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A new image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope reveals a remarkable cosmic sight: at least 17 concentric dust rings emanating from a pair of stars. Located just over 5000 light-years from Earth, the duo is collectively known as Wolf-Rayet 140. Each ring was created when the two stars came close together and their stellar winds (streams of gas they blow into space) met, compressing the gas and forming dust. The stars’ orbits bring them together about once every eight years; like the rings of a tree’s trunk, the dust loops mark the passage of time.
In addition to Webb’s overall sensitivity, its Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) is uniquely qualified to study the dust rings. These rings are also called shells by astronomers because they are thicker and wider than they appear in the image. Webb’s science instruments detect infrared light, a range of wavelengths invisible to the human eye.
Contributed under both ESA and NASA leadership, Webb’s MIRI instrument detects the longest infrared wavelengths. This means that it can often see cooler objects – including the dust rings – than Webb’s other instruments can. MIRI’s spectrometer also revealed the composition of the dust, formed mostly from material ejected by a type of star known as a Wolf-Rayet star. A Wolf-Rayet star is born with at least 25 times more mass than our Sun and is nearing the end of its life, when it will likely explode as a supernova and then collapse into a black hole. Burning hotter than in its youth, a Wolf-Rayet star generates powerful winds that push huge amounts of gas into space. The Wolf-Rayet star in this particular pair may have shed more than half its original mass via this process.
Transforming gas into dust is somewhat like turning flour into bread. It requires specific conditions and ingredients. Hydrogen, the most common element found in stars, can’t form dust on its own. But because Wolf-Rayet stars shed so much mass, they also eject more complex elements typically found deep in a star’s interior, including carbon. The heavy elements in the wind cool as they travel into space and are then compressed where the winds from both stars meet, like when two hands knead dough.
Some other Wolf-Rayet systems form dust, but none is known to make rings like Wolf-Rayet 140 does. The unique ring pattern forms because the orbit of the Wolf-Rayet star in WR 140 is elongated, not circular. Only when the stars come close together – about the same distance between Earth and the Sun – and their winds collide is the gas under sufficient pressure to form dust. With circular orbits, Wolf-Rayet binaries can produce dust continuously.
The science team thinks WR 140’s winds also swept the surrounding area clear of residual material they might otherwise collide with, which may be why the rings remain so pristine rather than smeared or dispersed. There are likely even more rings that have become so faint and dispersed, not even Webb can see them in the data.
Wolf-Rayet stars may seem exotic compared to our Sun, but they may have played a role in star and planet formation. When a Wolf-Rayet star clears an area, the swept-up material can pile up at the outskirts and become dense enough for new stars to form. There is some evidence the Sun formed in such a scenario.
Using data from MIRI’s Medium Resolution Spectroscopy mode, the new study provides the best evidence yet that Wolf-Rayet stars produce carbon-rich dust molecules. What’s more, the preservation of the dust shells indicates that this dust can survive in the hostile environment between stars, going on to supply material for future stars and planets. The catch is that while astronomers estimate that there should be at least a few thousand Wolf-Rayet stars in our galaxy, only about 600 have been found to date.
These results have been published today in Nature Astronomy.
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: The background of this Webb image of star Wolf-Rayet 140 is black. A pair of bright stars dominates the centre of the image, with at least 17 pink-orange concentric dust rings emanating from them. Throughout the scene are a range of distant galaxies, the majority of which are very tiny and red, appearing as splotches.]
Credits: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/JPL-Caltech; CC BY 4.0
One of the best train system in the world, very connected and punctual. Clean stations and train. People are quiet in the train making a journey a pleasant experience.
"poor Ophelia
Divided from herself and her fair judgment,
Without the which we are pictures, or mere beasts"
(Neanurinae)
OM SYSTEM OM-1 Mark II
OM SYSTEM M.Zuiko Digital ED 90mm F3.5 Macro IS PRO + Raynox DCR-250
TCx2 MC-20
Flash Godox V860o III
Cygnustech diffuser
Poseidon - The Lab Tank
Varonis - Hideout Skybox
[CX] - Osseous Species Corset & Stockings in Bronze
[CX] - Yule Lord Tail in Gold
ANA - Trap Nova Helm
CURELESS[+] - Replicant Joints / FRESH
Kodak Pony 135 (model c)
Kodak APS 400 (expired)
May 2020
My latest attempt at using the Kodak Pony 135 creatively: Shoot a roll of APS film though it. Why not?
I was given a roll of expired (no clue how old) APS film and decided to try shooting it through the pony. I pulled the film out of the APS cartridge and wound it back into a 135 cartridge and taped it to a 35mm leader to help get the film started. I knew this would work since the pony's shutter isn't connected to the film advance.
Do to the covid crisis I don't have access to the Nikon film scanner I usually use, so I have been doing DSLR scanning. This works well for BW and E6 film, but c41 film is much harder due to me lacking software like negative lab pro. So, its hard for me to know if the weird colors here are due to the film or my lack of competence in getting nice positives from DSLR scanned c41 film. Either way, I am glad to share another fun thing you can do with the Kodak Pony 135.
Thanks again to the film lab at Gene's Camera in South Bend, IN, in this case especially for accomodating such an unconventional request and still only charging me $5.
West of Iqaluit, the road to the municipal dump cuts through a stark, snowbound landscape, where utility poles march across the tundra like sentinels of survival. Ice-crusted wires stretch into the pastel horizon, tracing the contours of human infrastructure against the silence of the land.
A lone structure anchors the distance, dwarfed by the vastness and light. In this image, the geometry of power lines meets the softness of Arctic dusk — a portrait of isolation, endurance, and the quiet choreography of northern life.
See wikipedia Mare Imbrium and wikipedia Crater Copernicus for more information.
Photographed with Nikon Coolpix P900 (83x optical zoom) + HDR (Photomatix)
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Das "Meer des Regens" mit dem Krater Kopernikus (ca. 90 - 95 km Durchmesser) und seinem imposanten Strahlensystem unterhalb. Das Mare Imbrium hat einen Durchmesser von ca. 1.146 Kilometern. Seine Flächengröße beträgt etwa 830.000 km² - das ist mehr als die doppelte Fläche von Deutschland.
Das Mare Imbrium war das Ziel mehrerer Mond Missionen: neben der sowjetischen Sonde Lunik 2, die am 13. September 1959 als erstes vom Menschen geschaffene Objekt hier den Mond erreichte und dem ebenfalls sowjetischen Mondrover Lunochod 1 (17. November 1970 bis zum 4. Oktober 1971) landete auch Apollo 15 (am 31. Juli 1971 ) im östlichen Randbereich. Zuletzt besuchte die chinesische Raumsonde Chang’e-3 mit dem Rover Yutu den Norden des Mares am 14. Dezember 2013.
Weitere Informationen siehe wikipedia.
AI = Artificial Intelligence
Following The Prime Directive, no Planetary Systems were harmed in the creation of this image.
Created for SOTN February 2019, FUTURAMA.
I made this a few years ago (2016 I think.) A couple days ago when I was looking for something SciFi I found it again. A bit of manip in Photoshop yesterday and this is what came out...
2 SciFi images purchased from Renderosity.
Robot from public domain.
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Si vous voulez afficher cette photo dans un blog/site, merci de préciser l'url et nom qui suivent: Emilie D. / www.flickr.com/akikka
Pour toute utilisation dans la presse, me contacter par mail : l0ots@hotmail.fr
Another Wipeout-inspired ship! The AG-Systems racer from Wipeout HD is one of my favourite ships from the series, and here I`ve just moved the cockpit from that desing a bit forward and changed the colour blocking in order to get the shapes closer to a spearhead.