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The Crab Nebula: A New View | James Webb Space Telescope
The NASA/European Space Agency/Canadian Space Agency James Webb Space Telescope dissected the Crab Nebula’s structure, aiding astronomers as they continue to evaluate leading theories about the supernova remnant’s origins. With the data collected by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), a team of scientists were able to closely inspect several of the Crab Nebula’s major components.
For the first time ever, astronomers mapped the warm dust emission throughout this supernova remnant. Represented here as fluffy magenta material, the dust grains form a cage-like structure that is most apparent toward the lower left and upper right portions of the remnant. Filaments of dust are also threaded throughout the Crab’s interior and sometimes coincide with regions of doubly ionized sulphur (sulphur III), colored in green. Yellow-white mottled filaments, which form large loop-like structures around the supernova remnant’s center, represent areas where dust and doubly ionized sulphur overlap.
The dust’s cage-like structure helps constrain some, but not all of the ghostly synchrotron emission represented in blue. The emission resembles wisps of smoke, most notable toward the Crab’s center. The thin blue ribbons follow the magnetic field lines created by the Crab’s pulsar heart—a rapidly rotating neutron star.
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, T. Temim (Princeton University)
Pan of Nebula RCW 7 in Puppis: A Stellar Nursery of Protostars | Hubble
Named RCW 7, this nebula is located just over 5,300 light-years from Earth in the constellation Puppis. It is a visually striking collection of interstellar gas and dust.
Nebulae are areas of space that are rich in the raw material needed to form new stars. Under the influence of gravity, parts of these molecular clouds collapse until they coalesce into protostars, surrounded by spinning discs of leftover gas and dust. In the case of RCW 7, the protostars forming here are particularly massive, giving off strongly ionizing radiation and fierce stellar winds that have transformed it into what is known as a H II region.
H II regions are filled with hydrogen ions—where H I refers to a normal hydrogen atom, H II is hydrogen that has lost its electron. The ultraviolet radiation from the massive protostars excites the hydrogen, causing it to emit light and giving this nebula its soft pinkish glow. Here Hubble is studying a particular massive protostellar binary named IRAS 07299-1651, still in its glowing cocoon of gas in the curling clouds towards the top of the nebula. To expose this star and its siblings, this image was captured using the Wide Field Camera 3 in near-infrared light. The massive protostars here are brightest in ultraviolet light, but they emit plenty of infrared light. This can pass through much of the gas and dust around them and be seen by Hubble. Many of the other, larger-looking stars in this image are not part of the nebula, but sit between it and our Solar System.
The creation of an H II region marks the beginning of the end for a molecular cloud. Over only a few million years, the radiation and winds from the massive stars gradually disperse the gas—even more so as the most massive stars come to the end of their lives in supernova explosions. Only a fraction of the gas will be incorporated into new stars in this nebula with the rest being spread throughout the galaxy to eventually form new molecular clouds.
Image Description: Clouds of gas and dust with many stars. The clouds form a flat blue background towards the bottom, and become more thick and smoky towards the top. They are lit on one side by stars in the nebula. A thick arc of gas and dust reaches around from the top, where it is brightly lit by many stars in and around it, to the bottom where it is dark and obscuring. Other large stars lie between the clouds and the viewer.
Video Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Tan (Chalmers University & University of Virginia), R. Fedriani (Institute for Astrophysics of Andalusia)
Nebula RCW 7 in Puppis: A Stellar Nursery of Protostars | Hubble
Named RCW 7, this nebula is located just over 5,300 light-years from Earth in the constellation Puppis. It is a visually striking collection of interstellar gas and dust.
Nebulae are areas of space that are rich in the raw material needed to form new stars. Under the influence of gravity, parts of these molecular clouds collapse until they coalesce into protostars, surrounded by spinning discs of leftover gas and dust. In the case of RCW 7, the protostars forming here are particularly massive, giving off strongly ionizing radiation and fierce stellar winds that have transformed it into what is known as a H II region.
H II regions are filled with hydrogen ions—where H I refers to a normal hydrogen atom, H II is hydrogen that has lost its electron. The ultraviolet radiation from the massive protostars excites the hydrogen, causing it to emit light and giving this nebula its soft pinkish glow. Here Hubble is studying a particular massive protostellar binary named IRAS 07299-1651, still in its glowing cocoon of gas in the curling clouds towards the top of the nebula. To expose this star and its siblings, this image was captured using the Wide Field Camera 3 in near-infrared light. The massive protostars here are brightest in ultraviolet light, but they emit plenty of infrared light. This can pass through much of the gas and dust around them and be seen by Hubble. Many of the other, larger-looking stars in this image are not part of the nebula, but sit between it and our Solar System.
The creation of an H II region marks the beginning of the end for a molecular cloud. Over only a few million years, the radiation and winds from the massive stars gradually disperse the gas—even more so as the most massive stars come to the end of their lives in supernova explosions. Only a fraction of the gas will be incorporated into new stars in this nebula with the rest being spread throughout the galaxy to eventually form new molecular clouds.
Image Description: Clouds of gas and dust with many stars. The clouds form a flat blue background towards the bottom, and become more thick and smoky towards the top. They are lit on one side by stars in the nebula. A thick arc of gas and dust reaches around from the top, where it is brightly lit by many stars in and around it, to the bottom where it is dark and obscuring. Other large stars lie between the clouds and the viewer.
Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Tan (Chalmers University & University of Virginia), R. Fedriani (Institute for Astrophysics of Andalusia)
The Lagoon Nebula: Wide-field View | Kitt Peak National Observatory
This image was obtained with the wide-field view of the Mosaic camera on the KPNO 0.9m-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory. M8 is a giant star forming region. It is so large that it is faintly visible to the naked eye. The gas in the nebula is energized by a massive star at its center, causing the gas to glow. The dark objects within the nebula are called Bok globules—dense clouds of gas where new stars are forming. The image was generated with observations in Hydrogen alpha (red), Oxygen [OIII] (green) and Sulfur [SII] (blue) filters. In this image, North is left, East is down
Credit: T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage)
The Lagoon Nebula Close-up & Star Herschel 36| Kitt Peak National Observatory
M8, the Lagoon Nebula, is a tremendous star forming region in our galaxy. Under dark skies it is easily seen with the unaided eye just above the "teapot" (spout) asterism of Sagittarius. A view through a small telescope (with the eye) shows the milky glow of nebulosity pervades the entire field. A star cluster, NGC 6530, highlights how star formation is proceeding in this cloud. A few of NGC 6530's stars can been seen in the bottom right of this image, but most of it is just outside the field to the right.
Charge-coupled device (CCD) images like this hint at the turbulent activity of the gases in the cloud. As stars form, they create strong stellar winds (and radiation) that heat and churn their surrounding natal material. Shown here is a particularly dense part of M8 with an "hour-glass" like shape. This hour-glass is the brightest part of the nebula left of the dark rift that divides the nebula. The star next to the hourglass is called Herschel 36 and it is most responsible for all of the activity in this area. The hour-glass structure itself spans a little more than a lightyear across in the longest dimension. At this scale, our solar system would be about 1/1000th of a pixel.
This image was taken as part of Advanced Observing Program (AOP) program at Kitt Peak Visitor Center during 2014.
Credit: KPNO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/Jack Harvey and Tom Doughtery/Adam Block
The Lagoon Nebula, Messier object 8 (M8) or NGC 6523, in the constellation of Sagittarius, as seen by the 4-meter Kitt Peak Mayall Telescope in 1973. North is at the top. The Lagoon Nebula glows with the red light of hydrogen (H alpha) excited by the radiation of very hot stars buried within its center. Deep within the cloud, dark filaments of obscuring matter emit strong infrared radiation. Several peculiar variable stars in the nebula occasionally flare up, increasing in brightness to some 25 times their normal luminosity. The nebula is about 60 light-years across.
The Mayall Telescope saw first light on February 27, 1973, and was the second-largest telescope in the world at that time.
The Lagoon Nebula in Sagittarius | SPECULOOS Southern Observatory
If you had a brand new state-of-the-art telescope facility, what would you look at first? Researchers at the SPECULOOS Southern Observatory—comprised of four small telescopes, each with a 1-meter primary mirror—chose to view the Lagoon Nebula. This magnificent picture is the result, and was one of the SPECULOOS’ first observations. The nebula is a cloud of dust and gas in our galaxy where new stars are being born, and is found roughly 4,000-5000 light-years from us.
This striking image is made even more impressive by the fact that the SPECULOOS is not designed to study nebulae. The name says it all—SPECULOOS, the Search for habitable Planets EClipsing ULtra-cOOl Stars. In other words, the primary mission of this telescope facility is to find Earth-like planets orbiting faint nearby stars. The candidates it discovers will be passed over to larger telescopes, such as the European Southern Observatory ESO’s forthcoming Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), to be studied in more detail.
SPECULOOS is located at the European Southern Observatory’s Paranal Observatory in the Atacama Desert of Chile, taking full advantage of the location’s dark skies, ideal atmospheric conditions, and the support systems ESO has there—from telescope infrastructure to staff accommodation. It will have a partner, the SPECULOOS Northern Observatory, in the Canary Islands. It will hunt for planets in the northern skies not visible from Chile. Together they promise to vastly expand our knowledge of the exoplanets in our neighborhood.
The Lagoon Nebula:"Behind The Veil" (Infrared View) | VISTA Telescope
This infrared view of the star formation region Messier 8, often called the Lagoon Nebula, was captured by the VISTA telescope at the European Southern Observatory’s Paranal Observatory in Chile. This color picture was created from images taken through J, H and Ks near-infrared filters. These were acquired as part of a huge survey of the central parts of the Milky Way. The field of view is about 34 by 15 arcminutes.
The Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) is a 4-meter class specialized wide field survey telescope for the southern hemisphere, equipped with a near infrared camera VIRCAM (VISTA InfraRed CAMera) with 1.65 degree diameter field of view at VISTA's nominal pixel size, containing 67 million pixels of mean size 0.339 arcsec and available broad band filters at Z, Y, J, H, Ks and narrow band filters at 0.98, 0.99, and 1.18 micron.
Distance:4,000 light years
Image Credit: ESO/VVV
Acknowledgment: Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit
The Lagoon Nebula | Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory
The Lagoon Nebula, M8 or NGC 6523. As one of the showpiece objects of the summer sky in the northern hemisphere, the Lagoon never rises very high from most locations north of the equator. This image of the Lagoon was imaged from Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. Twenty hours of data were collected over several nights with seeing usually around 0.5” and occasionally as low as the mid 0.30”. Those familiar with other images of the Lagoon Nebula may note that this version shows more blue—most renditions of this nebula are decidedly reddish in character. However, the object’s altitude during much of the imaging—as high as 80 degrees—minimized the normal tendency for blue extinction that is commonly experienced when imaging objects closer to the horizon.
Distance:4,000 light years
The numerous dark Bok Globules associated with M8 are also readily apparent. Bok globules are opaque, dark knots of gas and dust that absorb light.
China's Crewed Lunar Missions Rocket: Reusable Engines, Intelligent Flight System
The Long March-10 series of rockets for China's crewed lunar mission is a reusable launch vehicle with intelligent technologies to cope with possible system failures during the flight. As new-generation carrier rockets specially developed for the crewed lunar exploration, the Long March-10 series has two versions: the lunar version is meant for Moon landing and the near-Earth version is mainly to carry out space station missions.
To reduce the operating costs of the China Space Station, the first-stage rocket of the near-Earth version has been designed with reusable technology. Its main engine has completed over 10 tests for reusable verification.
"The re-usability scheme of the near-Earth rocket's first stage has already passed scaled-down verification tests on land and at sea. We hope to enter the phase of engineering verification at an early date. We have come up with some innovative methods, which should be able to provide a reference for developing other models in the future, and later we can may develop some near-Earth version of rockets for commercial use," said Xu Hongping, an engineer with China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC).
To better ensure the safety of astronauts, the Long March-10 series also features a "smart brain" and other intelligent technologies to enable the rocket to detect and troubleshoot problems autonomously during flight to support mission success.
"During the research and development, we took into consideration all possible failure modes that we can imagine. When a failure occurs, we can continue finishing our established tasks through mission re-planning and reconstruction of the entire system," said Xu.
The Long March-10 is a strategic support for China to land astronauts on the Moon before 2030, and it is expected to prepare for its maiden flight in 2027, according to CASC.
The Long March-10, measuring 92.5 meters (303.5 feet) tall, is a three-stage super-heavy rocket that burns kerosene and liquid oxygen.
Its first stage is five meters wide and powered by seven YF-100K engines. Along with two boosters, each also consisting of seven YF-100K engines, the rocket can generate a thrust of 2,678 tonnes at lift-off.
It is capable of delivering at least 27 tonnes to an Earth-moon transfer orbit—around three times the capacity of Long March-5, China’s most powerful rocket to date.
The Lagoon Nebula in Sagittarius | Kitt Peak National Observatory
The Lagoon Nebula, Messier object 8 (M8) or NGC 6523, in the constellation of Sagittarius. This full color image was created from eight images taken in the BVR pass-bands at the Burrell Schmidt telescope of Case Western Reserve University's Warner and Swasey Observatory. The Burrell Schmidt is located on Kitt Peak, near Tucson, Arizona. The images were taken in June 1995 during the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program operated at the Kitt Peak National Observatory and supported by the National Science Foundation.
North is at the top with east to the left.
Credit: N.A.Sharp, REU Program / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA
China Develops Lunar Long March-10 Carrier Rocket for Moon Landings
China is developing a lunar version of its Long March-10 carrier rockets for upcoming moon landing missions. A ground test run for the the first-stage propulsion system of the lunar version rocket was completed on Friday, June 14, 2024, marking a key step to achieve the first crewed moon landing goal by 2030.
The Long March 10 uses a modular design. This allows a flexible configuration of modules depending on the need of the mission. Currently, the crewed launch vehicle has two main versions for space missions.
The Long March-10, measuring 92.5 meters (303.5 feet) tall, is a three-stage super-heavy rocket that burns kerosene and liquid oxygen.
Its first stage is five meters wide and powered by seven YF-100K engines. Along with two boosters, each also consisting of seven YF-100K engines, the rocket can generate a thrust of 2,678 tonnes at lift-off.
It is capable of delivering at least 27 tonnes to an Earth-moon transfer orbit—around three times the capacity of Long March-5, China’s most powerful rocket to date.
"The lunar version is mainly used to send the lunar lander and manned spacecraft to the lunar orbit, so it has two configurations, one for launching the lander and the other for launching the manned spacecraft. The near-Earth version currently under intensive R&D also has two configurations, and is mainly used in the operation and development stage of the space station project, mainly for transporting people and cargo," said Xu Hongping, an engineer with the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC).
For China’s planned crewed moon landing, Long March-10 rockets will be tasked with two launches—one to send the Mengzhou spacecraft towards the lunar orbit, and another to launch the Lanyue moon lander.
These two spacecraft will then rendezvous and dock in lunar orbit, and two astronauts will enter the moon lander from the Mengzhou.
After the lander touches down on the lunar surface, the astronauts will drive a rover to carry out scientific investigations and collect rock samples, according to state broadcaster CCTV.
Once they complete their mission, the crew will return to Lanyue and depart the moon. They will dock with Mengzhou in lunar orbit and return to Earth with the samples they collected, CCTV said in July after a successful hot-fire test of the YF-100K engine.
China has been working on all key components of its planned moon landings, such as the crew spacecraft, the moon lander and rover, and the lunar landing suits.
The Leo Triplet of Galaxies: Wide-field View | ESO
This visible-light wide-field image of the region around the Leo Triplet of galaxies was created from photographs taken through blue and red filters and forming part of the Digitized Sky Survey 2 (DSS2). The galaxies appear to the lower right of center. The bright star at the upper right is the naked eye star Theta Leonis. The field of view is approximately 4.4 degrees across.
Distance:35 million light years
Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO) and Digitized Sky Survey 2
The Leo Triplet of Galaxies and Beyond | European Southern Observatory
A triplet of bright galaxies in the constellation of Leo (The Lion), together with a multitude of fainter objects—distant background galaxies and much closer Milky Way stars. The image hints at the power of the VLT Survey Telescope (VST) and OmegaCAM for surveying the extragalactic Universe and for mapping the low brightness objects of the galactic halo. This image is a composite created by combining exposures taken through three different filters. Light that passed through a near-infrared filter was colored red, light in the red part of the spectrum is colored green, and green light is colored magenta.
Credit: European Southern Observatory/INAF-VST/OmegaCAM Acknowledgement: OmegaCen/Astro-WISE/Kapteyn Institute
The Leo Triplet: M66 Group of Galaxies | Kitt Peak National Observatory
This small group of galaxies consists of the Messier objects M65 (NGC 3623), lower right, and M66 (NGC 3627), lower left, along with the edge-on spiral galaxy NGC3628, upper left. These three galaxies form a rather attractive triplet at the heart of the M66 group. It includes a number of other galaxies that are "out of shot". The Leo Triplet also appears in Arp's Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies. At a distance of 35 million light-years, maybe a little further, the M66 group may be related to M96 (NGC 3368) and the Leo I galaxy group.
This approximately true-color picture was created from images taken in June 1995 using BVR colors, at the Burrell Schmidt Telescope of Case Western Reserve University's Warner and Swasey Observatory located on Kitt Peak, near Tucson, Arizona, during the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program operated at the Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) and supported by the National Science Foundation.
Close-up View: Spiral Galaxy NGC 3628 in Leo | ESO
NGC 3628 is a spiral galaxy and a member of a small, but conspicuous group of galaxies located about 35 million light-years away, toward the constellation of Leo (the Lion). The other distinguished members of this family, known collectively as the Leo Triplet, are two well-known prominent spiral galaxies, Messier 65 and Messier 66 (not seen on the image). They were both discovered in 1780 by famous French comet hunter Charles Messier. NGC 3628 is the faintest of the trio and escaped Messier’s observations with his rather small telescope. It was discovered and cataloged by William Herschel only four years later.
NGC 3628 hides its spiral structure because it is seen perfectly edge-on, exactly as we observe the Milky Way galaxy on a clear night. Its most distinctive feature is a dark band of dust that lies across the plane of the disc. NGC 3628 is visibly distorted outwards, as a consequence of the gravitational interaction between NGC 3628 and its bullying companions. This boxy or “peanut-shaped” bulge, seen as a faint X-shape, is formed mainly of young stars and gas and dust. It has created the bulge away from the plane of the rest of the galaxy through their powerful motions. Because of its appearance, NGC 3628 was cataloged as Arp 317 in the Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, published in 1966. It aimed to characterize a large sample of odd objects that fell outside the standard Hubble classification, to aid understanding of how galaxies evolve.
The depth of the image reveals a myriad of galaxies of different shapes and colors, a number much further away than NGC 3628. Particularly noticeable is the fuzzy blob just in the center of the image, a diffuse satellite galaxy. A number of globular clusters can be seen as fuzzy reddish spots in the halo of the galaxy. Also visible as bright spots near the lower edge of the image (the two blue star-like objects below the satellite galaxy) are two quasars, the central engines of distant and very energetic galaxies, billions of light-years away.
This image has been taken with the FORS2 instrument, attached to one of the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope’s Unit Telescopes. It is a combination of exposures taken through different filters (B, V and R), for a total exposure time of just below one hour. The field of view is about 7 arcminutes across. This is why this large galaxy does not fit into the image.
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