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outtake from the 12 by 12 - challenge #4
triptych
- impossible project pioneer color 70 film gen2.2
- family slide by my mother or my brother (was taken before I was born)
- carina nebula details: great clouds by STScI
it's RoidWeek 2015: RoidWeek 2015 Group
please say hello on instagram: iamina
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQiOA7euaYA
At “We’re Here!” we are all on a Roadtrip.
My thanks to the Nasa Astronomy Picture of the Day for “NGC 602 and Beyond.” Image Credit: X-ray: Chandra: NASA/CXC/Univ.Potsdam/L.Oskinova et al; Optical: Hubble: NASA/STScI; Infrared: Spitzer: NASA/JPL-Caltech. Original Here: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap200111.html
Située dans la constellation de la Dorade (Dorado), la pépinière stellaire NGC 2070 (30 Doradus est son ancien nom, quand elle était confondue avec une seule étoile) tire son surnom de nébuleuse de la tarentule en raison de ses longs filaments poussiéreux. Située dans la galaxie du Grand Nuage de Magellan, à 161 000 années-lumière de la Terre, c'est la région de formation d'étoiles la plus grande et la plus brillante près de notre propre galaxie, en plus d'abriter les étoiles les plus chaudes et les plus massives connues. Contrairement à la Voie lactée, la nébuleuse de la tarentule produit de nouvelles étoiles à un rythme effréné et ressemble aux gigantesques régions de formation d'étoiles de l'époque où l'univers n'avait que quelques milliards d'années et où la formation d'étoiles était à son apogée, période connue sous le nom de Midi cosmique.
Avec l'nstrument NIRCam, en proche infrarouge, le centre de cette image a été creusé par le rayonnement de jeunes étoiles massives, scintillant en bleu pâle étincelant). Seules les zones environnantes les plus denses de la nébuleuse résistent à l'érosion, formant les piliers qui semblent pointer vers l'amas d'étoiles au centre. Ces piliers abritent des protoétoiles encore en formation, qui finiront par émerger de leurs cocons poussiéreux et façonneront à leur tour la nébuleuse.
En infrarouge moyen, l'instrument MIRI se concentre sur la zone entourant l'amas d'étoiles central. Dans cette lumière, les jeunes étoiles chaudes de l'amas s'estompent, et du gaz et de la poussière incandescents apparaissent. Des hydrocarbures abondants éclairent les surfaces des nuages de poussière, représentés en bleu et violet (cf. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO Production Team).
Pour situer la nébuleuse dans sa constellation :
Ancient Space Memories - Survival (PNG file) by Daniel Arrhakis (2015) - In Explore
With the Music : ReallySlowMotion Music - Desolation (Epic Futuristic Heroic Hybrid)
The invasion of the Thrors and the hibernation of the Serpent Titans of Orghdagh deteriorate the conditions of the planet, a massive fire burn the oxygen and all life ... Arkhanhya the former leader of Orghdagh and many others took refuge in Arhum ... many died without knowing what happened in that day ...
The story and names in this series here are created by me.
_______________________________________________
The elements are created with photos of mine ( Sculpture and form for the ship, colors, lights), and others are modified from images provided by Nasa NASA/JPL-Caltech like the background, a base photo (modified) of Eagle Nebula, Messier 16 - Credit: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team STScI/AURA.
Dusty disk circling a star artist's concept (modified in form and color by me for ilustrate the destruction of the planet ! - Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech :
www.nasa.gov/images/content/139823main_pia03243-250.jpg
I use also for this work a version of my image :
“Don't Panic.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
roid week day two
- - impossible project color film for 600 2.0 beta
- impossible instant lab
- galaxies by STScI
it's RoidWeek 2014 Part 2: RoidWeek 2014 Group
Le télescope spatial James Webb a capturé cette image de Jupiter en lumière infrarouge. Les nombreuses taches et traînées blanches brillantes correspondent probablement aux sommets des nuages d'orages de très haute altitude. Les aurores polaires sont visibles en rouge !
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The James Webb Space Telescope captured this image of Jupiter in infrared light. The numerous bright white spots and streaks are likely very high-altitude cloud tops of storms. Auroras around the poles are seen in red !
credit : NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI
Lors du lancement du télescope spatial Hubble il y a 35 ans, personne n'aurait pu imaginer à quel point il allait transformer notre vision de l'espace. Lancé le 24 avril 1990, le télescope poursuit aujourd'hui sa mission. Pour célébrer son anniversaire, la NASA a publié quatre images récentes prises par Hubble, qui prouvent sa pérennité, même après trois décennies !
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When the launched 35 years ago, no one would have guessed how much it would shape the way we view space. Launched on April 24, 1990, the telescope continues its mission today. To celebrate its anniversary, NASA released four recent images taken by Hubble that prove its staying power even after three decades !
Credit : NASA, ESA, STScI; Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Alyssa Pagan (STScI)
This image of NGC 2170 is from the POSS-II/DSS archive, one blue and a red chemically exposed frame's combined, the field of view is about a degree squared. Processed using FITSLiberator, Registar and Photoshop CC.
Here's where I download them from:
archive.stsci.edu/cgi-bin/dss_form
This reflection nebula is really faint, it's visual brightness has not been agreed upon but based on stuff I've seen and worked on I would say around +10.00 or higher for an average VB (if anyone knows I would like to too!). Reflection nebulae are pretty sweet, between reflection and emission nebula the two show a lot of different color variation. Reflection nebula reflect light from dust clouds illuminated by bright stars while emission nebula emit light through atom ionization. This leads to a completely different color scheme between the two. I plan on turning my equipment this way in the future!
La paire de galaxies en interaction ARP 107 est située à 450 millions d'années-lumière de la Terre dans la constellation du Petit lion (Leo Minor.). Chaque longueur d’onde dans l'infrarouge moyen montre les régions de formation d'étoiles et la poussière, ainsi que le noyau brillant de la grande galaxie spirale. Les données dans l'infrarouge proche pointent par contre les étoiles au sein des galaxies en collision, ainsi que le pont translucide d'étoiles en cours de collision.
Cette collision n’est pas aussi grave qu’il y paraît. Même si des formations d’étoiles ont eu lieu auparavant, les collisions entre galaxies peuvent comprimer le gaz, améliorant ainsi les conditions nécessaires à la formation d’un plus grand nombre d’étoiles. Ces collisions dispersent également beaucoup de gaz, privant potentiellement les nouvelles étoiles de la matière dont elles ont besoin pour se former. Si ces galaxies sont en train de fusionner, cela prendra cependant des centaines de millions d'années.
Description de l'image
Dans cette paire de galaxies en interaction, la plus grande des deux galaxies est légèrement à droite du centre et composée d'un centre blanc brumeux et brillant, et d'un anneau de filaments gazeux, qui sont de différentes nuances de rouge et d'orange. En bas à gauche et en bas à droite de l'anneau se trouvent des filaments de gaz en spirale vers l'intérieur du noyau. En haut à gauche de l’anneau un espace est bordé par deux grandes poches orange de poussière et de gaz. La plus petite galaxie à sa gauche est constituée de gaz et de poussières blanches et brumeuses, qui deviennent plus diffuses à mesure que l'on s'éloigne de son centre. En bas à gauche de cette galaxie, un nuage de gaz plus petit et plus diffus s’étend vers les bords. De nombreuses galaxies à fond rouge, orange et blanc ,sont réparties partout, certaines ayant une composition plus floue et d'autres ayant des motifs en spirale plus définis (cf. NASA, ESA, ASC, STScI).
Pour situer la paire de galaxies en interaction ARP 107 (Weeb-NIRCam-MIRI) dans la constellation du Petit lion (Leo Minor) :
www.flickr.com/photos/7208148@N02/48874028586
Pour voir la paire de galaxies en interaction ARP 107 (Hubble) :
www.flickr.com/photos/7208148@N02/53666323228/in/datepost...
then, with an unbearable sweetness, the waters of the night began to fill her, submerging the cold, rising gradually to the center of her being...
― albert camus
roid week day five
- impossible project color film for 600
- impossible instant lab
- magellanic cloud by STScI
it's RoidWeek 2014: RoidWeek 2014 Group
This my interpretation of the Hubble Heritage data for
WFC3-Mosaic-of-Carina-Nebula-HH-901-C in narrowband
Hope you find this interesting!
The original data can be found here if you want to have a go :)
This image, taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, shows the colorful "last hurrah" of a star like our sun. The star is ending its life by casting off its outer layers of gas, which formed a cocoon around the star's remaining core. Ultraviolet light from the dying star makes the material glow. The burned-out star, called a white dwarf, is the white dot in the center. Our sun will eventually burn out and shroud itself with stellar debris, but not for another 5 billion years.
Our Milky Way Galaxy is littered with these stellar relics, called planetary nebulae. The objects have nothing to do with planets. Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century astronomers called them the name because through small telescopes they resembled the disks of the distant planets Uranus and Neptune. The planetary nebula in this image is called NGC 2440. The white dwarf at the center of NGC 2440 is one of the hottest known, with a surface temperature of more than 360,000 degrees Fahrenheit (200,000 degrees Celsius). The nebula's chaotic structure suggests that the star shed its mass episodically. During each outburst, the star expelled material in a different direction. This can be seen in the two bowtie-shaped lobes. The nebula also is rich in clouds of dust, some of which form long, dark streaks pointing away from the star. NGC 2440 lies about 4,000 light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Puppis.
The material expelled by the star glows with different colors depending on its composition, its density and how close it is to the hot central star. Blue samples helium; blue-green oxygen, and red nitrogen and hydrogen.
Credit: NASA, ESA, and K. Noll (STScI), Acknowledgment: The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.
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12 by 12 - Challenge #4
Take what you believe will be the final series of photographs before you die. — Nick Brandt
thinking about this challenge brought back so many memories of already dead family members and i dived deep down into our family slides…
i believe that death is not the end, so i started to think about my last series would become a series at a place between life and death.
maybe there is a spot somewhere in the universe, where i’ll meet my family and friends. and from there we will start to explore the whole universe together…
thanks for this challenge
collage 2/3
- impossible project pioneer color 70 film gen2.2
- family slide by my mother or my brother (was taken before I was born)
- crab nebula by STScI
chandra.harvard.edu/photo/openFITS/multiwavelength_data.html
M51 Hubble Optical - ACS/WFC F435W (Blue)
M51 Hubble Optical - ACS/WFC F555W (Green)
M51 Hubble Optical - ACS/WFC F658N + F814W (Red)
NASA/STScI
Observation Date: 11 pointings between Mar 2000 and Oct 2012
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has unveiled in stunning detail a small section of the expanding remains of a massive star that exploded about 8,000 years ago.
Called the Veil Nebula, the debris is one of the best-known supernova remnants, deriving its name from its delicate, draped filamentary structures. The entire nebula is 110 light-years across, covering six full moons on the sky as seen from Earth, and resides about 2,100 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus, the Swan.
This 3-D visualization flies across a small portion of the Veil Nebula as photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope.
Read more: www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/hubble-zooms-in-on-shrapnel-...
Credit: NASA, ESA, and F. Summers, G. Bacon, Z. Levay, and L. Frattare (Viz 3D Team, STScI)
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.
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The nearby galaxy Messier 33 contains a star-forming region called NGC 604 where some 200 hot, young, massive stars reside. The cool dust and warmer gas in this stellar nursery appear as the wispy structures in an optical image from the Hubble Space Telescope. In between these filaments are giant voids that are filled with hot, X-ray-emitting gas. Astronomers think these bubbles are being blown off the surfaces of the young and massive stars throughout NGC 604.
NGC 604 also likely contains an extreme member of the class of colliding-wind binaries, as reported in a recent paper. It is the first candidate source in this class to be discovered in M33 and the most distant example known, and shares several properties with the famous, volatile system called Eta Carinae, located in our galaxy.
Chandra’s X-ray data (blue) are combined in this image with optical data from Hubble (purple).
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/R. Tuellmann et al.; Optical: NASA/AURA/STScI/J. Schmidt
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This image was taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and shows a starburst galaxy named MCG+07-33-027. This galaxy lies some 300 million light-years away from us, and is currently experiencing an extraordinarily high rate of star formation — a starburst.
Normal galaxies produce only a couple of new stars per year, but starburst galaxies can produce a hundred times more than that. As MCG+07-33-027 is seen face-on, the galaxy’s spiral arms and the bright star-forming regions within them are clearly visible and easy for astronomers to study.
In order to form newborn stars, the parent galaxy has to hold a large reservoir of gas, which is slowly depleted to spawn stars over time. For galaxies in a state of starburst, this intense period of star formation has to be triggered somehow — often this happens due to a collision with another galaxy. MCG+07-33-027, however, is special; while many galaxies are located within a large cluster of galaxies, MCG+07-33-027 is a field galaxy, which means it is rather isolated. Thus, the triggering of the starburst was most likely not due to a collision with a neighboring or passing galaxy and astronomers are still speculating about the cause. The bright object to the right of the galaxy is a foreground star in our own galaxy.
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA and N. Grogin (STScI)
12 by 12 - Challenge #4
Take what you believe will be the final series of photographs before you die. — Nick Brandt
thinking about this challenge brought back so many memories of already dead family members and i dived deep down into our family slides…
i believe that death is not the end, so i started to think about my last series would become a series at a place between life and death.
maybe there is a spot somewhere in the universe, where i’ll meet my family and friends. and from there we will start to explore the whole universe together…
thanks for this challenge
collage 3/3
- impossible project pioneer color 70 film gen2.2
- family slide by my mother or my brother (was taken before I was born)
- NGC 3324 by STScI
This my interpretation of the Hubble Heritage data NGC 2174 in Multi-Band Colour.
The original data can be found here if you want to have a go :)
hla.stsci.edu/cgi-bin/display?image=hlsp_heritage_hst_wfc...
To commemorate HST's 24th anniversary, the Hubble Heritage Team has observed a dramatic dust pillar in NGC2174 with the WFC3 infrared camera. This new view is strikingly different than previous Hubble images obtained in visible light with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (Proposal 9091, PI: Hester).
The new WFC3 observations were obtained in February 2014 and include 4 tiles in a 2x2 mosaic pattern, where a small shift between tiles allows for the removal of detector artifacts. (See Proposal 13623, PI: Levay for details.) The broad band F105W like emoticon, F125W (J), and F160W (H) filters highlight unique physical processes occurring in and around the nebula, and they combine to produce a dramatic new color image.
Downloaded the RGB fits files from hla.stsci.edu/ and played around with them this morning. The whole time I was processing it I was just amazed at how many galaxies are in this one image! Too many to count. It made for an interesting time creating a star mask. I used settings that I didn't even know existed!
Processing done in PixInsight.
Cette photomosaïque de la galaxie d'Andromède, située à 2,5 millions d'années-lumière de la Terre, est la plus grande jamais créée à partir d'images du télescope spatial Hubble. Elle comprend plus de 600 images du télescope et a nécessité plus d'une décennie de travail. La photomosaïque comprend 200 millions d'étoiles, soit une fraction de la population d'étoiles estimée à mille milliards d'étoiles d'Andromède.
« Les régions intéressantes comprennent : (a) des amas d'étoiles bleues brillantes intégrées dans la galaxie, des galaxies d'arrière-plan vues beaucoup plus loin et un bombardement photographique par quelques étoiles brillantes au premier plan qui sont en fait à l'intérieur de notre Voie lactée ; (b) NGC 206, le nuage d'étoiles le plus visible d'Andromède ; (c) un jeune amas d'étoiles bleues nouveau-nées ; (d) la galaxie satellite M32, qui pourrait être le noyau résiduel d'une galaxie qui est entrée en collision avec Andromède ; (e) des bandes de poussière sombres à travers une myriade d'étoiles.
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This photomosaic of the Andromeda galaxy, located 2.5 million light-years from Earth, is the largest ever created using images from the Hubble Space Telescope. It features over 600 Hubble images and required over a decade to make. The composite features 200 million stars, a fraction of Andromeda’s estimated trillion-star population.
Interesting regions include: (a) Clusters of bright blue stars embedded within the galaxy, background galaxies seen much farther away, and photo-bombing by a couple bright foreground stars that are actually inside our Milky Way; (b) NGC 206 the most conspicuous star cloud in Andromeda; (c) A young cluster of blue newborn stars; (d) The satellite galaxy M32, that may be the residual core of a galaxy that once collided with Andromeda; (e) Dark dust lanes across myriad stars.
Crédit : NASA, ESA, Benjamin F. Williams (Université de Washington), Zhuo Chen (Université de Washington), L. Clifton Johnson (Northwestern) ; traitement des images : Joseph DePasquale (STScI)
__________________________________________PdF_____
Well, it is slider Sunday!!
Outside storm Ciara is battering the UK with 80mph winds and we are all hunkered down indoors, I've lost a fence already.
In spite of Santa bringing me a new 16mm-35mm lens for Xmas, I've not been inspired to go outside with it yet. But creative photography isn't just about taking wonderful photographs, it's about creating......
Creating this image took some time, it involved flying down to the Italian Dolomites to get a pano shot of the Tre Cime Di Lavaredo mountains and then booking time on the Hubble space telescope to get the colliding galaxy shot - imagine how hard 'that' was?
Processed in Lightroom and Luminar 4.
I've always been a big science fiction fan so I'm quite pleased with the way this one turned out.
NASA Image is freely available - "no claim to copyright is being asserted by STScI and material on this site may be freely used as in the public domain".
“Still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate
And though I oft have passed them by
A day will come at last when I
Shall take the hidden paths that run
West of the Moon, East of the Sun.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien
roid week day four
- impossible project color film for 600
- impossible instant lab
- jet in carina by STScI
it's RoidWeek 2014: RoidWeek 2014 Group
The magnificent spiral galaxy NGC 2276 looks a bit lopsided in this Hubble Space Telescope snapshot. A bright hub of older yellowish stars normally lies directly in the center of most spiral galaxies. But the bulge in NGC 2276 looks offset to the upper left.
What's going on?
In reality, a neighboring galaxy to the right of NGC 2276 (NGC 2300, not seen here) is gravitationally tugging on its disk of blue stars, pulling the stars on one side of the galaxy outward to distort the galaxy's normal fried-egg appearance.
This sort of "tug-of-war" between galaxies that pass close enough to feel each other's gravitational pull is not uncommon in the universe. But, like snowflakes, no two close encounters look exactly alike.
In addition, newborn and short-lived massive stars form a bright, blue arm along the upper left edge of NGC 2276. They trace out a lane of intense star formation. This may have been triggered by a prior collision with a dwarf galaxy. It could also be due to NGC 2276 plowing into the superheated gas that lies among galaxies in galaxy clusters. This would compress the gas to precipitate into stars, and trigger a firestorm of starbirth.
The spiral galaxy lies 120 million light-years away, in the northern constellation Cepheus.
Credits: Publication Partners: NASA, ESA, STScI, Paul Sell (University of Florida)
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.
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The largest and brightest region of star formation in the Local Group of galaxies, including the Milky Way, is called 30 Doradus (or, informally, the Tarantula Nebula). Located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small neighbor galaxy to the Milky Way, 30 Doradus has long been studied by astronomers who want to better understand how stars like the Sun are born and evolve.
NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has frequently looked at 30 Doradus over the lifetime of the mission, often under the direction of Dr. Leisa Townsley who passed away in the summer of 2022. These data will continue to be collected and analyzed, providing opportunities for scientists both now and in the future to learn more about star formation and its related processes.
This new composite image combines the X-ray data from Chandra observations of 30 Doradus with an infrared image from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope that was released in the fall of 2022. The X-rays (royal blue and purple) reveal gas that has been heated to millions of degrees by shock waves — similar to sonic booms from airplanes — generated by the winds from massive stars. The Chandra data also identify the remains of supernova explosions, which will ultimately send important elements such as oxygen and carbon into space where they will become part of the next generation of stars.
The infrared data from JWST (red, orange, green, and light blue) show spectacular canvases of cooler gas that provide the raw ingredients for future stars. JWST’s view also reveals “protostars,” that is, stars in their infancy, just igniting their stellar engines. The chemical composition of 30 Doradus is different from most of the nebulas found in the Milky Way. Instead it represents the conditions in our galaxy that existed several billion years ago when stars were forming at a much faster pace than astronomers see today. This, combined with its relative proximity and brightness, means that 30 Doradus provides scientists with an opportunity to learn more about how stars formed in our galaxy in the distant past.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Penn State Univ./L. Townsley et al.; IR: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/JWST ERO Production Team
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A spectacular head-on collision between two galaxies, known as Arp 143, has fueled the unusual triangular-shaped star-formation frenzy as captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.
The interacting galaxy duo Arp 143 contains the distorted, star-forming spiral galaxy NGC 2445, at right, along with its less flashy companion, NGC 2444, at left. Their frenzied collision takes place against the tapestry of distant galaxies, of which some can be seen through the interacting pair.
Astronomers suggest that the two galaxies passed through each other, igniting the uniquely shaped firestorm of star formation in NGC 2445, where thousands of stars are bursting into life. This galaxy is awash with new stars because it is rich in gas, the raw material from which stars are made. However, it hasn’t yet escaped the gravitational clutches of its partner at left. The pair is waging a cosmic tug-of-war, which NGC 2444 appears to be winning. That galaxy has pulled gas from NGC 2445, forming the oddball triangle of newly minted stars.
NGC 2444 is also responsible for yanking strands of gas from its partner, stoking the streamers of young, blue stars that appear to form a bridge between the two galaxies. These streamers are among the first in what appears to be a wave of star formation that started on the galaxy’s outskirts and continued inward. Researchers estimate the streamer stars were born between 50 million and 100 million years ago. But these infant stars are being left behind as NGC 2445 continues to pull slowly away from NGC 2444.
Stars no older than one million to two million years old are forming closer to the centre of NGC 2445. Hubble’s keen vision reveals some individual stars, the brightest and most massive in the galaxy. Most of the brilliant blue clumps are groupings of stars and the pink blobs are glowing gas clouds enshrouding young, massive star clusters.
Although most of the action is happening in NGC 2445, it doesn’t mean the other member of the interacting pair has escaped unscathed. The gravitational tussle has stretched NGC 2444 into an odd shape, yanking gas far from the galaxy. NGC 2444 contains old stars and no new starbirth because it lost its gas long ago, well before this galactic encounter.
Aside from the star formation in NGC 2445, another interesting feature that Hubble has uncovered is the dark filaments of gas in the starburst galaxy’s bright core. Those features may have been formed by outbursts of material. Radio observations reveal a powerful source in the core that may be spearheading the outbursts. The radio source may have been produced by intense star formation or a black hole gobbling up material flowing into the centre.
It’s not uncommon for star formation to occur in the cores of galaxies, driven by interactions. Plenty of gas from galactic encounters flows into the centre, which can trigger the birth of new stars. Outflows from these stars can drive material out, but the dust created by these outbursts blankets the core and other regions throughout NGC 2445, making it difficult for Hubble to study in visible light.
However, the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope will have the infrared vision to peer through the dust covering these regions to reveal the young star clusters that are hidden from view in visible-light images. In this way, Hubble and Webb will provide the full census of stars in NGC 2445. The census will help astronomers answer questions such as what the star-formation rate is, how long it takes for stars to form, and whether the starburst in NGC 2445 is fading or just heating up.
Studying young, massive star clusters still embedded in their dust and gas cocoons is important for understanding how star formation affects the evolution of galaxies. Massive stars that explode as supernovae enrich their environment with chemical elements heavier than hydrogen and helium.
The Arp 143 system is listed in a compendium of 338 unusual-looking interacting galaxies called the “Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies” published in 1966 by astronomer Halton Arp.
Credits: NASA, ESA, STScI, and J. Dalcanton (Center for Computational Astrophysics/Flatiron Inst., UWashington); CC BY 4.0
Scientists are getting their first look with the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope’s powerful resolution at how the formation of young stars influences the evolution of nearby galaxies. The spiral arms of NGC 7496, one of a total of 19 galaxies targeted for study by the Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby Galaxies (PHANGS) collaboration, are filled with cavernous bubbles and shells overlapping one another in this image from Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). These filaments and hollow cavities are evidence of young stars releasing energy and, in some cases, blowing out the gas and dust of the interstellar medium they plough into.
Until Webb’s high resolution at infrared wavelengths came along, stars at the earliest point of their lifecycle in nearby galaxies like NGC 7496 remained obscured by gas and dust. Webb’s specific wavelength coverage (7.7 and 11.3 microns), allows for the detection of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which play a critical role in the formation of stars and planets. In Webb’s MIRI image, these are mostly found within the main dust lanes in the spiral arms.
In their analysis of the new data from Webb, scientists were able to identify nearly 60 new, undiscovered embedded cluster candidates in NGC 7496. These newly identified clusters could be among the youngest stars in the entire galaxy.
At the centre of NGC 7496, a barred spiral galaxy, is an active galactic nucleus (AGN). An AGN is a supermassive black hole that is emitting jets and winds. The AGN glows brightly at the centre of this Webb image. Additionally, Webb’s extreme sensitivity also picks up various background galaxies,far distant from NGC 7496, which appear green or red in some instances.
NGC 7496 lies over 24 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Grus.
In this image of NGC 7496, blue, green, and red were assigned to Webb’s MIRI data at 7.7, 10 and 11.3, and 21 microns (the F770W, F1000W and F1130W, and F2100W filters, respectively).
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) and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in partnership with the University of Arizona.
Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, and J. Lee (NOIRLab), A. Pagan (STScI)
Download full size image here: www.flickr.com/photos/192271236@N03/53020307205/sizes/o/
Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/AndreaLuck
(See license below)
Colourised mage created processing data from: mast.stsci.edu
NASA/ESA JWST Webb Space Telescope
Instrument: NIRCAM
Target: Saturn-Centre
Filter: F322W2, F323N
Observation ID: jw01247-o301_t637_nircam_f322w2-f323n
Time: 2023-06-24
Proposal PI: Fletcher, Leigh
Proposal ID: 1247
Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/AndreaLuck
Feel free to share, giving the appropriate credit and providing a link to the original image or tweet: creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
'Pandora's Cluster' (NIRCam Image) by JWST
NASA’s Webb Uncovers New Details in Pandora’s Cluster
Astronomers have revealed the latest deep field image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, featuring never-before-seen details in a region of space known as Pandora’s Cluster (Abell 2744). Webb’s view displays three clusters of galaxies – already massive – coming together to form a megacluster. The combined mass of the galaxy clusters creates a powerful gravitational lens, a natural magnification effect of gravity, allowing much more distant galaxies in the early universe to be observed by using the cluster like a magnifying glass.
Caption
Astronomers estimate 50,000 sources of near-infrared light are represented in this image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Their light has travelled through varying distances to reach the telescope’s detectors, representing the vastness of space in a single image. A foreground star in our own galaxy, to the right of the image center, displays Webb’s distinctive diffraction spikes. Bright white sources surrounded by a hazy glow are the galaxies of Pandora’s Cluster, a conglomeration of already-massive clusters of galaxies coming together to form a megacluster. The concentration of mass is so great that the fabric of spacetime is warped by gravity, creating an effect that makes the region of special interest to astronomers: a natural, super-magnifying glass called a “gravitational lens” that they can use to see very distant sources of light beyond the cluster that would otherwise be undetectable, even to Webb.
These lensed sources appear red in the image, and often as elongated arcs distorted by the gravitational lens. Many of these are galaxies from the early universe, with their contents magnified and stretched out for astronomers to study. Other red sources in the image have yet to be confirmed by follow-up observations with Webb’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) instrument to determine their true nature. One intriguing example is an extremely compact source that appears as a tiny red dot, despite the magnifying effect of the gravitational lens. One possibility is that the dot is a supermassive black hole in the early universe. NIRSpec data will provide both distance measurements and compositional details of selected sources, providing a wealth of previously-inaccessible information about the universe and how it has evolved over time.
Credits
SCIENCE: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ivo Labbe (Swinburne), Rachel Bezanson (University of Pittsburgh)
IMAGE PROCESSING: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)
In this mosaic image stretching 340 light-years across, Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) displays the Tarantula Nebula star-forming region in a new light, including tens of thousands of never-before-seen young stars that were previously shrouded in cosmic dust. The most active region appears to sparkle with massive young stars, appearing pale blue. Scattered among them are still-embedded stars, appearing red, yet to emerge from the dusty cocoon of the nebula. NIRCam is able to detect these dust-enshrouded stars thanks to its unprecedented resolution at near-infrared wavelengths.
To the upper left of the cluster of young stars, and the top of the nebula’s cavity, an older star prominently displays NIRCam’s distinctive eight diffraction spikes, an artefact of the telescope’s structure. Following the top central spike of this star upward, it almost points to a distinctive bubble in the cloud. Young stars still surrounded by dusty material are blowing this bubble, beginning to carve out their own cavity. Astronomers used two of Webb’s spectrographs to take a closer look at this region and determine the chemical makeup of the star and its surrounding gas. This spectral information will tell astronomers about the age of the nebula and how many generations of star birth it has seen.
Farther from the core region of hot young stars, cooler gas takes on a rust colour, telling astronomers that the nebula is rich with complex hydrocarbons. This dense gas is the material that will form future stars. As winds from the massive stars sweep away gas and dust, some of it will pile up and, with gravity’s help, form new stars.
Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI
The rare sight of a Wolf-Rayet star – among the most luminous, most massive, and most briefly detectable stars known – was one of the first observations made by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope in June 2022. Webb shows the star, WR 124, in unprecedented detail with its powerful infrared instruments. The star is 15,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius.
Massive stars race through their lifecycles, and only some of them go through a brief Wolf-Rayet phase before going supernova, making Webb's detailed observations of this rare phase valuable to astronomers. Wolf-Rayet stars are in the process of casting off their outer layers, resulting in their characteristic halos of gas and dust. The star WR 124 is 30 times the mass of the Sun and has shed 10 Suns' worth of material – so far. As the ejected gas moves away from the star and cools, cosmic dust forms and glows in the infrared light detectable by Webb.
The origin of cosmic dust that can survive a supernova blast and contribute to the universe's overall “dust budget” is of great interest to astronomers for multiple reasons. Dust is integral to the workings of the universe: It shelters forming stars, gathers together to help form planets, and serves as a platform for molecules to form and clump together – including the building blocks of life on Earth. Despite the many essential roles that dust plays, there is still more dust in the universe than astronomers' current dust-formation theories can explain. The universe is operating with a dust budget surplus.
Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO Production Team
#NASA #STScI #jwst #jameswebbspacetelescope #NASAGoddard #NASAMarshall
Galaxy clusters are the largest objects in the universe held together by gravity. They contain enormous amounts of superheated gas, with temperatures of tens of millions of degrees, which glows brightly in X-rays, and can be observed across millions of light years between the galaxies. This image of the Abell 2744 galaxy cluster combines X-rays from Chandra (diffuse blue emission) with optical light data from Hubble (red, green, and blue).
Image credit: NASA/CXC; Optical: NASA/STScI
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #chandraxrayobservatory #ChandraXRay #cxo #chandra #astronomy #space #astrophysics #nasamarshallspaceflightcenter #solarsystemandbeyond #galaxy #galaxycluster #GoddardSpaceFlightCenter #GSFC #Hubble #HST #HubbleSpaceTelescope
NGC3324 – Data from the JWST NearIR Camera
This image was constructed using the newly released data set from the JWST. Five filters were used to construct this false colour rendition. This is my first attempt at using this sort of data, and I thought I would share my results. This field covers the area of the sky that is about the size of a grain of sand held at arm's length.
I think one of the greatest challenges was dealing with the stars. Funky or even diabolical would be an understatement. They had hollow cores and wacky diffraction spikes. I tried to deal with them as best I could. I downloaded 13GB of data to create this image.
I used the following filters and mapped them to create this false colour image. (F090W, F187N, F200W, F335M, and F470N) Unfortunately, carbon-based units can’t see light in these frequencies, and creating a false colour image is required.
If you are interested in processing the data, start here for information. jwst-docs.stsci.edu/jwst-near-infrared-camera/nircam-inst...
I imaged this target with my own equipment, both in narrowband www.flickr.com/photos/97807083@N00/52083523998/in/datepos...
and broadband www.flickr.com/photos/97807083@N00/52048258617/in/datepos...
Compared to this data, they are very wide field :) images.
Hopefully, it’s not too far over the top. Thanks for looking.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope reveals emerging stellar nurseries and individual stars in the Carina Nebula that were previously obscured. Images of “Cosmic Cliffs” showcase Webb’s cameras’ capabilities to peer through cosmic dust, shedding new light on how stars form. Objects in the earliest, rapid phases of star formation are difficult to capture, but Webb’s extreme sensitivity, spatial resolution, and imaging capability can chronicle these elusive events.
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI
#NASAMarshall #msfc #gsfc #jwst #space #telescope #jameswebspacetelescope #nebula #star
Most galaxies are clumped together in groups or clusters. A neighboring galaxy is never far away. But this galaxy, known as NGC 6503, has found itself in a lonely position, at the edge of a strangely empty patch of space called the Local Void.
The Local Void is a huge stretch of space that is at least 150 million light-years across. It seems completely empty of stars or galaxies. The galaxy’s odd location on the edge of this never-land led stargazer Stephen James O’Meara to dub it the “Lost-In-Space galaxy” in his 2007 book, Hidden Treasures.
NGC 6503 is 18 million light-years away from us in the northern circumpolar constellation of Draco. NGC 6503 spans some 30,000 light-years, about a third of the size of the Milky Way.
This Hubble Space Telescope image shows NGC 6503 in striking detail and with a rich set of colors. Bright red patches of gas can be seen scattered through its swirling spiral arms, mixed with bright blue regions that contain newly forming stars. Dark brown dust lanes snake across the galaxy’s bright arms and center, giving it a mottled appearance.
The Hubble Advanced Camera for Surveys data for NGC 6503 were taken in April 2003, and the Wide Field Camera 3 data were taken in August 2013.
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., in Washington, D.C.
Photo Credit: NASA, ESA, D. Calzetti (University of Massachusetts), H. Ford (Johns Hopkins University), and the Hubble Heritage Team
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.
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NGC 2525 is a barred spiral galaxy located in the constellation Puppis. It is located at a distance of about 70 million light years from Earth. Image created using data for the Hubble Space Telescope ACS/WFC camera. Credit NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO Production Team. Software that I used for data processing- Pixinsight 1.8 9-1, and Photoshop 24.7
The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope's mid-infrared view of the Pillars of Creation strikes a chilling tone. Thousands of stars that exist in this region disappear from view — and seemingly endless layers of gas and dust become the centrepiece.
The detection of dust by Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) is extremely important — dust is a major ingredient for star formation. Many stars are actively forming in these dense blue-grey pillars. When knots of gas and dust with sufficient mass form in these regions, they begin to collapse under their own gravitational attraction, slowly heat up, and eventually form new stars.
Although the stars appear to be missing, they aren’t. Stars typically do not emit much mid-infrared light. Instead, they are easiest to detect in ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared light. In this MIRI view, two types of stars can be identified. The stars at the end of the thick, dusty pillars have recently eroded most of the more distant material surrounding them but they can be seen in mid-infrared light because they are still surrounded by cloaks of dust. In contrast, blue tones indicate stars that are older and have shed most of their gas and dust.
Mid-infrared light also details dense regions of gas and dust. The red region toward the top, which forms a delicate V shape, is where the dust is both diffuse and cooler. And although it may seem like the scene clears toward the bottom left of this view, the darkest grey areas are where densest and coolest regions of dust lie. Notice that there are many fewer stars and no background galaxies popping into view.
Webb’s mid-infrared data will help researchers determine exactly how much dust is in this region — and what it’s made of. These details will make models of the Pillars of Creation far more precise. Over time, we will begin to understand more clearly how stars form and burst out of these dusty clouds over millions of years.
Contrast this view with Webb’s near-infrared light image.
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.
Image Description: Semi-opaque layers of blue and grey gas and dust start at the bottom left and rise toward the top right. There are three prominent pillars. The left pillar is the largest and widest. The peaks of the second and third pillars are set off in darker shades of blue outlines. Few red stars appear within the pillars. Some blue and white stars dot the overall scene.
Download more versions of this image.
Credit:
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, J. DePasquale (STScI), A. Pagan (STScI); CC BY 4.0
La nébuleuse planétaire NGC 2899 est située à 4 500 années-lumière de la Terre et à 25 895 années-lumière du centre galactique dans la constellation australe des Voiles (Vela). Cet objet présente un flux de gaz cylindrique, bipolaire et diagonal propulsé par le rayonnement et les vents stellaires d'une naine blanche située en son centre. En réalité, deux étoiles compagnes pourraient interagir et sculpter la nébuleuse, pincée en son centre par un anneau fragmenté (tore) qui ressemble à un beignet à moitié mangé. Elle présente une forêt de "piliers" gazeux pointant vers la source du rayonnement et des vents stellaires. Ses couleurs proviennent de l'hydrogène et de l'oxygène brillants (cf. NASA, ESA, STScI ; Image Processing : Joseph DePasquale STScI).
Pour situer la nébuleuse planétaire NGC 2899 (Hubble) dans la constellation australe des Voiles (Vela) :
This is our version, via our artificial intelligence model, of the image provided by the JWST about NGC 346, one of the most dynamic star-forming regions in nearby galaxies. Now, thanks to the JWST's NIRCam, we can go inside this area, overcoming the dense clouds of dust and gas that enveloped it.
The document obtained via AI now has greater clarity and resolution. The image consists of 20656x30000 pixels (619.68 million pixels).
Exposure Dates: 16 June 2022, 26 June 2022, 10 Oct 2022.
Filters:F200W; F277W; F335M; F444W.
Credits for Science: NASA, ESA, CSA, Olivia C. Jones (UK ATC), Guido De Marchi (ESTEC), Margaret Meixner (USRA); for image processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI), Nolan Habel (USRA), Laura Lenkić (USRA), Laurie E. U. Chu (NASA Ames); for improving sharpness and resolution via Artificial Intelligence: PipploIMP.
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Our YouTube channel: bit.ly/PipploYT
This is not an ethereal landscape of time-forgotten tombs. Nor are these soot-tinged fingers reaching out. These pillars, flush with gas and dust, enshroud stars that are slowly forming over many millennia. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has snapped this eerie, extremely dusty view of the Pillars of Creation in mid-infrared light – showing us a new view of a familiar landscape.
Why does mid-infrared light set such a somber, chilling mood in Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) image? Interstellar dust cloaks the scene. And while mid-infrared light specializes in detailing where dust is, the stars aren’t bright enough at these wavelengths to appear. Instead, these looming, leaden-hued pillars of gas and dust gleam at their edges, hinting at the activity within.
Thousands and thousands of stars have formed in this region. This is made plain when examining Webb’s recent Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) image. In MIRI’s view, the majority of the stars appear missing. Why? Many newly formed stars are no longer surrounded by enough dust to be detected in mid-infrared light. Instead, MIRI observes young stars that have not yet cast off their dusty “cloaks.” These are the crimson orbs toward the fringes of the pillars. In contrast, the blue stars that dot the scene are aging, which means they have shed most of their layers of gas and dust.
Mid-infrared light excels at observing gas and dust in extreme detail. This is also unmistakable throughout the background. The densest areas of dust are the darkest shades of gray. The red region toward the top, which forms an uncanny V, like an owl with outstretched wings, is where the dust is diffuse and cooler. Notice that no background galaxies make an appearance – the interstellar medium in the densest part of the Milky Way’s disk is too swollen with gas and dust to allow their distant light to penetrate.
How vast is this landscape? Trace the topmost pillar, landing on the bright red star jutting out of its lower edge like a broomstick. This star and its dusty shroud are larger than the size of our entire solar system.
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Alyssa Pagan (STScI)
#NASA #STScI #jwst #jameswebbspacetelescope #NASAGoddard #NASAMarshall #PillarsOfCreation
NASA is celebrating the Hubble Space Telescope's 30 years of unlocking the beauty and mystery of space by unveiling a stunning new portrait of a firestorm of starbirth in a neighboring galaxy.
In this Hubble portrait, the giant red nebula (NGC 2014) and its smaller blue neighbor (NGC 2020) are part of a vast star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, located 163,000 light-years away. The image is nicknamed the "Cosmic Reef," because it resembles an undersea world.
Read more: go.nasa.gov/2Y0J16k
Credits: NASA, ESA and STScI
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.
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This image combines Hubble observations of M 106 with additional information captured by amateur astronomers Robert Gendler and Jay GaBany. Gendler combined Hubble data with his own observations to produce this stunning colour image. M 106 is a relatively nearby spiral galaxy, a little over 20 million light-years away.
Credits: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), and R. Gendler (for the Hubble Heritage Team). Acknowledgment: J. GaBany, A van der Hoeven
The NASA/ESA/CSA 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.
First, focus on the galaxies responsible for the lensing: the bright white elliptical galaxy at the centre of the image and smaller white galaxies throughout the image. Bound together by gravity in a galaxy cluster, they are bending the light from galaxies that appear in the vast distances behind them. The combined mass of the galaxies and dark matter act as a cosmic telescope, creating magnified, contorted, and sometimes mirrored images of individual galaxies.
Clear examples of mirroring are found in the prominent orange arcs to the left and right of the brightest cluster galaxy. These are lensed galaxies – each individual galaxy is shown twice in one arc. Webb’s image has fully revealed their bright cores, which are filled with stars, along with orange star clusters along their edges.
Not all galaxies in this field are mirrored – some are stretched. Others appear scattered by interactions with other galaxies, leaving trails of stars behind them.
Webb has refined the level of detail we can observe throughout this field. Very diffuse galaxies appear like collections of loosely bound dandelion seeds aloft in a breeze. Individual “pods” of star formation practically bloom within some of the most distant galaxies – the clearest, most detailed views of star clusters in the early Universe so far.
One galaxy speckled with star clusters appears near the bottom end of the bright central star’s vertical diffraction spike – just to the right of a long orange arc. The long, thin ladybug-like galaxy is flecked with pockets of star formation. Draw a line between its “wings” to roughly match up its star clusters, mirrored top to bottom. Because this galaxy is so magnified and its individual star clusters are so crisp, researchers will be able to study it in exquisite detail, which wasn’t previously possible for galaxies this distant.
The galaxies in this scene that are farthest away – the tiniest galaxies that are located well behind the cluster – look nothing like the spiral and elliptical galaxies observed in the local Universe. They are much clumpier and more irregular. Webb’s highly detailed image may help researchers measure the ages and masses of star clusters within these distant galaxies. This might lead to more accurate models of galaxies that existed at cosmic “spring,” when galaxies were sprouting tiny “buds” of new growth, actively interacting and merging, and had yet to develop into larger spirals. Ultimately, Webb’s upcoming observations will help astronomers better understand how galaxies form and grow in the early Universe.
Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI
An international team of astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has obtained an in-depth inventory of the deepest, coldest ices measured to date in a molecular cloud. In addition to simple ices like water, the team was able to identify frozen forms of a wide range of molecules, from carbonyl sulfide, ammonia, and methane, to the simplest complex organic molecule, methanol. This is the most comprehensive census to date of the icy ingredients available to make future generations of stars and planets, before they are heated during the formation of young stars.
This image from the telescope’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) features the central region of the Chamaeleon I dark molecular cloud, which resides 630 light-years away. The cold, wispy cloud material (blue, center) is illuminated in the infrared by the glow of the young, outflowing protostar Ced 110 IRS 4 (orange, upper left). The light from numerous background stars, seen as orange dots behind the cloud, can be used to detect ices in the cloud, which absorb the starlight passing through them.
This research forms part of the Ice Age project, one of Webb's 13 Early Release Science programs. These observations are designed to showcase Webb’s observing capabilities and to allow the astronomical community to learn how to get the best from its instruments. The Ice Age team has already planned further observations, and hopes to trace out the journey of ices from their formation through to the assemblage of icy comets.
Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and M. Zamani (ESA)
#NASA #STScI #jwst #jameswebbspacetelescope #NASAGoddard #NASAMarshall #galaxy
These are images of Saturn’s moon Titan, captured by the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam instrument on 4 November 2022. The image on the left uses a filter sensitive to Titan’s lower atmosphere. The bright spots are prominent clouds in the northern hemisphere. The image on the right is a color composite image.
Titan is the only moon in the Solar System with a dense atmosphere, and it is also the only planetary body other than Earth that currently has rivers, lakes, and seas. Unlike Earth, however, the liquid on Titan’s surface is composed of hydrocarbons including methane and ethane, not water. Its atmosphere is filled with thick haze that obscures visible light reflecting off the surface.
Scientists have waited for years to use Webb’s infrared vision to study Titan’s atmosphere, including its fascinating weather patterns and gaseous composition, and also see through the haze to study albedo features (bright and dark patches) on the surface. Further Titan data are expected from NIRCam and NIRSpec as well as the first data from Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) in May or June of 2023. The MIRI data will reveal an even greater part of Titan’s spectrum, including some wavelengths that have never before been seen. This will give scientists information about the complex gases in Titan’s atmosphere, as well as crucial clues to deciphering why Titan is the only moon in the Solar System with a dense atmosphere.
[Image Description: Side-by-side images of Saturn’s moon Titan, captured by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera on 4 November 2022, with clouds and other features visible. Left image is various shades of red. Right image is shades of white, blue, and brown.]
Note: This post highlights data from Webb science in progress, which has not yet been through the peer-review process.
Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, A. Pagan (STScI), JWST Titan GTO Team; CC BY 4.0
By combining images of the iconic Pillars of Creation from two cameras aboard the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, the Universe has been framed in its infrared glory. Webb’s near-infrared image was fused with its mid-infrared image, setting this star-forming region ablaze with new details.
Myriad stars are spread throughout the scene. The stars primarily show up in near-infrared light, marking a contribution of Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam). Near-infrared light also reveals thousands of newly formed stars – look for bright orange spheres that lie just outside the dusty pillars.
In mid-infrared light, the dust is on full display. The contributions from Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) are most apparent in the layers of diffuse, orange dust that drape the top of the image, relaxing into a V. The densest regions of dust are cast in deep indigo hues, obscuring our view of the activities inside the dense pillars.
Dust also makes up the spire-like pillars that extend from the bottom left to the top right. This is one of the reasons why the region is overflowing with stars – dust is a major ingredient of star formation. When knots of gas and dust with sufficient mass form in the pillars, they begin to collapse under their own gravitational attraction, slowly heat up, and eventually form new stars. Newly formed stars are especially apparent at the edges of the top two pillars – they are practically bursting onto the scene.
At the top edge of the second pillar, undulating detail in red hints at even more embedded stars. These are even younger, and are quite active as they form. The lava-like regions capture their periodic ejections. As stars form, they periodically send out supersonic jets that can interact within clouds of material, like these thick pillars of gas and dust. These young stars are estimated to be only a few hundred thousand years old, and will continue to form for millions of years.
Almost everything you see in this scene is local. The distant universe is largely blocked from our view both by the interstellar medium, which is made up of sparse gas and dust located between the stars, and a thick dust lane in our Milky Way galaxy. As a result, the stars take center stage in Webb’s view of the Pillars of Creation.
The Pillars of Creation is a small region within the vast Eagle Nebula, which lies 6,500 light-years away.
Revisit Webb’s near-infrared image and its its mid-infrared image. The Pillars of Creation was made famous by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope in 1995, and again in 2014.
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.
Webb’s NIRCam was built by a team at the University of Arizona and Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Technology Center.
Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, J. DePasquale (STScI), A. Pagan (STScI), A. M. Koekemoer (STScI); CC BY 4.0
The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has revealed the once-hidden features of the protostar within the dark cloud L1527 with its Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam), providing insight into the formation of a new star. These blazing clouds within the Taurus star-forming region are only visible in infrared light, making it an ideal target for Webb.
The protostar itself is hidden from view within the ‘neck’ of this hourglass shape. An edge-on protoplanetary disc is seen as a dark line across the middle of the neck. Light from the protostar leaks above and below this disc, illuminating cavities within the surrounding gas and dust.
The region’s most prevalent features, the blue and orange clouds, outline cavities created as material shoots away from the protostar and collides with the surrounding matter. The colours themselves are due to layers of dust between Webb and the clouds. The blue areas are where the dust is thinnest. The thicker the layer of dust, the less blue light is able to escape, creating pockets of orange.
Webb also reveals filaments of molecular hydrogen that have been shocked as the protostar ejects material away from it. Shocks and turbulence inhibit the formation of new stars, which would otherwise form throughout the cloud. As a result, the protostar dominates the space, taking much of the material for itself.
Despite the chaos that L1527 is causing, it’s only about 100 000 years old — a relatively young body. Given its age and its brightness in far-infrared light, L1527 is considered a class 0 protostar, the earliest stage of star formation. Protostars like these, which are still cocooned in a dark cloud of dust and gas, have a long way to go before they become fully-fledged stars. L1527 doesn’t generate its own energy through the nuclear fusion of hydrogen yet, an essential characteristic of stars. Its shape, while mostly spherical, is also unstable, taking the form of a small, hot, and puffy clump of gas somewhere between 20% and 40% of the mass of our Sun.
As a protostar continues to gather mass, its core gradually compresses and gets closer to stable nuclear fusion. The scene shown in this image reveals that L1527 is doing just that. The surrounding molecular cloud is made up of dense dust and gas that are being drawn towards the centre, where the protostar resides. As the material falls in, it spirals around the centre. This creates a dense disc of material, known as an accretion disc, which feeds material onto the protostar. As it gains more mass and compresses further, the temperature of its core will rise, eventually reaching the threshold for nuclear fusion to begin.
The disc, seen in the image as a dark band in front of the bright centre, is about the size of our Solar System. Given the density, it’s not unusual for much of this material to clump together — the beginnings of planets. Ultimately, this view of L1527 provides a window onto what our Sun and Solar System looked like in their infancy.
Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI, J. DePasquale (STScI); CC BY 4.0
This galaxy is part of a large survey of more than 100 galaxies conducted by Chandra that looked for evidence of growing black holes. A new study uncovered evidence that stellar-mass black holes in these dense environments are ripping apart multiple stars, and then using their debris to fuel their growth. The Chandra results provide one pathway for the creation of "intermediate mass black holes," a class that are bigger than the stellar-mass variety but smaller than supermassive black holes. Chandra data is shown with optical images from the Hubble Space Telescope.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Washington State Univ./V. Baldassare et al.; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI
#NASAMarshall #Chandra #galaxy #star #blackhole
The Cat's Eye Nebula (also known as NGC 6543 and Caldwell 6) is a planetary nebula in the northern constellation of Draco, discovered by William Herschel on February 15, 1786. It was the first planetary nebula whose spectrum was investigated by the English amateur astronomer William Huggins, demonstrating that planetary nebulae were gaseous and not stellar in nature.
Data from the Hubble Space telescope and Chandra x-ray observatory
Filters:
Optical - ACS F502N (Blue)
Optical - ACS F505N (Green)
Optical - ACS F658N (Red)
Chandra X-ray(Mangenta)
Data Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI/CXC
Processing and copyright : AMAL BIJU