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Happy Holidays from the International Space Station!
NASA Astronauts Frank Rubio, Nicole Mann, Josh Cassada, and JAXA astronaut Koichi Wakata share some of their favorite holiday traditions from back home, and a few from space.
A Wreath of Star Formation in Galaxy NGC 7469 | James Webb Space Telescope
This image is dominated by NGC 7469, a luminous, face-on spiral galaxy approximately 90,000 light-years in diameter that lies roughly 220 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Pegasus. Its companion galaxy IC 5283 is partly visible in the lower left portion of this image.
Image Description: This image shows a spiral galaxy that is dominated by a bright central region. The galaxy has blue-purple hues with orange-red regions filled with stars. Also visible is large diffraction spike, which appears as a star pattern over the central region of the galaxy. Lots of stars and galaxies fill the background scene.
This spiral galaxy has recently been studied as part of the Great Observatories All-sky LIRGs Survey (GOALS) Early Release Science program with the NASA/European Space Agency/Canadian Space Agency James Webb Space Telescope, which aims to study the physics of star formation, black hole growth, and feedback in four nearby, merging luminous infrared galaxies.
NGC 7469 is home to an active galactic nucleus (AGN), which is an extremely bright central region that is dominated by the light emitted by dust and gas as it falls into the galaxy’s central black hole. This galaxy provides astronomers with the unique opportunity to study the relationship between AGNs and starburst activity because this particular object hosts an AGN that is surrounded by a starburst ring at a distance of a mere 1,500 light-years.
A prominent feature of this image is the striking six-pointed star that perfectly aligns with the heart of NGC 7469. Unlike the galaxy, this is not a real celestial object, but an imaging artifact known as a diffraction spike, caused by the bright, unresolved AGN. Diffraction spikes are patterns produced as light bends around the sharp edges of a telescope. Webb’s primary mirror is composed of hexagonal segments that each contain edges for light to diffract against, giving six bright spikes. There are also two shorter, fainter spikes, which are created by diffraction from the vertical strut that helps support Webb’s secondary mirror.
Credit: European Space Agency (ESA)/Webb, NASA & Canadian Space Agency (CSA), L. Armus, A. S. Evans
A Wreath of Star Formation in NGC 7469 | James Webb Space Telescope
This image is dominated by NGC 7469, a luminous, face-on spiral galaxy approximately 90,000 light-years in diameter that lies roughly 220 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Pegasus. Its companion galaxy IC 5283 is partly visible in the lower left portion of this image.
Image Description: This image shows a spiral galaxy that is dominated by a bright central region. The galaxy has blue-purple hues with orange-red regions filled with stars. Also visible is large diffraction spike, which appears as a star pattern over the central region of the galaxy. Lots of stars and galaxies fill the background scene.
This spiral galaxy has recently been studied as part of the Great Observatories All-sky LIRGs Survey (GOALS) Early Release Science program with the NASA/European Space Agency/Canadian Space Agency James Webb Space Telescope, which aims to study the physics of star formation, black hole growth, and feedback in four nearby, merging luminous infrared galaxies.
NGC 7469 is home to an active galactic nucleus (AGN), which is an extremely bright central region that is dominated by the light emitted by dust and gas as it falls into the galaxy’s central black hole. This galaxy provides astronomers with the unique opportunity to study the relationship between AGNs and starburst activity because this particular object hosts an AGN that is surrounded by a starburst ring at a distance of a mere 1,500 light-years. While NGC 7469 is one of the best studied AGNs in the sky, the compact nature of this system and the presence of a great deal of dust have made it difficult for scientists to achieve both the resolution and sensitivity needed to study this relationship in the infrared. Now, with Webb, astronomers can explore the galaxy’s starburst ring, the central AGN, and the gas and dust in between.
Using Webb’s MIRI, NIRCam and NIRspec instruments to obtain images and spectra of NGC 7469 in unprecedented detail, the GOALS team has uncovered a number of details about the object. This includes very young star-forming clusters never seen before, as well as pockets of very warm, turbulent molecular gas, and direct evidence for the destruction of small dust grains within a few hundred light-years of the nucleus—proving that the AGN is impacting the surrounding interstellar medium. Furthermore, highly ionized, diffuse atomic gas seems to be exiting the nucleus at roughly 6.4 million kilometres per hour—part of a galactic outflow that had previously been identified, but is now revealed in stunning detail with Webb. With analysis of the rich Webb datasets still underway, additional secrets of this local AGN and starburst laboratory are sure to be revealed.
A prominent feature of this image is the striking six-pointed star that perfectly aligns with the heart of NGC 7469. Unlike the galaxy, this is not a real celestial object, but an imaging artifact known as a diffraction spike, caused by the bright, unresolved AGN. Diffraction spikes are patterns produced as light bends around the sharp edges of a telescope. Webb’s primary mirror is composed of hexagonal segments that each contain edges for light to diffract against, giving six bright spikes. There are also two shorter, fainter spikes, which are created by diffraction from the vertical strut that helps support Webb’s secondary mirror.
Credit: European Space Agency (ESA)/Webb, NASA & Canadian Space Agency (CSA), L. Armus, A. S. Evans
2022 was another transformational year on the International Space Station. We broke some records, welcomed new space travelers, and took a major step at expanding the space fleet! Thanks to everyone around the world that makes the work done on the Space Station possible.
Expedition 68 Crew
Station Commander Sergey Prokopyev of Roscosmos (Russia)
Roscosmos (Russia): Flight Engineers Anna Kikina & Dmitri Petelin
NASA: Flight Engineers Nicole Mann, Frank Rubio & Josh Cassada
JAXA (Japan): Flight Engineer Koichi Wakata
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.
Learn more about the important research being operated on Station:
"2022 was a year of many ‘firsts’ for space in Europe, seeing the first European female International Space Station (ISS) commander, the launch of the first Vega-C rocket, Solar Orbiter’s first close encounter with our home star, the launch of the first Artemis mission working to bring humans back to the Moon, and first images from the James Webb Space Telescope."
"Let’s take a look at the highlights and accomplishments of the European Space Agency during 2022."
"We are Europe's gateway to space. Our mission is to shape the development of Europe's space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world."
Just in time for the festive season, this new Picture of the Week from the NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope features a glistening scene in holiday red. This image shows a small region of the well-known nebula Westerhout 5, which lies about 7,000 light-years from Earth. Suffused with bright red light, this luminous image hosts a variety of interesting features, including a free-floating Evaporating Gaseous Globule (frEGG). The frEGG in this image is the small tadpole-shaped dark region in the upper center-left. This buoyant-looking bubble is lumbered with two rather uninspiring names—[KAG2008] globule 13 and J025838.6+604259.
Image Description: The background is filled with bright orange-red clouds of varying density. Towards the top-left several large, pale blue stars with prominent cross-shaped spikes are scattered. A small, tadpole-shaped dark patch floats near one of these stars. More of the same dark, dense gas fills the lower-right, resembling black smoke. A bright yellow star and a smaller blue star shine in front of this.
FrEGGs are a particular class of Evaporating Gaseous Globules (EGGs). Both frEGGs and EGGs are regions of gas that are sufficiently dense that they photoevaporate less easily than the less compact gas surrounding them. Photoevaporation occurs when gas is ionized and dispersed away by an intense source of radiation—typically young, hot stars releasing vast amounts of ultraviolet light. EGGs were only identified fairly recently, most notably at the tips of the Pillars of Creation, which were captured by Hubble in iconic images released in 1995. FrEGGs were classified even more recently, and are distinguished from EGGs by being detached and having a distinct ‘head-tail’ shape. FrEGGs and EGGs are of particular interest because their density makes it more difficult for intense UV radiation, found in regions rich in young stars, to penetrate them. Their relative opacity means that the gas within them is protected from ionization and photoevaporation. This is thought to be important for the formation of protostars, and it is predicted that many FrEGGs and EGGs will play host to the birth of new stars.
The frEGG in this image is a dark spot in the sea of red light. The red color is caused by a particular type of light emission known as H-alpha emission. This occurs when a very energetic electron within a hydrogen atom loses a set amount of its energy, causing the electron to become less energetic and this distinctive red light to be released.
Credit: European Space Agency (ESA)/Hubble & NASA, R. Sahai
Celebrating the Success of Artemis I: A Japanese Good Luck Token | NASA Kennedy
Artemis Launch Director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson (left) and Associate Administrator of NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate Kathryn Lueders finish coloring in the other eye of the Japanese Daruma doll
Artemis Launch Director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson and Associate Administrator of NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate Kathryn Lueders finish coloring in the other eye of the Japanese Daruma doll to highlight the successful Artemis I mission on Dec. 20, 2022, in Firing Room 1 of the Rocco A. Petrone Launch Control Center at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) gave a Daruma doll to both Lueders and Associate Administrator for the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, Jim Free, as a token of good luck prior to the Artemis I launch. Free filled in his eye on Dec. 11, 2022, with Artemis I Ascent and Entry Flight Director Judd Frieling in Mission Control Center at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
Black Hole Destroys a Star (Animation) | Science Communication Lab
Multiple NASA telescopes recently observed a massive black hole tearing apart an unlucky star that wandered too close. Located about 250 million light-years from Earth in the center of another galaxy, it was the fifth-closest example of a black hole destroying a star ever observed. Once the star had been thoroughly ruptured by the black hole’s gravity, astronomers saw a dramatic rise in high-energy X-ray light around the black hole. This indicated that as the stellar material was pulled toward its doom, it formed an extremely hot structure above the black hole called a corona.
The destruction of a star by a black hole—a process formally known as a tidal disruption event— could be used to better understand what happens to material that is captured by one of these behemoths before it is fully devoured.
A wayward star is ripped to shreds by a black hole in this animation from the Science Communication Lab for DESY, the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron. Known as a tidal disruption event, the star is first stretched out by the black hole’s intense gravity, until it no longer resembles a star. The river of stellar material wraps around the black hole, and forms an existing accretion disk (or add to an existing one). These events can also produce coronae (clouds of ultra-hot plasma that radiate hard X-ray light) and jets that spew material away from the black hole at its poles.
These events emit wavelengths spanning almost the entire electromagnetic spectrum from radio waves to high-energy X-rays. They are studied by many space and ground-based telescopes including the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), located at the Palomar Observatory in Southern California, and NASA’s NuSTAR (Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescopic Array) observatory.
NuSTAR is a Small Explorer mission led by Caltech and managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. NuSTAR was developed in partnership with the Danish Technical University and the Italian Space Agency (ASI). The spacecraft was built by Orbital Sciences Corp., Dulles, Virginia. NuSTAR's mission operations center is at UC Berkeley, and the official data archive is at NASA's High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center. ASI provides the mission's ground station and a mirror archive. JPL is managed by Caltech for NASA.
Honoring the 50th Anniversary of NASA's Apollo 17 Moon Mission
On Dec. 7, 1972, NASA astronauts Harrison Schmitt, Eugene Cernan, and Ronald Evans lifted off on Apollo 17—the final mission of the Apollo program. Cernan and Schmitt landed on the Moon on Dec. 11, spending three days on the lunar surface before rejoining Evans in orbit and returning to Earth, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean on Dec. 19.
Apollo 17 was the most recent mission to land humans on the Moon—and our next one isn't far away. As our Artemis missions prepare to return humans to the Moon and build a sustainable lunar presence, join us for a look back at Apollo 17.
On Sept. 26, 2022, after ten months of journeying through space, NASA's experimental Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft—roughly the size of a vending machine—hurtled toward a binary asteroid some 7 million miles (11 million kilometers) from Earth at a speed of roughly 14,000 miles (22,530 kilometers) per hour. Equipped with a state-of-the-art imaging system that worked in tandem with a sophisticated onboard set of targeting, guidance, navigation and control algorithms, DART autonomously identified and distinguished between the two asteroids in its final moments, targeted the smaller body (which could not be seen from Earth) and crashed into it.
The intentional impact marked the world’s first planetary defense technology demonstration and humanity’s first successful attempt to move a celestial object.
The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory manages the DART mission for NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office as a project of the agency’s Planetary Missions Program Office.
Planet Mars: South Pole Water Ice Deposits | NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
A wide variety of south polar terrains are on display in this spectacular HiRISE color image. The reddish material in the upper two thirds of the image is the South Polar layered deposits (SPLD). These deposits are a stack of layered, dusty water ice. Scientists believe that these layers record previous climatic conditions on Mars, much like terrestrial ice-sheets provide a record of climate change on the Earth.
This image shows the face of one of the many scarps or shallow cliffs that cut into the polar layered deposits. These scarps expose the internal layers within the SPLD.
This is a non-narrated clip with ambient sound. The image is less than 1 km (under 1 mi) across and the spacecraft altitude was 248 km (154 mi).
This image was captured by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) using the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) instrument.
Malin Space Science Systems built the Mars Color Imager (MARCI), Context Camera (CTX) systems for MRO.
The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colorado.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington.
What a year it has been for Webb! It feels like just yesterday we were getting ready to launch, and now Webb has hit the ground running in its mission to Unfold The Universe. Break out your box of tissues and relive the magic with us.
Happy Birthday, Webb!
Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
Michael McClare (KBRwyle): Lead Producer
Aaron E. Lepsch (ADNET): Technical Support
Michael McClare (KBRwyle): Lead Editor
Michael McClare (KBRwyle): Lead Videographer
Sophia Roberts (AIMM): Videographer
Michael P. Menzel (AIMM): Videographer
Adriana Manrique Gutierrez (KBRwyle): Lead Animator
Diving into the Cosmic Cliffs of The Carina Nebula | James Webb Space Telescope
Scientists taking a “deep dive” into one of the iconic first images from the NASA/European Space Agency/Canadian Space Agency James Webb Space Telescope have discovered dozens of energetic jets and outflows from young stars previously hidden by dust clouds. The discovery marks the beginning of a new era of investigating how stars like our Sun form, and how the radiation from nearby massive stars might affect the development of planets.
Dozens of previously hidden jets and outflows from young stars are revealed in this new image from Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam). This image separates out several wavelengths of light from the First Image revealed on July 12, 2022, which highlights molecular hydrogen, a vital ingredient for star formation. Insets on the right-hand side highlight three regions of the Cosmic Cliffs with particularly active molecular hydrogen outflows.
The Cosmic Cliffs, a region at the edge of a gigantic, gaseous cavity within the star cluster NGC 3324, has long intrigued astronomers as a hotbed for star formation. While well-studied by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, many details of star formation in NGC 3324 remain hidden at visible-light wavelengths. Webb is perfectly primed to tease out these long-sought-after details since it is built to detect jets and outflows seen only in the infrared at high resolution. Webb’s capabilities also allow researchers to track the movement of other features previously captured by Hubble.
[Video Description: The image featured is divided horizontally by an undulating line between a orange-burgundy cloudscape forming a nebula along the bottom portion and a comparatively blue upper portion. Speckled across both portions is a starfield, showing innumerable stars of many sizes.]
Recently, by analyzing data from a specific wavelength of infrared light (4.7 microns), astronomers discovered two dozen previously unknown outflows from extremely young stars revealed by molecular hydrogen. Webb’s observations uncovered a gallery of objects ranging from small fountains to burbling behemoths that extend light-years from the forming stars. Many of these protostars are poised to become low mass stars, like our Sun.
Molecular hydrogen is a vital ingredient for making new stars and an excellent tracer of the early stages of their formation. As young stars gather material from the gas and dust that surround them, most also eject a fraction of that material back out again from their polar regions in jets and outflows. These jets then act like a snowplow, bulldozing into the surrounding environment. Visible in Webb’s observations is the molecular hydrogen getting swept up and excited by these jets.
Previous observations of jets and outflows looked mostly at nearby regions and more evolved objects that are already detectable in the visual wavelengths seen by Hubble. The unparalleled sensitivity of Webb allows observations of more distant regions, while its infrared optimization probes into the dust-sampling younger stages. Together this provides astronomers with an unprecedented view into environments that resemble the birthplace of our solar system.
In analyzing the new Webb observations, astronomers are also gaining insights into how active these star-forming regions are, even in a relatively short time span. By comparing the position of previously known outflows in this region caught by Webb, to archival data by Hubble from 16 years ago, the scientists were able to track the speed and direction in which the jets are moving.
This science was conducted on observations collected as part of Webb’s Early Release Observations Program. The paper was published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society in December 2022.
In this image, red, green, and blue were assigned to Webb’s NIRCam data at 4.7, 4.44, and 1.87 microns (F470N, F444W, and F187N filters, respectively).
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), M. Reiter (Rice University), J. DePasquale (STScI)
Inner Ring of Galaxy NGC 1097: NACO versus ERIS Infrared View | ESO
ERIS, the Very Large Telescope’s newest infrared eye on the sky, reveals the inner ring of the galaxy NGC 1097 in stunning detail. This galaxy is located 45 million light-years away from Earth, in the constellation Fornax. ERIS has captured the gaseous and dusty ring that lies at the very center of the galaxy. The bright spots in the ring are stellar nurseries, shown in unprecedented detail.
This image has been taken through four different filters by ERIS’s state-of-the-art infrared imager, the Near Infrared Camera System—or NIX, which will take over the role of the very successful NACO imager. NACO also used adaptive optics to correct for the blurring caused by atmospheric turbulence, but ERIS’s more modern capabilities, coupled with the VLT’s Adaptive Optics Facility, deliver much sharper images. To put NIX’s resolution in perspective, this image shows, in detail, a portion of the sky less than 0.03% the size of the full Moon.
The Inner Ring of Galaxy NGC 1097 | European Southern Observatory
The European Southern Observatory’s newest scientific instrument, the Enhanced Resolution Imager and Spectrograph (ERIS) has successfully completed its first test observations. One of them exposed the heart of the galaxy NGC 1097 in mesmerizing detail. Installed on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) at Cerro Paranal in northern Chile, this infrared instrument will be able to see further and in finer detail, leading the way in Solar System, exoplanet and galaxy observations.
ERIS sees first light, capturing a detailed view of the inner ring of NGC 1097
The image consists of a ring of bright pink and blue dusty material. The ring has bright spots, showing where stars are forming. There are darker patches in the ring, where the dust is too dense for light to pass through. In the middle of the ring, there is a bright pink-yellow glow, with a very bright center. There is a gap between this glow in the middle and the ring, where the background dark Universe peers through.
ERIS, the Very Large Telescope’s newest infrared eye on the sky, captured this stunning image of the inner ring of the galaxy NGC 1097. This galaxy is located 45 million light-years away from Earth, in the constellation Fornax. ERIS has captured the gaseous and dusty ring that lies at the very center of the galaxy. The bright spots in the ring are stellar nurseries, shown in unprecedented detail. The center of this galaxy is active, with a supermassive black hole that feeds off its surroundings.
This image has been taken through four different filters by ERIS’s state-of-the-art infrared imager, the Near Infrared Camera System—or NIX. The filters have been represented here by blue, green, red and magenta, where the last one highlights the compact regions in the ring. To put NIX’s resolution in perspective, this image shows, in detail, a portion of the sky less than 0.03% the size of the full Moon.
Just in time for the festive season, this new Picture of the Week from the NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope features a glistening scene in holiday red. This image shows a small region of the well-known nebula Westerhout 5, which lies about 7,000 light-years from Earth. Suffused with bright red light, this luminous image hosts a variety of interesting features, including a free-floating Evaporating Gaseous Globule (frEGG). The frEGG in this image is the small tadpole-shaped dark region in the upper center-left. This buoyant-looking bubble is lumbered with two rather uninspiring names—[KAG2008] globule 13 and J025838.6+604259.
Image Description: The background is filled with bright orange-red clouds of varying density. Towards the top-left several large, pale blue stars with prominent cross-shaped spikes are scattered. A small, tadpole-shaped dark patch floats near one of these stars. More of the same dark, dense gas fills the lower-right, resembling black smoke. A bright yellow star and a smaller blue star shine in front of this.
FrEGGs are a particular class of Evaporating Gaseous Globules (EGGs). Both frEGGs and EGGs are regions of gas that are sufficiently dense that they photoevaporate less easily than the less compact gas surrounding them. Photoevaporation occurs when gas is ionized and dispersed away by an intense source of radiation—typically young, hot stars releasing vast amounts of ultraviolet light. EGGs were only identified fairly recently, most notably at the tips of the Pillars of Creation, which were captured by Hubble in iconic images released in 1995. FrEGGs were classified even more recently, and are distinguished from EGGs by being detached and having a distinct ‘head-tail’ shape. FrEGGs and EGGs are of particular interest because their density makes it more difficult for intense UV radiation, found in regions rich in young stars, to penetrate them. Their relative opacity means that the gas within them is protected from ionization and photoevaporation. This is thought to be important for the formation of protostars, and it is predicted that many FrEGGs and EGGs will play host to the birth of new stars.
The frEGG in this image is a dark spot in the sea of red light. The red color is caused by a particular type of light emission known as H-alpha emission. This occurs when a very energetic electron within a hydrogen atom loses a set amount of its energy, causing the electron to become less energetic and this distinctive red light to be released.
Credit: European Space Agency (ESA)/Hubble & NASA, R. Sahai
