where the planned Mars Sample Return (MSR) Campaign can land spacecraft and collect sample tubes Perseverance has filled with rock and sediment. The sites being scouted are under consideration because of their proximity to the delta and to one another, as well as for their relatively flat, lander-friendly terrain.

Mars Sample Return is a historic endeavor that would retrieve and deliver samples of that faraway terrain for intensive study in laboratories on Earth to look for signs of past microscopic life on the Red Planet. The strategic partnership between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency) would involve multiple spacecraft, including a rocket that would launch from the surface of Mars.

Engineers planning a Mars landing prefer to work with flatter ground because rocks and an undulating surface are harder to land on. With that in mind, the MSR Entry, Descent, and Landing team is looking for a pancake-flat landing zone with a 200-foot (60-meter) radius.

“The Perseverance team pulled out all the stops for us, because Mars Sample Return has unique needs when it comes to where we operate,” said MSR Program Manager Richard Cook of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “Essentially, a dull landing place is good. The flatter and more uninspiring the vista, the better we like it, because while there are a lot of things that need to be done when we arrive to pick up the samples, sightseeing is not one of them.”

Flat-Out Inspirational

The first stage of MSR is already in progress: Perseverance has cored, collected, and sealed nine samples of Mars rock to date. The ninth, collected on July 6, is the first from Jezero Crater’s ancient river delta. The plan is for Perseverance to drop, or cache, sample tubes on the surface to await later retrieval during MSR surface operations.

Choosing an area that lacks large rocks (especially those over 7 1/2 inches, or 19 centimeters, in diameter), sand dunes, and steeply angled terrain would go a long way toward easing the path for an MSR recovery vehicle to efficiently grab tubes before heading to the MSR Sample Retrieval Lander and its Mars Ascent Vehicle.

Landing Strip

The MSR team calls the area they’ve been looking at the “landing strip” because – at least from images taken from spacecraft in orbit – it appears to be as flat and long as a runway. But they needed a rover’s-eye-view for a closer look.

“We had been eyeing these locations since before Perseverance’s landing, but imagery from orbit can only tell you so much,” said Al Chen, Mars Sample Return Systems Engineering & Integration manager at JPL. “Now we have some up-close-and-personal shots of the landing strip that indicate we were right on the money. The landing strip will more than likely make our shortlist of potential landing and caching sites for MSR.”

NASA’s Mars Sample Return Campaign promises to revolutionize humanity’s understanding of Mars by bringing scientifically selected samples to Earth for study using the most sophisticated instruments around the world. The campaign would fulfill a solar system exploration goal, a high priority since the 1970s and in the last three National Academy of Sciences Planetary Decadal Surveys.

This strategic NASA and ESA partnership would be the first mission to return samples from another planet and the first launch from the surface of another planet. The samples collected by NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover during its exploration of an ancient lakebed are thought to present the best opportunity to reveal clues about the early evolution of Mars, including the potential for past life. By better understanding the history of Mars, we would improve our understanding of all rocky planets in the solar system, including Earth.

Learn more about the Mars Sample Return Program: https://mars.nasa.gov/msr/

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Release Date: July 11, 2022

#NASA #Space #Astronomy #Science #Mars #RedPlanet #Planet #Astrobiology #Geology #Jezero #Crater #Perseverance #Rover #Robotics #MSR #ESA #Technology #Engineering #JPL #Pasadena #California #UnitedStates #JourneyToMars #CitizenScience #STEM #Education

Galaxy Cluster SMACS 0723: First Deep Field Image | James Webb Space Telescope

Galaxy Cluster SMACS 0723: First Deep Field Image | James Webb Space Telescope

This image shows thousands of distant galaxies of different shapes, sizes, colors, and brightness, with a scattering of bright foreground stars.

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has produced the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe to date. Known as Webb’s First Deep Field, this image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 is overflowing with detail.

Thousands of galaxies – including the faintest objects ever observed in the infrared – have appeared in Webb’s view for the first time. This slice of the vast universe is approximately the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length by someone on the ground.

This deep field, taken by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), is a composite made from images at different wavelengths, totaling 12.5 hours – achieving depths at infrared wavelengths beyond the Hubble Space Telescope’s deepest fields, which took weeks. 

The image shows the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 as it appeared 4.6 billion years ago. The combined mass of this galaxy cluster acts as a gravitational lens, magnifying much more distant galaxies behind it. Webb’s NIRCam has brought those distant galaxies into sharp focus – they have tiny, faint structures that have never been seen before, including star clusters and diffuse features. Researchers will soon begin to learn more about the galaxies’ masses, ages, histories, and compositions, as Webb seeks the earliest galaxies in the universe.

This image is among the telescope’s first-full color images.

Image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723, affectionately known as Webb’s First Deep Field, captured by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), with compass arrows and color key for reference. 

The north and east compass arrows show the orientation of the image on the sky. Note that the relationship between north and east on the sky (as seen from below) is flipped relative to direction arrows on a map of the ground (as seen from above).

This image shows invisible near-infrared wavelengths of light that have been translated into visible-light colors. The color key shows which NIRCam filters were used when collecting the light. The color of each filter name is the visible light color used to represent the infrared light that passes through that filter. 

Because this is a deep field that shows objects at various distances and magnifications, there is no scale bar.

Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

Release Date: July 11, 2022

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First Image Released! | The James Webb Space Telescope

First Image Released! | The James Webb Space Telescope

This first image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe to date. Known as Webb’s First Deep Field, this image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 is overflowing with detail. Thousands of galaxies – including the faintest objects ever observed in the infrared – have appeared in Webb’s view for the first time. This slice of the vast universe covers a patch of sky approximately the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length by someone on the ground.

On Monday, July 11, 2022 U.S. President Joe Biden released one of the James Webb Space Telescope’s first images in a preview event at the White House in Washington. NASA, in partnership with ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).

Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA

Release Date: July 11, 2022

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Science Goals of The James Webb Space Telescope | ESA

Science Goals of The James Webb Space Telescope | ESA

Watch this special Space Sparks episode to learn about the science goals of the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope.

Catch the Webb space telescope’s first full-color images on NASA TV: NASA.gov/NASATV 

You can also check out: https://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages

Learn more about Webb’s mission: http://webb.nasa.gov

Video Credits:

Directed by: Bethany Downer and Nico Bartmann

Editing: Nico Bartmann

Web and technical support: Enciso Systems

Written by: Bethany Downer

Narration: Sara Mendes de Costa 

Music: Stan Dart - Olympus Mons (Music written and performed by STAN DART), The Belt of Orion (Stellardrone), Tonelabs - Expect the Unexpected (tonelabs.com)

Footage and photos: ESA/Hubble, ESA, NASA, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab, ESA/ATG Media Lab, ESO/L. Calçada/spaceengine.org, P. Ševeček/Charles University

Duration: 6 minutes, 53 seconds

Release Date: July 11, 2022

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The Carina Nebula's 'Mystic Mountain' | Hubble

The Carina Nebula's 'Mystic Mountain' | Hubble

Within the tempestuous Carina Nebula lies “Mystic Mountain.” This three-light-year-tall cosmic pinnacle, imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3 in 2010, is made up primarily of dust and gas, and exhibits signs of intense star-forming activity. The colors in this composite image correspond to the glow of oxygen (blue), hydrogen and nitrogen (green) and sulfur (red).

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, a partnership with European Space Agency and Canadian Space Agency, will soon reveal unprecedented and detailed views of the universe, with the upcoming release of its first full-color images and spectroscopic data.

The Carina Nebula is one of a list of cosmic objects that Webb targeted for these first observations, which will be released in NASA’s live broadcast beginning at 10:30 a.m. EDT Tuesday, July 12, 2022. Each image will simultaneously be made available on social media as well as on the agency’s website: www.nasa.gov

Credit: NASA, ESA, M. Livio and the Hubble 20th Anniversary Team (STScI)

Image Date: April 23, 2010

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A Confetti-Like Collection of Stars | NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope (Infrared)

A Confetti-Like Collection of Stars | NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope (Infrared)

Before the James Webb Space Telescope, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope was the largest infrared telescope. New Chandra x-ray observations have been used to make the first detection of x-ray emissions from young stars with masses similar to our Sun outside our Milky Way galaxy. The Chandra observations of these low-mass stars were made of the region known as the "Wing" of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), one of the Milky Way's closest galactic neighbors. In this composite image of the Wing the Chandra data is shown in purple, optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope is shown in red, green and blue and infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope is shown in red. Astronomers call all elements heavier than hydrogen and helium - that is, with more than two protons in the atom's nucleus—"metals". The Wing is a region known to have fewer metals compared to most areas within the Milky Way. The Chandra results imply that the young, metal-poor stars in NGC 602a produce x-rays in a manner similar to stars with much higher metal content found in the Orion cluster in our galaxy.

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ.Potsdam/L.Oskinova et al; Optical: NASA/STScI; Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Image Date: April 3, 2013

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Spiral Galaxy M106 | NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope (Infrared)

Spiral Galaxy M106 | NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope (Infrared)

A galaxy about 23 million light years away is the site of impressive, ongoing fireworks. Rather than paper, powder and fire, this galactic light show involves a giant black hole, shock waves and vast reservoirs of gas.

This galactic fireworks display is taking place in NGC 4258, also known as M106, a spiral galaxy like our own Milky Way. This galaxy is famous, however, for something that our galaxy does not have—two extra spiral arms that glow in X-ray, optical and radio light. These features, or anomalous arms, are not aligned with the plane of the galaxy, but instead intersect with it.

The anomalous arms are seen in this new composite image, where X-rays from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory are blue, radio data from the NSF’s Karl Jansky Very Large Array are purple, optical data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope are yellow and infrared data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope are red.

A new study made with Spitzer shows that shock waves, similar to the sonic booms from supersonic planes, are heating large amounts of gas—equivalent to about 10 million suns. What is generating these shock waves? Researchers think that the supermassive black hole at the center of NGC 4258 is producing powerful jets of high-energy particles. These jets strike the disk of the galaxy and generate shock waves. These shock waves, in turn, heat the gas—composed mainly of hydrogen molecules—to thousands of degrees.

The Chandra X-ray image reveals huge bubbles of hot gas above and below the plane of the galaxy. These bubbles indicate that much of the gas that was originally in the disk of the galaxy has been heated and ejected into the outer regions by the jets from the black hole.

The ejection of gas from the disk by the jets has important implications for the fate of this galaxy. Researchers estimate that all of the remaining gas will be ejected within the next 300 million years—very soon on cosmic time scales—unless it is somehow replenished. Because most of the gas in the disk has already been ejected, less gas is available for new stars to form. Indeed, the researchers used Spitzer data to estimate that stars are forming in the central regions of NGC 4258, at a rate which is about ten times less than in the Milky Way galaxy.

The European Space Agency’s Herschel Space Observatory was used to confirm the estimate from Spitzer data of the low star formation rate in the central regions of NGC 4258. Herschel was also used to make an independent estimate of how much gas remains in the center of the galaxy. After allowing for the large boost in infrared emission caused by the shocks, the researchers found that the gas mass is ten times smaller than had been previously estimated.

Because NGC 4258 is relatively close to Earth, astronomers can study how this black hole is affecting its galaxy in great detail. 

Image Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Caltech/P.Ogle et al; Optical: NASA/STScI; IR: NASA/JPL-Caltech; Radio: NSF/NRAO/VLA

Image Date: July 2, 2014

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