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NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is a true technological marvel. The largest and most complex space telescope ever built, Webb is able to gather light that has been traveling for 13.5 billion years, almost since the beginning of the universe. In effect, Webb is a time machine, allowing us to peer at the first galaxies to form after the Big Bang. Because it gathers infrared light, sees right through the giant clouds of dust that block the view of most other telescopes. Webb is 100 times more powerful than the Hubble Space Telescope. Most notably, with its 21-foot-wide (6.5-meter-wide) set of segmented mirrors, Webb is powerful enough to search for water vapor in the atmospheres of planets orbiting other stars. It will open a new window on these exoplanets, observing them in wavelengths of light at which they have never been seen before and helping us gain new insights about their nature. Webb will help us understand how galaxies evolve over billions of years into grand spirals, like our own Milky Way, search for signs of habitability on distant planets, and penetrate into the hearts of dust-shrouded stellar nurseries. The observatory launched from South America on Christmas Day 2021.
The magnificent reflection nebula NGC 2023 lies nearly 1500 light-years from Earth. It is located within the constellation of Orion (The Hunter), in a prestigious area of the sky close to the well-known Flame and Horsehead Nebulae. The entire structure of NGC 2023 is vast, at four light-years across. This NASA/European Space Agency (ESA) Hubble Space Telescope picture just takes in the southern part, with the subtle shades of color closely resembling those of a sunset on Earth.
NGC 2023 surrounds a massive young B-type star. These stars are large, bright and blue-white in color, and have a high surface temperature, being several times hotter than the Sun. The energy emitted from NGC2023’s B-type star illuminates the nebula, resulting in its high surface brightness—good news for astronomers who wish to study it. The star itself lies outside the field of view, at the upper left, and its brilliant light is scattered by Hubble’s optical system, creating the bright flare across the left side of the picture, which is not a real feature of the nebula.
Stars are forming from the material comprising NGC 2023. This Hubble image captures the billowing waves of gas, 5000 times denser than the interstellar medium. The unusual greenish clumps are thought to be Herbig–Haro objects. These peculiar features of star-forming regions are created when gas ejected at hundreds of kilometers per second from newly formed stars impacts the surrounding material. These shockwaves cause the gas to glow and result in the strange shapes seen here. Herbig–Haro objects typically only last for a few thousand years, which is the blink of eye in astronomical terms.
This picture was created from multiple images taken with the Wide Field Camera of Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys. Exposures through a blue filter (F475W) are colored blue, exposures through a yellow filter (F625W) are coloured green and images through a near-infrared filter (F850LP) are shown as red. The total exposure times per filter are 800 s, 800 s and 1200 s, respectively, and the field of view spans 3.2 arcminutes.
Mars: The One in (False) Color [HiRISE] | NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
This video uses the central enhanced color (red-green-blue) swath. The swath is just under 1 km across and allows us to view the landscape in greater detail than we can in black and white.
High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE)
This observation targets a highly textured bedrock surface in northeastern Tyrrhena Terra. Due to this location of this material at the junction of incised valley networks, the presence of massive layering at Context Camera resolution, and the high apparent erosional susceptibility of these materials, this location has a high probability of being a sedimentary deposit. This observation will be used to characterize this deposit.
This is a non-narrated clip with ambient sound. This image is less than 1 km (under 1 mi) across and is 261 km (162 mi) above the surface. For full images including scale bars, visit the source link.
Video Credit: UAHiRISE/Lunar & Planetary Laboratory (LPL)/University of Arizona
Measuring How Fast Giant Black Holes Spin | NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory
Summary: Astronomers used NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory to determine the spin of the black hole in H1821+643, making it the most massive one to have an accurate measurement of this fundamental property.
Astronomers have made a record-breaking measurement of a black hole's spin, one of two fundamental properties of black holes. NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory shows this black hole is spinning slower than most of its smaller cousins.
This is the most massive black hole with an accurate spin measurement and gives hints about how some of the Universe's biggest black holes grow.
Supermassive black holes contain millions or even billions of times more mass than the Sun. Astronomers think that nearly every large galaxy has a supermassive black hole at their center. While the existence of supermassive black holes is not in dispute, scientists are still working to understand how they grow and evolve. One critical piece of information is how fast the black holes are spinning.
Every black hole can be defined by just two numbers: its spin and its mass. While that sounds fairly simple, figuring those values out for most black holes has proved to be incredibly difficult.
For this result, researchers observed X-rays that bounced off a disk of material swirling around the black hole in a quasar known as H1821+643. Located in a cluster of galaxies about 3.4 billion light-years from Earth, H1821+643 contains an actively growing black hole containing between about three and 30 billion solar masses, making it one of the most massive known. By contrast the supermassive black hole in the center of our galaxy weighs about four million suns.
The strong gravitational forces near the black hole alter the intensity of X-rays at different energies. The larger the alteration the closer the inner edge of the disk must be to the point of no return of the black hole, known as the event horizon. Because a spinning black hole drags space around with it and allows matter to orbit closer to it than is possible for a non-spinning one, the X-ray data can show how fast the black hole is spinning.
The scientists found that the black hole in H1821+643 is spinning about half as quickly as most black holes weighing between about a million and ten million suns. The million-dollar question is: why?
The answer may lie in how these supermassive black holes grow and evolve. This relatively slow spin supports the idea that the most massive black holes like H1821+643 undergo most of their growth by merging with other black holes, or by gas being pulled inwards in random directions when their large disks are disrupted.
While there is much more work to be done, this result signifies an exciting step forward in scientists' attempt to uncover how the most massive black holes in the universe grow.
Credit: NASA/Chandra X-ray Center (CXC)/Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA)
Glowing Dust of The Phantom Galaxy | James Webb Space Telescope
Messier 74 (also known as NGC 628 and the Phantom Galaxy) is a large spiral galaxy in the equatorial constellation Pisces. It is about 32 million light-years away from Earth. The galaxy contains two clearly defined spiral arms and is therefore used as an archetypal example of a grand design spiral galaxy. The galaxy's low surface brightness makes it the most difficult Messier object for amateur astronomers to observe. [Wikipedia]
Judy Schmidt: "Colorful glowing dust in NGC628/M74. Can confirm something dark and scary might be going on in this galaxy. 😆 Further awesomeness from Dr. Janice Lee and the PHANGS (Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS) Team's instantly public JWST program."
Technical details:
Squeezing some color out of the various filters showing all the glowing dust in the center of NGC628.
Red (screen layer mode): MIRI F2100W
Orange: MIRI F1130W
Cyan: MIRI F770W
Extra overall brightness in grayscale: MIRI F1000W
Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI
Processing: Judy Schmidt, Dr. Janice Lee & The PHANGS Team
A Symphony of Colors in the Tarantula Nebula | Hubble
The Tarantula is situated 170,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) in the Southern sky and is clearly visible to the naked eye as a large milky patch. Astronomers believe that this smallish irregular galaxy is currently going through a violent period in its life. It is orbiting around the Milky Way and has had several close encounters with it. It is believed that the interaction with the Milky Way has caused an episode of energetic star formation—part of which is visible as the Tarantula Nebula.
Just above the center of the image there is a huge cluster of very hot stars called R136. The stars in R136 are also among the most massive stars we know. R136 is also a very young cluster, its oldest stars being "just" 5 million years old or so. Its smallest stars, however, are still forming, so astronomers observe R136 to try to understand the early stages of stellar evolution. Near the lower edge of the image we find the star cluster Hodge 301. Hodge 301 is almost 10 times older than R136. Some of the stars in Hodge 301 are so old that they have already exploded as supernovae. The shockwave from this explosion has compressed the gas in the Tarantula into the filaments and sheets that are seen around the cluster.
This mosaic of the Tarantula Nebula consists of images from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) and was created by 23-year-old amateur astronomer Danny LaCrue. The image was constructed by 15 individual exposures taken through three narrow-band filters allowing light from ionized oxygen (501 nm, shown as blue), hydrogen-alpha (656 nm, shown as green) and ionized sulphur (672 nm, shown as red). The exposure time for the individual WFPC2 images vary between 800 and 2800 seconds in each filter. The Hubble data have been superimposed onto images taken through matching narrow-band filters with the European Southern Observatory's New Technology Telescope at the La Silla Observatory, Chile. Additional image processing was done by the Hubble European Space Agency Information Center.
Credit: European Space Agency (ESA)/NASA, European Southern Observatory (ESO) and Danny LaCrue
The Tarantula Nebula (also known as 30 Doradus) is a large H II region in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), or Nubecula Major is a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way.
Video Credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)
Science Credit: NASA, ESA, D. Lennon and E. Sabbi (ESA/STScI), J. Anderson, S. E. de Mink, R. van der Marel, T. Sohn, and N. Walborn (STScI), N. Bastian (Excellence Cluster, Munich), L. Bedin (INAF, Padua), E. Bressert (ESO), P. Crowther (University of Sheffield), A. de Koter (University of Amsterdam), C. Evans (UKATC/STFC, Edinburgh), A. Herrero (IAC, Tenerife), N. Langer (AifA, Bonn), I. Platais (JHU), and H. Sana (University of Amsterdam)
The Tarantula Nebula (also known as 30 Doradus) is a large H II region in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), or Nubecula Major is a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way.
Video Credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI), European Southern Observatory (ESO)
Science Credit: NASA, ESA, D. Lennon and E. Sabbi (ESA/STScI), J. Anderson, S. E. de Mink, R. van der Marel, T. Sohn, and N. Walborn (STScI), N. Bastian (Excellence Cluster, Munich), L. Bedin (INAF, Padua), E. Bressert (ESO), P. Crowther (University of Sheffield), A. de Koter (University of Amsterdam), C. Evans (UKATC/STFC, Edinburgh), A. Herrero (IAC, Tenerife), N. Langer (AifA, Bonn), I. Platais (JHU), and H. Sana (University of Amsterdam)
This Hubble image shows a cosmic creepy-crawly known as the Tarantula Nebula in infrared light. This region is full of star clusters, glowing gas, and thick dark dust. Created using observations taken as part of the Hubble Tarantula Treasury Project (HTTP), this image was snapped using Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) and Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). The Hubble Tarantula Treasury Project (HTTP) is scanning and imaging many of the many millions of stars within the Tarantula, mapping out the locations and properties of the nebula's stellar inhabitants. These observations will help astronomers to piece together an understanding of the nebula's skeleton, viewing its starry structure.
Ring-shaped Nebula of The Large Magellanic Cloud Region | ESO
Turbulent region around the ring-shaped nebula DEM L 299 in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way system. It was produced by combining three monochromatic images obtained in December 2001 with the Wide-Field-Imager (WFI) at the ESO/MPG 2.2-m telescope at the La Silla Observatory. The sky field measures 33.3 x 33.0 arcmin ; the original pixel size (in the FullRes version) is 0.238 arcsec. North is up and East is left. The colored rings seen near some of the brighter stars in the field result from light reflections in the telescope optics.
New View of Spiral Galaxy NGC 7496 | James Webb Space Telescope & Hubble
This beautiful new image shows the barred spiral galaxy NGC 7496, which lies over 24 million light-years away in the constellation Grus. It combines optical (Hubble), radio (ALMA), and infrared (James Webb) telescope data. The Grus constellation, whose name is Latin for crane, is one of four constellations collectively known as the Southern Birds. The others are Pavo, Phoenix and Tucana, which depict a peacock, phoenix, and toucan respectively. The rest of the night sky is also home to a flock of ornithological constellations, including an eagle (Aquilla), swan (Cygnus), crow (Corvus), and dove (Columba).
This image comes from a collection of observations delving into the relationship between young stars and the cold, dense clouds of gas in which they form. In addition to observations with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys, the astronomers behind this project gathered data using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), one of the largest radio telescopes in the world—including the James Webb Space Telescope.
As well as shedding light on the speed and efficiency of star formation in a variety of galactic environments, this project is also creating a treasury of data incorporating both Hubble and ALMA observations. This treasure trove of data from two of the world’s most capable observatories will contribute to wider research into star formation, as well as paving the way for future science with the new James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).
Judy Schmidt: "As I work through trying out different ways to combine the data [from the Hubble & Webb space telescopes], this method stood out as particularly pretty, even if it lacks immediate scientific clarity. The glowing strands and flocks of dust, which would normally be dark in visible light imagery, are instead bright and glowing with infrared light from JWST.
Data from the PHANGS-HST program were used to create this image:
China Space Station Wentian Lab Module Moved to Launch Pad in Hainan
Another mission for the construction of China's Space Station has been unveiled. The Long March 5B carrier rocket with the Wentian lab module, one of two new space station modules being added this year, was moved to the launch pad at China's southern island province of Hainan on July 18, 2022.
SpaceX CRS-25 Cargo Dragon Docking | International Space Station
The SpaceX Dragon resupply ship (CRS-25) carrying over 5,800 pounds of new science experiments and crew supplies docked with the International Space Station on Saturday, July 16, 2022. The spacecraft is expected to spend about a month attached to the orbiting outpost before it returns to Earth with research and return cargo, splashing down off the coast of Florida.
NASA Flight Engineers Jessica Watkins and Bob Hines spent Monday, July 18, 2022, unloading some of the science experiments and crew supplies delivered. The duo transferred time-critical research samples into the orbital lab to begin exploring a variety of space phenomena to benefit humans on and off the Earth. Some of the new experiments include a human immune system study, a protein production investigation, and a cancer treatment experiment.
'Black Hole Police' Spot Extragalactic Black Hole | European Southern Observatory
ESOcast 255 Light: The "black hole police", a team of astronomers known for debunking black hole discoveries, reported finding a "needle in a haystack". After searching nearly 1,000 stars outside our galaxy, they found that one of them has a stellar-mass black hole as a companion. This short video summarizes the discovery.
Zooming in on Binary System VFTS 243: A Hot Blue Star & Black Hole | ESO
In this video, we get to fly out from our home galaxy and into the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a satellite galaxy to the Milky Way. The LMC is the home of one of the brightest known nebulae, the Tarantula Nebula, that was discovered in the mid-18th century. The Tarantula Nebula hosts the binary system VFTS 243, where this video eventually ends. The system might seem like a lone hot blue star, but the other component is in fact invisible to us: a black hole, weighing at least nine times the mass of our Sun, and about 200,000 times smaller than its stellar companion.
A team of international experts, renowned for debunking several black hole discoveries, have found a stellar-mass black hole in the Large Magellanic Cloud. "For the first time, our team got together to report on a black hole discovery, instead of rejecting one," says study leader Tomer Shenar. Moreover, they found that the star that gave rise to the black hole vanished without any sign of a powerful explosion. The discovery was made thanks to six years of observations obtained with the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO’s) Very Large Telescope (VLT).
Stellar-mass black holes are formed when massive stars reach the end of their lives and collapse under their own gravity. In a binary, a system of two stars revolving around each other, this process leaves behind a black hole in orbit with a luminous companion star. The black hole is ‘dormant’ if it does not emit high levels of X-ray radiation, which is how such black holes are typically detected.
This close-up of an area in the northwest region of the large Iris Nebula seems to be clogged with cosmic dust. With bright light from the nearby star HD 200775 illuminating it from above, the dust resembles thick mounds of billowing cotton. It is actually made up of tiny particles of solid matter, with sizes from ten to a hundred times smaller than those of the dust grains we find at home. Both background and foreground stars are dotted throughout the image. Researchers studying the object are particularly interested in the region to the left and slightly above centre in the image, where dusty filaments appear redder than is expected.
Technical Info: Data from the following proposal were used to create this image.
"The Exciting Wavelength of Extended Red Emission"
Red: ACS/WFC F850LP
Green: ACS/WFC F625W
Blue: ACS/WFC F475W
North is 169.96° clockwise from up.
North is down, East is right. The field of view is 3.3 arcminutes. The image is a composite of four images obtained through blue, green, near-infrared and H-alpha filters.
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