@space_telescopes

class="content__text" Did you know that the Crab Nebula’s pulsar is one of the earliest ever confirmed? These rapidly spinning neutron stars were first discovered by Jocelyn Bell Burnell in 1967. The Crab Nebula’s pulsar was found only a year later in 1968. In the past, ground-based telescopes were exclusively used to detect pulses of light. Space-based telescopes like the Hubble Space Telescope, however, allow us to get a far closer look at pulsars. #Hubble #pulsar #stars #CrabNebula Credit: NASA and ESA; J. Hester (ASU) and M. Weisskopf (NASA/MSFC). ALT TEXT: A nebula. To the right of center in the image is bright blue gas that forms circular waves that extend outward from the center. In the midst of this bright blue gas are yellow wisps and red filaments that swirl around the bright blue center. White stars are spread throughout the image.

February 24, 2023

class="content__text" A spectacle of sparkling stars! Messier 92, number 92 in Charles Messier’s famous catalog of things that are not comets, is indeed not a comet. It’s a globular cluster—a giant ball of stars 27,000 light-years away in the constellation Hercules. This detail of an image captured by the James Webb Space Telescope’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) shows a small portion of the cluster, which is one of the oldest—if not the oldest—globular clusters in the Milky Way. Because all of its stars formed around the same time, somewhere between 12 and 13 billion years ago, astronomers can use M92 to better understand how stars of different masses evolve as well as what the ancient universe was like. Like other globular clusters, the stars in M92 are packed extremely tightly. Adjacent stars are so close together—just fractions of one light-year apart—that the night sky of a potential planet in the cluster’s core (outside this field of view toward the upper left) would be very bright. It would shine with thousands of stars that appear thousands of times brighter than those in our own sky. Astronomers are using Webb’s observation of M92 to improve tools and methods for studying stars that are close together on the sky. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, A. Pagan (STScI). ALT TEXT: Square filled with blue, white, yellow, and red points of light of different sizes and brightnesses, most of which are stars. The larger and brighter stars show Webb’s distinctive diffraction pattern consisting of eight spikes radiating from the center. At the lower right is a scale bar labeled 2 light-years. The scale bar is two-ninths the width of the image, and shows that throughout the image, the distance between adjacent stars is a fraction of one light-year. The density of stars and brightness of the image is greatest in the upper left portion of the image, where the stars are much closer together, and decreases gradually toward the bottom right, where they are farther apart. The number of larger, brighter stars also appears to decrease from the upper left toward the lower right.

February 23, 2023

class="content__text" If you stare at this long enough 👀, your eyes might start fooling you into seeing something they’re not. We know from experience. (Anyone else see a beetle?) 😳 Astronomers used the Hubble Space Telescope to look at a small, dense cloud of gas and dust in the center of this image. CB 130-3—as the cloud is named—is an object known as a dense core, a compact mass of gas and dust. This particular dense core is in the constellation Serpens, and seems to billow across a field of background stars. ✨ Dense cores like CB 130-3 are the birthplaces of stars, and are particularly interesting to astronomers. During the collapse of these cores, enough mass can accumulate in one place to reach the temperatures and densities required to ignite hydrogen fusion, marking the formation of a new star. While it may not be obvious from this image, a compact object teetering on the brink of becoming a fully fledged star is embedded deep within CB 130-3. #Hubble #stars #space #beetle Credit: ESA/Hubble, NASA & STScI, C. Britt, T. Huard, A. Pagan. ALT TEXT: An irregularly shaped bright orange object composed of dense gas and dust appears darker and more compact at the center. This dense cloud, called CB 130-3, is outlined by thinner gas and dust in light shades of blue. The background shows a multitude of bright stars against a black background. Only a few stars appear within the orange area.

February 22, 2023

class="content__text" Do you see the darkness that travels between the starry regions, like a snake in tall grass? That’s actually the result of a molecular cloud, known as the Circinus molecular cloud, which has a mass around 250,000 times that of the Sun. Astronomers say it’s filled with young stars, and the gas and dust needed to form them. However, this image by the Hubble Space Telescope shows that the area is so dense that we couldn’t peer inside. A future study by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, which can see the infrared light from the young stars in the region, however, would be able to see past the dust. #Hubble #stars #galaxies #space Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA; R. Sahai (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), Serge Meunier. ALT TEXT: A star-forming region. A dark, dusty nebula forms an undulating trail that covers the center the image and blocks most of the background stars. In areas where the dust is not as thick, the background stars are a tinted orange. In the foreground is a semi-circular arc of bright orange and white gas. At the bottom of the arc is a somewhat obscured, orange star. In the foreground, above the arc, is a white star with Hubble’s characteristic four diffraction spikes.

February 21, 2023

class="content__text" Like Dionne Warwick sang, “now we seem to be like two ships passing in the night,” these overlapping galaxies are just passing by each other without interacting. While they appear destined for a merger, the galaxies are actually quite far apart from each other. They only appear overlapped from Hubble’s view in Earth’s orbit. SDSS J115331 and LEDA 2073461 lie more than a billion light-years away from Earth. #Hubble #galaxies #JustPassingThrough #space Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, W. Keel. ALT TEXT: On a black star-filled background, two small spiral galaxies overlap each other in the center. The left one is orange and appears to be angled away from Earth. The one on the right has defined spiral arms in white and orange and appear straight on to our view. The pair take up only about an eighth of the image, at its center.On a black star-filled background, two small spiral galaxies overlap each other in the center. The left one is orange and appears to be angled away from Earth. The one on the right has defined spiral arms in white and orange and appear straight on to our view. The pair take up only about an eighth of the image, at its center.

February 19, 2023

class="content__text" A star is born! New images from the James Webb Space Telescope are revealing the presence of a network of highly structured features within nearby galaxies—glowing cavities of dust and huge cavernous bubbles of gas that line the spiral arms—caused by the formation of young stars. Until Webb’s high resolution at infrared wavelengths came along, stars at the earliest point of their life cycle in nearby galaxies like NGC 1433 remained obscured by gas and dust. The observations were taken by the Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby Galaxies (PHANGS) collaboration, which has plans to study a diverse sample of 19 spiral galaxies. In Webb’s first few months of science operations, observations of five of those targets—including NGC 1433, NGC 7496, and NGC 1366, seen in these images—have been captured. #NASAWebb #UnfoldtheUniverse #JWST #galaxies #stars #infrared Credit: Science: NASA, ESA, CSA, and J. Lee (NOIRLab). Image processing: A. Pagan (STScI).

February 19, 2023

class="content__text" The James Webb Space Telescope opens up a new view of the universe in its latest image of Pandora’s Cluster. Several already-massive galaxy clusters are coming together to form a megacluster in the region, which astronomers use to boost Webb’s powerful imaging capability. The galaxy clusters are so massive that they warp the fabric of space itself, which magnifies light from even more distant objects beyond them in the early universe. In this image Webb demonstrates the vastness of space: A foreground star in our Milky Way galaxy appears just right of center, displaying Webb’s distinctive diffraction spikes. The galaxies of Pandora’s Cluster glow white and hazy. Surrounding them are the distorted shapes of far more distant galaxies, their light stretched into arcs by the gravity of the cluster. Follow-up observations with Webb will determine the precise distances and composition of key features in the image. #NASAWebb #JWST #galaxies #GalaxyCluster #DeepField #InfraredAstronomy Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, I. Labbe (Swinburne University of Technology) and R. Bezanson (University of Pittsburgh). Image processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI). ALT TEXT: A crowded galaxy field on a black background, with one large star dominating the image just right of center. Three areas are concentrated with larger white hazy blobs on the left, lower right, and upper right above the single star. Scattered between these areas are many smaller galaxies; some also have a hazy white glow, while many other are red or orange. Even without zooming in, different galaxy shapes are detectable, like spirals, ovals, and arcs.

February 19, 2023

class="content__text" You are gazing at an open star cluster, a loosely bound group of hundreds of stars. Open star clusters aren’t particularly stable—their stars might disperse after a few million years. One star in this cluster (the largest at the center, with four diffraction spikes) captured researchers’ attention. It appeared to be breaking the norms for a star’s highest possible mass. After taking more measurements, they hit on the reason: It’s not one, but three stars! #HubbleDiscoveries #gorgeous #stars #TheProcessOfScience #Hubble Credit: NASA, ESA, and J. Maíz Apellániz (Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, Spain). ALT TEXT: The lower third shows pinkish gas and dust, with one spire-like pillar toward the right. Above this, the background is mostly black, but speckled with stars. The largest stars, each with four diffraction spikes, appear at the center in a loose cluster.

February 19, 2023

class="content__text" While countless bright minds in history have contributed to many advancements in science and technology, having a career in STEM is undoubtedly more difficult to some than others. This is especially true for women, who face extra societal hurdles due to stereotypes and stigma that comes with identifying as one. This Women in STEM Day, we ask the extraordinary women working at @NSFgov 's @NOIRLabastro , @rubin_observatory , @space_telescope , @nationalsolarobservatory , and @auraastronomy : “What advice would you give to your younger self entering a career in STEM?” With heartfelt sentiments for young people interested in pursuing science, their advice may resonate with you more than you think! #WomenInSTEM #WomenInSTEMDay #WomenInScience #WomenScienceDay

February 12, 2023

class="content__text" This new image of Saturn from the Hubble Space Telescope holds a subtle detail of great interest to ring-watchers: On the left, two dark smudges indicate the start of a new “spoke season.” In the years surrounding Saturn’s equinox—which occurs every 16 Earth-years, with the next on May 6, 2025—mysterious, temporary spoke features have been spotted in the rings. They can appear light or dark against the rings, depending on the illumination and viewing angle. Closer to the equinox, their appearance is expected to become more frequent and distinct. So far scientists have been unable to explain the spokes, which have a slightly different rotation rate than the rings themselves. In the next several years, Hubble’s Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) program will be used to confirm or refute theories about the spokes, the most popular being that they result from interaction between the planet’s magnetic field and the solar wind, levitating ring particles to create the spoke features. #Hubble #Saturn #SaturnRings #SolarSystem #spokes Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI, Hubble OPAL program; image processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI). ALT TEXT: Planet Saturn with bright white rings and multi-colored main sphere. Spoke features on the left side of the rings appear like faint gray smudges against the rings’ bright backdrop, about midway from the planet to the rings' outer edge. Above the rings plane, the planet's bands are shades of red and orange, with brighter yellow nearer the equator.

February 12, 2023

class="content__text" Gaze into these bright outflows! The young star system that has created these cloud-like objects, known as HH 1 and HH 2 (upper right and bottom left respectively), is hidden by the thick clouds of dust in the center of this multiwavelength image. HH—or Herbig-Haro—objects are glowing clumps found around some newborn stars, and are created when jets of gas thrown outward from these young stars collide with surrounding gas and dust at incredibly high speeds. In 2002, Hubble observations revealed that parts of HH 1 are moving at more than 400 kilometers (250 miles) per second! The bright star between the bright jet and the HH 1 cloud was once thought to be the source of these jets, but it is now known to be an unrelated double star that formed nearby. This Hubble Space Telescope image was made with infrared, visible, and ultraviolet light. #Hubble #stars #HerbigHaro #infrared #ultraviolet Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, B. Reipurth, B. Nisini. ALT TEXT: Two wispy, gaseous clouds occupy the corners of this image, HH 1 in the upper right, and HH 2 in the lower left. Both are light blue and surrounded by dimmer multi-colored clouds, while the background is dark black due to dense gas. A very bright orange star lies just to the lower left of HH 1, and beyond that star is a narrow jet, emerging from the dark center of the field.

February 05, 2023

class="content__text" What a beautiful view in this detailed image of Westerlund 2! The red dots scattered throughout the landscape around Westerlund 2 are newly forming stars still wrapped in their cocoons of gas and dust. These tiny, faint stars are between 1 and 2 million years old and have not yet ignited the hydrogen in their cores. Hubble's near-infrared vision allows astronomers to identify these fledgling stars. #Hubble #infrared #Westerlund #nebula #stars #light Credit: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), A. Nota (ESA/STScI), and the Westerlund 2 Science Team. ALT TEXT: A nebula with cloud-like structures in shades of red, from light pink to deep red and brown. Stars are scattered through the image, as are nodes of gas and dust protruding in different spots. A dark red tentacle-like object sticks out at the upper left.

February 05, 2023