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This star-forming region of ionized hydrogen gas is in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small galaxy which neighbors the Milky Way. It is home to many extreme conditions including supernova remnants and the heaviest star ever found. The Tarantula Nebula is the most luminous nebula of its type in the local Universe. This video shows the location and context of the Tarantula Nebula in the night sky.
Credit: NASA, European Space Agency (ESA), Digitized Sky Survey 2, R. Gendler, S. Brunier. Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin
Located in the direction of the constellation Dorado in the Large Magellanic Cloud, the resplendent object known as NGC 2060 is the aftermath of a supernova. These powerful explosions serve as the death knell for massive stars, blasting heated matter out into surrounding space at great speed.
The Tarantula Nebula: Portrait of a Stellar Crib in Dorado | ESO
One square degree image of the Tarantula Nebula and its surroundings. The spidery nebula is seen in the upper-center of the image. Slightly to the lower-right, a web of filaments harbors the famous supernova SN 1987A. Many other reddish nebulae are visible in the image, as well as a cluster of young stars on the left, known as NGC 2100.
Distance:170,000 light years
Technical information: This image is based on observations carried out by Joao Alves (Calar Alto, Spain), Benoit Vandame and Yuri Beletsky (ESO) with the Wide Field Imager (WFI) at the 2.2-m telescope on La Silla. These data consist of a 2x2 WFI mosaic in the B- and V-bands, and in the H-alpha and [OIII] narrow bands. The data were first processed with the ESO/MVM pipeline by the Advanced Data Products (ADP) group at ESO.
Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)/R. Fosbury (ST-ECF)
The galaxy NGC 1961 unfurls its gorgeous spiral arms in this newly released image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. Glittering, blue regions of bright young stars dot the dusty spiral arms winding around the galaxy’s glowing center.
NGC 1961 is an intermediate spiral and an AGN, or active galactic nuclei, type of galaxy. Intermediate spirals are in between “barred” and “unbarred” spiral galaxies, meaning they do not have a well-defined bar of stars at their centers. AGN galaxies have very bright centers that often far outshine the rest of the galaxy at certain wavelengths of light. These galaxies likely have supermassive black holes at their cores churning out bright jets and winds that shape their evolution. NGC 1961 is a fairly common type of AGN that emits low-energy-charged particles.
The data used to create this image came from two proposals. One studied previously unobserved Arp galaxies, while the other looked at the progenitors and explosions of a variety of supernovae.
Located about 180 million light-years away, NGC 1961 resides in the constellation Camelopardalis.
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, J. Dalcanton (University of Washington), R. Foley (University of California - Santa Cruz); Image processing: G. Kober (NASA Goddard/Catholic University of America)
Star Formation Region RCW 106: Major Highlights | ESO
In this huge image of part of the southern constellation of Norma (The Carpenter’s Square) wisps of crimson gas are illuminated by rare, massive stars that have only recently ignited and are still buried deep in thick dust clouds. The vast nebula where these giants were born, known as RCW 106, is captured here in fine detail by the European Southern Observatory’s VLT Survey Telescope (VST), at the Paranal Observatory in Chile.
Many other interesting objects are also captured in this wide-field image. For example the filaments to the right of the image are the remnants of an ancient supernova (SNR G332.4-00.4, also known as RCW 103), and the glowing red filaments at the lower left surround an unusual and very hot star (RCW 104, surrounding the Wolf–Rayet star WR 75). Patches of dark obscuring dust are also visible across the entire cosmic landscape.
This video takes a close-up look at a huge image of part of the southern constellation of Norma (The Carpenter’s Square) where wisps of crimson gas are illuminated by rare, massive stars that have only recently ignited and are still buried deep in thick dust clouds. These scorching-hot, very young stars are only fleeting characters on the cosmic stage and their origins remain mysterious. The vast nebula where these giants were born, known as RCW 106, is captured here in fine detail by the European Southern Observatory’s VLT Survey Telescope (VST), at the Paranal Observatory in Chile.
The sequence starts with a view of RCW 104, filaments glowing in the intense radiation from a Wolf-Rayet star, passes over the supernova remnant RCW 103, and finally settles on RCW 106 itself.
In this huge image of part of the southern constellation of Norma (The Carpenter’s Square) wisps of crimson gas are illuminated by rare, massive stars that have only recently ignited and are still buried deep in thick dust clouds. These scorching-hot, very young stars are only fleeting characters on the cosmic stage and their origins remain mysterious. The vast nebula where these giants were born, known as RCW 106, is captured here in fine detail by the European Southern Observatory’s VLT Survey Telescope (VST), at the Paranal Observatory in Chile. The brightest part appears just above the center of the image.
Many other interesting objects are also captured in this wide-field image. For example the filaments to the right of the image are the remnants of an ancient supernova (SNR G332.4-00.4, also known as RCW 103), and the glowing red filaments at the lower left surround an unusual and very hot star (RCW 104, surrounding the Wolf–Rayet star WR 75). Patches of dark obscuring dust are also visible across the entire cosmic landscape.
NASA's Quesst Mission: Fall 2022 Update | Armstrong Flight Research Center
The X-59 research aircraft is the centerpiece of NASA's Quesst mission. It is designed to fly supersonic without creating a loud sonic boom to people on the ground. In this edition of Inside the Quesst (Fall 2022) see the latest manufacturing updates, learn about recent wind tunnel testing in Japan and access a new supersonic STEM toolkit!
Globular Star Cluster Messier 54: Wide-field View | ESO
This visible-light wide-field image of the region around the globular star cluster Messier 54 was created from photographs forming part of the Digitized Sky Survey 2. The globular star cluster Messier 54 cluster appears at the center.
Distance:90,000 light years
Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO) and Digitized Sky Survey 2
This image from the VLT Survey Telescope at the European Southern Observatory’s Paranal Observatory in northern Chile shows the globular cluster Messier 54. This cluster looks very similar to many others, but it has a secret. Messier 54 does not belong to the Milky Way, but actually is part of a small satellite galaxy, the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy. This unusual parentage has allowed astronomers to use the Very Large Telescope (VLT) to test whether unexpectedly low levels of the element lithium in stars are also found in stars outside the Milky Way.
Globular Star Cluster Messier 54: Close-up View | ESO
This video gives a close-up view of an image from the VLT Survey Telescope at the European Southern Observatory’s Paranal Observatory in northern Chile showing the globular cluster Messier 54. This cluster looks very similar to many others, but it has a secret. Messier 54 does not belong to the Milky Way, but actually is part of a small satellite galaxy, the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy. This unusual parentage has allowed astronomers to use the Very Large Telescope (VLT) to test whether unexpectedly low levels of the element lithium are also found in stars outside the Milky Way.
NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover Explores the Jezero Crater Delta | JPL
NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover has arrived at an ancient delta in Jezero Crater, one of the best places on the Red Planet to search for potential signs of ancient life. The delta is an area where scientists surmise that a river once flowed billions of years ago into a lake and deposited sediments in a fan shape.
Rachel Kronyak, a member of the Perseverance science operations team, guides the viewer through this Martian panorama and its intriguing sedimentary rocks. It is the most detailed view ever returned from the Martian surface, consisting of 2.5 billion pixels and generated from 1,118 individual Mastcam-Z images. Those images were acquired on June 12, 13, 16, 17, and 20, 2022 (the 466th, 467th, 470th, 471st, and 474th Martian day, or sol, of Perseverance’s mission).
In this panorama, an area called Hogwallow Flats is visible, as is Skinner Ridge, where two rock core samples were taken.
The color enhancement in this image improves the visual contrast and accentuates color differences. This makes it easier for the science team to use their everyday experience to interpret the landscape.
Zooming in on Globular Star Cluster Messier 54 | Hubble
This video takes you on a journey past the center of the Milky Way and far out the other side to the globular cluster Messier 54. This cluster looks very similar to many others, but it has a secret. Messier 54 does not belong to the Milky Way, but actually is part of a small satellite galaxy, the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy. The final close-up view comes from the VLT Survey Telescope at the European Southern Observatory’s Paranal Observatory in northern Chile.
Credit: NASA, European Space Agency (ESA), Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI)
The First Globular Cluster Found outside The Milky Way | Hubble
The object shown in this beautiful Hubble image, dubbed Messier 54, could be just another globular cluster, but this dense and faint group of stars was in fact the first globular cluster found that is outside our galaxy. Discovered by the famous astronomer Charles Messier in 1778, Messier 54 belongs to a satellite of the Milky Way called the Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy.
Messier had no idea of the significance of his discovery at the time, and it was not until over two centuries later, in 1994, that astronomers found Messier 54 to be part of the miniature galaxy and not our own. Current estimates indicate that the Sagittarius Dwarf, and hence the cluster, is situated almost 90,000 light-years away—more than three times as far from the center of our galaxy than the Solar System.
Ironically, even though this globular cluster is now understood to lie outside the Milky Way, it will actually become part of it in the future. The strong gravitational pull of our galaxy is slowly engulfing the Sagittarius Dwarf, which will eventually merge with the Milky Way creating one much larger galaxy.
This picture is a composite created by combining images taken with the Wide Field Channel of Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys. Light that passed through a yellow-orange (F606W) was colored blue and light passing through a near-infrared filter (F814W) was colored red. The total exposure times were 3460 s and 3560 s, respectively and the field of view is approximately 3.4 by 3.4 arcminutes.
An Audience of Stellar Flashbulbs: Messier 107 in Ophiuchus | Hubble
The NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope has captured a crowd of stars that looks rather like a stadium darkened before a show, lit only by the flashbulbs of the audience’s cameras. Yet the many stars of this object, known as Messier 107, are not a fleeting phenomenon, at least by human reckoning of time—these ancient stars have gleamed for many billions of years.
Messier 107 is one of more than 150 globular star clusters found around the disc of the Milky Way galaxy. These spherical collections each contain hundreds of thousands of extremely old stars and are among the oldest objects in the Milky Way. The origin of globular clusters and their impact on galactic evolution remains somewhat unclear, so astronomers continue to study them through pictures such as this one obtained by Hubble.
As globular clusters go, Messier 107 is not particularly dense. Visually comparing its appearance to other globular clusters, such as Messier 53 or Messier 54 reveals that the stars within Messier 107 are not packed as tightly, thereby making its members more distinct like individual fans in a stadium's stands.
Messier 107 can be found in the constellation of Ophiuchus (The Serpent Bearer) and is located about 20,000 light-years from the Solar System.
This picture was obtained with the Wide Field Camera of Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys. The field of view is approximately 3.4 by 3.4 arcminutes.
A Remarkable Double Cluster in the Large Magellanic Cloud: NGC 1850 | Hubble
Located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, one of our neighboring dwarf galaxies, this young globular-like star cluster is surrounded by a pattern of filamentary nebulosity that is thought to have been created during supernova blasts. It consists of a main globular cluster in the center and a younger, smaller cluster, seen below and to the right, composed of extremely hot, blue stars and fainter, red T-Tauri stars. This wide variety of stars allows a thorough study of star formation processes.
Distance: 180,000 light years
Credit: European Space Agency (ESA), NASA and Martino Romaniello (European Southern Observatory, Germany)