It’s giving rainbows and unicorns, like a middle school binder 🦄🌈
Meet NGC 602, a young star cluster in the Small Magellanic Cloud (one of our satellite galaxies), where astronomers using @NASAWebb have found candidates for the first brown dwarfs outside of our galaxy. This star cluster has a similar environment to the kinds of star-forming regions that would have existed in the early universe—with very low amounts of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium. It’s drastically different from our own solar neighborhood and close enough to study in detail.
Brown dwarfs are… not quite stars, but also not quite gas giant planets either. Typically they range from about 13 to 75 Jupiter masses. They are sometimes free-floating and not gravitationally bound to a star, like a planet would be. But they do share some characteristics with exoplanets, like storm patterns and atmospheric composition.
@NASAHubble showed us that NGC 602 harbors some very young low-mass stars; Webb is showing us how significant and extensive objects like brown dwarfs are in this cluster. Scientists are excited to better be able to understand how they form, particularly in an environment similar to the harsh conditions of the early universe.
Read more at the link in @ESAWebb ’s bio.
Image description: A two image swipe-through of a star cluster is shown inside a large nebula of many-coloured gas and dust. The material forms dark ridges and peaks of gas and dust surrounding the cluster, lit on the inner side, while layers of diffuse, translucent clouds blanket over them. Around and within the gas, a huge number of distant galaxies can be seen, some quite large, as well as a few stars nearer to us which are very large and bright.
Image Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, P. Zeidler, E. Sabbi, A. Nota, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb)
#JWST #Webb #JamesWebbSpaceTelescope #NGC602 #browndwarf #space #NASA #ESA
A supernova glowing in the dark 🌟
When supernova remnant SN 1006 first appeared in the sky in 1006 C.E., it was far brighter than Venus and visible during the daytime for weeks. From that moment on, it occupied the hearts of astronomers all over the world; it has been studied from the ground and from space many times.
In this image, visible, radio, and X-ray data combine to give us that blue (and red) view of the remnant’s full shell – the debris field that was created when a white dwarf star exploded and sent material hurtling into space.
Scientists believe SN 1006 is a Type Ia supernova. This class of supernova is caused when a white dwarf never lets another star go: either it pulls too much mass from a companion star and explodes, or it merges with another white dwarf and explodes. Understanding Type Ia supernovas is especially important because astronomers use observations of these explosions in distant galaxies as mileposts to mark the expansion of the universe.
Image description: This supernova remnant looks like a bubble filled with blue and red clouds of dust and gas, floating amid a million stars. These stars are visible all around the bubble and even can be seen peeking through it.
Credit: NASA, ESA, and Z. Levay (STScI)
#NASA #Supernova #Stars #IVE #Astronomy #Hubble #Chandra #Clouds #아이브 #SupernovaLove #DavidGuetta
Take a deep breath...
X-ray images from our Chandra X-ray Observatory helped astronomers confirm that most of the oxygen in the universe is synthesized in massive stars. So, everybody say "thank you" to supernova remnants (SNRs) like this one, which has enough oxygen for thousands of solar systems.
Supernova remnants are, naturally, the remains of exploded stars. They're extremely important for understanding our galaxy. If it weren't for SNRs, there would be no Earth, no plants, animals, or people. This is because all the elements heavier than iron were made in a supernova explosion, so the only reason we find these elements on Earth or in our solar system — or any other extrasolar planetary system — is because those elements were formed during a supernova.
@nasachandraxray_ !!re!!_039;s data is represented in this image by blue and purple, while optical data from @nasahubble and the Very Large Telescope in Chile are in red and green.
Image description: The darkness of space is almost covered by the array of objects in this image. Stars of different sizes are strewn about, while a blue and red bubble of gas is at the center. An area of pink and green covers the bottom-right corner.
Credit: X-ray (NASA/CXC/ESO/F.Vogt et al); Optical (ESO/VLT/MUSE), Optical (NASA/STScI)
#NASA #Supernova #Space #Universe #Astronomy #Astrophotography #Telescope #Xray
Looking to the fuschia 💖
Our @NASAChandraXray observatory captured this colorful scene of two spiral galaxies merging. This galaxy pair is located about 250 million light-years away and can be found in the constellation of Serpens.
The collision of the two spiral galaxies happened about 700 million years ago, sparking an enormous burst of star formation. About 200 huge star clusters reside in a packed, dusty region about 5,000 light-years across—about 5% of the Milky Way’s diameter. The amount of gas in this tiny region is equal to all of the gas in the entire Milky Way.
Image description: This composite image features an ultra-luminous infrared galaxy, surrounded by a soft, rose-pink cloud of X-ray gas. Here, a single, bright, golden white dot sits at the center of the image. The rose-pink cloud surrounding the dot appears soft and airy, like cotton candy. Upon close inspection, feint orange veins can be discerned, marbling the X-ray gas cloud seen with Chandra. Surrounding the gas cloud are other distant galaxies and stars, set against the blackness of space. Most are orange or white, and range from tiny specks to small glowing ovals.
Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI; Infrared: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare, J. Major
#NASA #Space #Astronomy #Chandra #Telescope #Stars
We got twins! Twins! 🌪️🌪️
These looping funnel clouds are half a light-year in length—but don't worry, they're not touching down near Earth anytime soon. They're swirling 5,000 light-years away in the Lagoon Nebula, which can be found in the constellation Sagittarius.
Our @NASAHubble telescope spotted these twisters nearly 30 years ago, based on observations collected from July to September of 1995. Like tornadoes back on Earth, the sharp differences in temperature between the hot surface of the nebula's clouds and their cold interior (combined with the pressure of sunlight) may twist these tornadoes into the shapes you see here.
Image description: A nebula, lit in soft shades of blue, green and yellow, is intersected by a pair of much darker funnel clouds, which reach from the top-left to the bottom-right of the image. A red, slightly pixellated star shines through the cloud in the bottom right.
Credit: NASA and A. Caulet (ST-ECF, ESA)
#NASA #Space #Universe #Nebula #Nature #Tornado #Stormchaser
The ultimate selfie 🤳
NASA astronaut Suni Williams took this selfie on Jan. 30, 2025, as the @ISS orbited 263 miles (423 km) above the Pacific Ocean. This irresistible photo op happened during Williams' ninth spacewalk; she and fellow astronaut Butch Wilmore removed hardware from the outside of the station and collected samples of surface material from sites near life support system vents — the Destiny laboratory and the Quest airlock — for analysis.
Studying these samples will tell us whether the space station releases microorganisms, how many, and how far they may travel. In addition, we could learn whether these microorganisms survive and reproduce in the harsh space environment and how they may perform in places like the Moon and Mars.
Williams made history during last week's spacewalk: she surpassed former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson’s record for total spacewalking time by a female astronaut. Williams now has 62 hours, 6 minutes of total spacewalk time, fourth on NASA’s all-time list.
Image description: Astronaut Suni Williams’ arms and hands, and the camera she’s holding, are reflected in the shiny visor of her spacesuit’s helmet. You can also see part of the International Space Station and the darkness of space, as well as the Pacific Ocean on our left. Looking around Williams’ helmet, we can see other parts of her spacesuit, and a little bit of space on the right.
Credit: NASA/Suni Williams
#NASA #Astronaut #Selfie #Spacewalk #Space #SpaceStation
A dartboard in the rec room of our universe 🎯
A massive galaxy nicknamed Bullseye ripples with nine star-filled rings as a blue dwarf galaxy plunges through the center like a dart. The smaller galaxy, visible just to the left of center in this image, shot through the middle of Bullseye about 50 million years ago, leaving rings like ripples in a pond. Galaxies collide or barely miss one another quite frequently (cosmically speaking) but it’s rare for one galaxy to dive through the center of another.
High-resolution imagery from @NASAHubble , which captured this image, confirmed eight of Bullseye’s rings, with data from the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii finding a ninth. Astronomers will now be able to better study how the galaxy—and its rings—may continue to evolve over billions of years.
Image description: A large galaxy is at center, and a significantly smaller galaxy is to its left. It has several rings. Its circular core is bright white at the very center, but light yellow overall. Going outward, there are gaps between the rings. At 9 o’clock is a small dwarf galaxy. It is about the same size as the yellow core of the Bullseye. The dwarf galaxy is blue, with many dots. It looks like the edge of the Bullseye might touch the dwarf galaxy. Both galaxies are set on the black background of space, which is dotted with a range of galaxies in different shapes, colors, and sizes, along with one foreground star at left.
Credit: NASA, ESA, Imad Pasha (Yale), Pieter van Dokkum (Yale)
#NASA #Space #Astronomy #Stars #Telescope #BullsEye #Darts #Hubble
Take a moment to look up this month 🔭
All month long, Venus – named after the Roman goddess of love – shines the brightest it’ll be this year. Check it out after sunset!
The Moon will have meetups with the Pleiades, Jupiter, and Mars. Then, on Feb. 12, there’ll be a full moon.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
#NASA #Space #WhatsUp #Sky #Skywatching #Planets #SolarSystem #Astronomy
Stars hatched by a swan 🌟
Our WISE telescope captured this image, released in June 2011, of a huge complex of star-forming clouds and stellar clusters in the constellation Cygnus. Star clusters are groups of stars that share an origin, forming at roughly the same time and location, and are tied together by gravity for up to millions or even billions of years.
Different types of stars have different life spans, so clusters will change over time as stars evolve. Some clusters might contain big, hot, O-type stars. Others might hold smaller, cooler stars that age and change over billions of years. Star clusters can contain anywhere from as few as a dozen stars to upwards of millions, and those stars can be spread out over a few light-years to hundreds of light-years.
WISE (Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer) was an infrared-wavelength astronomical space telescope. It was placed into hibernation in February 2011, having completed its primary astrophysics mission. Then, in 2013, the spacecraft was assigned a new mission as NEOWISE (Near-Earth Object Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer), to help find near-Earth asteroids and comets. Its mission ended on July 31, 2024.
Image description: This image is dominated by curving green clouds, except at top left and middle, where there are also red clouds. A few bright yellow stars shine through the most defined clouds. There are also tiny multicolored – though mostly blue – dots of light throughout the whole area.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA
#NASA #Swan #Telescope #Constellation #Astrophotography
Black Holes: Cooked. Ate. Left no crumbs.
Recent studies show that black holes in the universe can create their own meals. Data from our @nasachandraxray Observatory and the Very Large Telescope (VLT) provide new evidence that outbursts from black holes can help cool down gas to feed themselves.
The centers of galaxy clusters contain the universe’s most massive galaxies, which harbor huge black holes with masses ranging from millions to tens of billions of times that of the Sun. Jets from these black holes are driven by the black holes feasting on gas.
The latest research supports a model where outbursts from the black holes trigger hot gas to cool and form narrow filaments of warm gas. Some of the warm gas in these filaments should then flow into the centers of the galaxies to feed the black holes, causing an outburst. The outburst causes more gas to cool and feed the black holes, leading to further outbursts - a cosmic buffet!
Image descriptions: A swipe-through of different galaxy clusters, each with a central black hole surrounded by patches and filaments of gas. In each image, a patch of purple with neon pink veins floats in the blackness of space, surrounded by flecks of light. At the center of each patch is a glowing, bright white dot. The bright white dots represent black holes. The purple patches represent hot X-ray gas, and the neon pink veins represent filaments of warm gas.
In the image of the Perseus Cluster on the left, the surrounding flecks of light are larger and brighter, making the individual galaxies they represent easier to discern. The purple gas has a blue tint, and the hot pink filaments appear solid, as if rendered with quivering strokes of a paintbrush. The Centaurus Cluster is on the right; in this image, the purple gas appears softer, with a more diffuse quality. The filaments are rendered in more detail, with feathery edges, and range in color from pale pink to neon red.
Credit: (X-ray:) ASA/CXC/SAO/V. Olivares et al.; Optical/IR: DSS; H-alpha: CFHT/SITELLE; Centaurus Cluster: (X-ray:) ASA/CXC/SAO/V. Olivaresi et al.; (Optical/IR:) ASA/ESA/STScI; H-alpha: ESO/VLT/MUSE; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk
#NASA #Space
Vintage with a twist – er… tilt.
Voyager 2 captured this image of Saturn and two of its moons, Rhea and Dione, on July 21, 1981. In this picture, Rhea is below and to the left of Saturn, while Dione is directly below the massive planet.
Rhea looks itty-bitty in this picture, yet it’s Saturn’s second-largest moon! Rhea is small, cold, and airless - very similar to sister moons Dione, pictured here, and Tethys. How cold is Rhea? It’s as “warm” as -281ºF (-174ºC) in sunlit areas, ranging down to -364ºF (-220ºC) in the shade.
Rhea appeared as a tiny dot to astronomers until the Voyager (1 and 2) encounters in 1980 and 1981. The Voyager images showed that Rhea’s features could be divided into two regions: heavily cratered terrain with craters larger than 25 miles (40 kilometers) across and a second type of area in parts of the polar and equatorial region with craters less than 25 miles (40 kilometers) across. This difference may indicate there was a major resurfacing event some time in Rhea’s history.
Dione is Saturn’s fourth-largest moon. It also has terrain with varying amounts of craters, along with fractured areas that often cut through its plains and craters. These fractures suggest Dione experienced tectonic activity in its past. The fractured areas are seen in Voyager images as bright and thin wispy lines. Later, flybys by our Cassini spacecraft showed these “wisps” as bright canyon ice walls.
Rhea and Dione were both discovered by Giovanni Cassini, and both get their names from Greek mythology.
Image description: Saturn is tilted to the side in this image. It is yellowish, with a brighter, buttery yellow at its middle, where the planet’s rings surround it. Below Saturn are two small dots: These are two of its moons, Rhea and Dione. They all stand out against the darkness of space.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
#NASA #Saturn #Rhea #Dione #Astronomy #Voyager #Cassini
It’s the circle of life ☀️
Life on Earth is only possible because of the Sun’s light and energy.
Here, the center of our solar system illuminates the cloud tops in this photograph taken from the International Space Station (@ISS ) as it soared 262 miles (421 kilometers) above Namibia near the Atlantic coast.
Image description: The Sun is pictured as a bright white sphere glowing on the horizon of the Earth. It illuminates the surface of clouds below it in shades of yellow and orange, contrasting the darkness of space that surrounds it.
Credit: NASA
#NASA #Space #ISS #SpaceStation #Sunrise #Sun #FunFacts #Earth #Astronaut #Photography