James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)

[➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone]

Straight Shot: Hubble Investigates Galaxy with Nine Rings

February 04, 2025 10:00AM (EST)Release ID: 2025-006

 

Summary

Hubble’s high-resolution imagery allowed researchers to hone in on more of the Bullseye galaxy’s rings — and helped confirm which galaxy dove through its core.

 

Seabirds like the Northern Gannet plunge directly into the sea in pursuit of fish, sometimes from as high as 100 feet (30 meters). The birds’ spear-like bills and expertly tucked wings minimize splash upon impact, but water still ripples out in tiny waves.

 

Now, let’s switch to space — and swap the bird for a tiny galaxy and the ocean for a vast galaxy.

 

A tiny blue dwarf galaxy flew through the far more massive Bullseye galaxy 50 million years ago with similar effects, producing at least nine star-filled rings in its larger companion. In space, those “waves” ripple out differently. The gas, dust, and stars are pushed both inward and outward.

 

Seeing an effect like this in great detail is highly unusual. Both the Hubble Space Telescope and the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii proved that the Bullseye galaxy has nine rings — six more than any other known galaxy. Plus, Hubble identified which galaxy dropped through the Bullseye’s core: The blue dwarf galaxy that now “sits” directly to its left.

 

https://www.stsci.edu/contents/news-releases/2025/news-2025-006.html

 

 

 

 

Edited February 4 by ➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone

[➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone]

At 1.3 Billion Light-Years Wide, Quipu Is Officially

The Biggest Thing in The Universe

06 February 2025 By Evan Gough, Universe Today

 

Astronomers have found the largest structure in the Universe so far, named Quipu after an Incan measuring system. It contains a shocking 200 quadrillion solar masses...

 

Quipu is the largest structure we've ever found in the Universe. It and the other four superstructures the researchers found contain 45 percent of the galaxy clusters, 30 percent of the galaxies, 25 percent of the matter, and occupy a volume fraction of 13 percent.

 

https://www.sciencealert.com/at-1-3-billion-light-years-wide-quipu-is-officially-the-biggest-thing-in-the-universe

 

 

 

[Mike047]

It's amazing! It takes 1.3 billion light years to cross from one extreme to the other. This is likely to affect the current understanding of the cosmic microwave background, which has been used as a measure in determining the age of the universe. 

[Dustparticle]

 

 This is interesting: https://x.com/konstructivizm/status/1889150868018053259?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^tweet&mx=2

[➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone]

The Westerlund 1 star cluster:

Hubble unveils detailed structure

by Tomasz Nowakowski , Phys.org

 

Using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), astronomers have observed a supermassive galactic open cluster designated Westerlund 1. Results of the study, published Jan. 28 on the pre-print server arXiv, yield essential details regarding the structure of this cluster.

 

Open clusters (OCs), formed from the same giant molecular cloud, are groups of stars loosely gravitationally bound to each other. It is assumed that most star formation takes place in massive clusters of stars, known as superstar clusters (SSCs). They are very massive young OCs usually containing a very large number of young, massive stars. The total mass of a typical SSC exceeds 10,000 solar masses.

 

Westerlund 1 is a supermassive SSC located some 13,800 light years away. It has an estimated total mass of 50,000–100,000 solar masses and a radius of about 3.26 light years. With an estimated age of 5–10 million years, Westerlund 1 is one of the most massive young star clusters in our galaxy.

 

https://phys.org/news/2025-02-westerlund-star-cluster-hubble-unveils.html

[➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone]

Hubble Captures a Stunning Cosmic Cloud That Builds Stars

By ESA/HubbleFebruary 10, 20252

 

The Universe is full of dust, and a striking new image from the Hubble Space Telescope highlights just how important it is. The image showcases swirling clouds of gas and dust near the Tarantula Nebula, a vast star-forming region within the Large Magellanic Cloud — a neighboring galaxy located about 160,000 light-years away in the constellations Dorado and Mensa. The Tarantula Nebula is the most active stellar nursery in our cosmic neighborhood, producing some of the most massive stars ever observed.

 

Pic Description:

Hubble’s latest image reveals the Tarantula Nebula’s mesmerizing swirls of cosmic dust, a key ingredient in the formation of stars and planets. Unlike Earthly dust, this celestial material consists of silicates and carbon, playing a crucial role in cooling gas clouds and sparking new molecular bonds across the Universe. 

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, C. Murray

 

 

https://scitechdaily.com/hubble-captures-a-stunning-cosmic-cloud-that-builds-stars/

 

[➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone]

[Technically not Webb - but pretty. Skill & patience combined.]

Parisian photographer produces phenomenal, perfectly-proportioned 'planetary parade' portrait

By Harry Baker published 8 hours ago

A French astrophotographer recently snapped shots of the moon, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune in a single evening, and rearranged them to create a striking composite image. Each "planetary parade" member was captured with the same magnification, meaning they are perfectly scaled...

 

The individual images were captured between 6:30 p.m. and 7:50 p.m. local time, using a digital camera attached to a telescope. Blanck then made a composite image of the six worlds in a straight line for the final photo. The objects are arranged from closest to Earth (left) to farthest from our planet (right): the moon, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

 

https://www.livescience.com/space/astronomy/parisian-photographer-produces-phenomenal-perfectly-proportioned-planetary-parade-portrait

[Sweet Tooth]

Just some cool stuff. 
 

https://science.nasa.gov/mission/voyager/where-are-voyager-1-and-voyager-2-now/?fbclid=IwY2xjawIa3gFleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHRMRPGTXoa9NbWF8pJOZkB0IcbG26ujAVKWGA4WaFfFyCAlQAblTtM6Gag_aem_Am5hPz2YG7YCWsp26j-dkw

[➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone]

 

Webb Maps Full Picture of How Phoenix Galaxy Cluster Forms Stars

February 13, 2025 10:00AM (EST)Release ID: 2025-107

 

Summary

Discovery proves decades-old theory of galaxy feeding cycle.

 

Since its discovery in 2010, the Phoenix cluster has always been one to stand out from the bunch.

 

It's one of the most massive galaxy clusters known to astronomers, and was the first galaxy cluster found to have a supermassive black hole that promotes, instead of hinders, a high rate of star formation.

 

Just how that was happening, though, remained a mystery. Researchers could see super-hot gas, and super-cold filaments of gas hiding forming stars. However, the in-between remained unseen. That is, until NASA's James Webb Space Telescope's infrared eye examined the cluster's core and found the missing cooling gas.

 

https://webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2025/news-2025-107.html

 

Pic Description:

New observations from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope trace the cooling gas that enables the Phoenix cluster to form stars at such a high rate. Previous studies of the Phoenix cluster using the Hubble Space Telescope, Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the Very Large Array radio telescope showed how the supermassive black hole at the center was feeding an unusually high rate of star formation. This is not typical – in other observed galaxy clusters, a supermassive black hole usually sends out energetic particles and radiation that prevents gas from cooling enough to form stars.

 

[➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone]

Webb Reveals Rapid-Fire Light Show From Milky Way's Central Black Hole
February 18, 2025 11:00AM ID: 2025-110

Summary
Observations revealed ongoing fireworks featuring short bursts and longer flares.

Imagine solar flares, but on a mind-boggling scale. A constant scintillation that is bright enough to shine across 26,000 light-years of space. And interspersed between the flickers, brilliant flashes that spew out on a daily basis.

Researchers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have spotted this activity in the center of our galaxy. The source is the accretion disk around the Milky Way’s central supermassive black hole

 

https://webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2025/news-2025-110.html
[There is a 30sec video as well]

 

Pic Description 
This artist’s concept portrays the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, known as Sagittarius A* (A-star). It’s surrounded by a swirling accretion disk of hot gas. The black hole’s gravity bends light from the far side of the disk, making it appear to wrap above and below the black hole.

[➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone]

NASA's Hubble Provides Bird's-Eye View of Andromeda Galaxy's Ecosystem

February 27, 2025 11:00AM (EST)Release ID: 2025-009

 

Summary

A Swarm of Dwarf Galaxies Buzz Around Our Milky Way's Twin

 

You can think of our Milky Way galaxy and the neighboring Andromeda galaxy as two giant aircraft carriers accompanied by a flotilla of smaller warships. Those ships in this imaginary battle fleet are dwarf galaxies, a fraction the size and mass of the giant spiral galaxies. Our Milky Way has about 70 known dwarf galaxies, and Andromeda appears to have three times as many. The dwarf galaxies provide clues as to how the Milky Way and Andromeda evolved over billions of years. The satellites tell a markedly different story for each system. Our Milky Way has led a relatively placid life, while it's been a game of bumper cars around Andromeda—including a major collision several billion years ago. In an ambitious observing program, the Hubble Space Telescope was used to inventory all of the known dwarf galaxies surrounding Andromeda.

 

Full Article:

https://www.stsci.edu/contents/news-releases/2025/news-2025-009.html#section-id-summary

 

Pic Description 

This is a wide-angle view of the distribution of known satellite galaxies orbiting the large Andromeda galaxy (M31), located 2.5 million light-years away. The Hubble Space Telescope was used to study the entire population of 36 mini-galaxies circled in yellow. Andromeda is the bright spindle-shaped object at image center. All the dwarf galaxies seem to be confined to a plane, all orbiting in the same direction. The wide view is from ground-based photography. Hubble's optical stability, clarity, and efficiency made this ambitious survey possible. Hubble close up snapshots of four dwarf galaxies are on image right. The most prominent dwarf galaxy is M32 (NGC 221), a compact ellipsoidal galaxy that might be the remnant core of a larger galaxy that collided with Andromeda a few billion years ago.

[There is a 1 min video as well]

[Watching and Waiting]

3 hours ago, ➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone said:

A Swarm of Dwarf Galaxies Buzz Around Our Milky Way's Twin

And it’s an infinitesimal speck in the universe—but so awesome!
 

Isaiah 40:26
26 “Lift up your eyes to heaven and see. Who has created these things? It is the One who brings out their army by number; He calls them all by name. Because of his vast dynamic energy and his awe-inspiring power, Not one of them is missing.

 

Thank you for posting these ‘windows’ into the heavens Tony. 

[➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone]

[Technically not from the Webb. But a short 40sec video of the moon surface posted on BBC]

 

Marvellous views of the moon captured by private lunar lander

 

Firefly Aerospace, a Texas-based private aerospace company, released video from the Blue Ghost spacecraft orbiting the moon. Since entering the moon's orbit on 13 February, the lunar lander has been preparing for its landing by lowering its orbit. It will attempt to make a descent on the lunar surface on 2 March.

 

Blue Ghost would become the second private spacecraft to successfully soft-land on the moon. Intuitive Machines was the first private company to put a robot on the moon in 2024.

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cge11x14py4o

[➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone]

NASA's Webb Exposes Complex Atmosphere of Starless Super-Jupiter

 

March 03, 2025 10:00 Release ID: 2025-106

 

Summary

Webb has captured evidence for patchy cloud layers, high-altitude hot spots, and variations in chemistry around a rapidly rotating, free-floating object 20 light-years from Earth. 

 

Getting a nice, good look at a planet outside our solar system can be tricky. Some exoplanets are way too cool and dim to observe. Many are virtually invisible in the blinding glare of their host stars. Others spin so slowly it would take days to survey the entire planet.

 

Read more:

https://webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2025/news-2025-106?news=true#heading-full-article

 

Pic Description: 

SIMP 0136 is located within the Milky Way, about 20 light-years from Earth, in the constellation Pisces. It is the brightest isolated planet or brown dwarf visible from the Northern Hemisphere, and is thought to be about 200 million years old. The artist’s concepts are based on Webb’s spectroscopic observations. Webb has not captured a direct image of the object.

[➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone]

NASA's Hubble Finds Kuiper Belt Duo May Be Trio

March 04, 2025 11:00AM Release ID: 2025-007

 

Summary

A potential triple system of Kuiper Belt objects, only the second ever found, would support the theory that these rocky bodies form by gravitational collapse, like stars.

 

The universe contains a range of gravitationally bound three-body systems, from triple star systems to planets with two moons, like Mars. New research suggests that objects in the solar system's Kuiper Belt may also be in the triple club, as a second system, already identified as a binary, shows signs of containing a third member that is so close to its companion it can only be identified by observing the system's orbital dynamics. Confirming two triple systems in the Kuiper Belt would raise the likelihood that there are many other hidden triples there waiting to be recognized. The larger implication of this research is its support for a formation theory for Kuiper Belt objects known as the streaming instability hypothesis, which proposes that they formed not by collisions, but originated as triple systems through gravitational collapse.

 

Read more:

https://www.stsci.edu/contents/news-releases/2025/news-2025-007.html#section-id-summary

 

Pic Description: 

This artist's concept depicts one of the possible scenarios for the 148780 Altjira system in the solar system's Kuiper Belt. It is likely a hierarchical triple formation, in which two very close companions are orbited by a third member at a greater distance.

 

The inner bodies are too close together to be resolved by the Hubble Space Telescope. But Hubble observations of the orbit of the outermost object were used to determine that the central body is not a single spherical object. Other possibilities are that the inner object is a contact binary, where two separate bodies become so close they touch each other. Another idea is that the central body is oddly flat, like a pancake. Of the 40 identified binary objects in the Kuiper Belt, another system, Lempo, has been found to be a triple.

 

[Dustparticle]

 

 Her more info on Webb Telescope: 

 https://www.yahoo.com/tech/james-webb-space-telescope-spots-120000704.html

[➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone]

NASA Webb Wows With Incredible Detail in Actively Forming Star System

March 07, 2025 10:00AM Release ID: 2025-111

 

Summary

This near-infrared image shows the history of ejections from the two actively forming stars in Lynds 483.

 

This scene is still transforming.

 

What look like twin flames are known as Lynds 483 (L483), ejections from two actively forming stars at the center. The stars themselves are hidden in a teeny, opaque disk of dust that fits into one pixel. This is the most detailed image of L483 to date, delivered in high-resolution near-infrared light by the James Webb Space Telescope.

 

Full Article:

https://webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2025/news-2025-111.html#section-id-2

 

Pic Description: 

Shimmering ejections emitted by two actively forming stars make up Lynds 483 (L483). High-resolution near-infrared light captured by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope shows incredible new detail and structure within these lobes, including asymmetrical lines that appear to run into one another. L483 is 650 light-years away in the constellation Serpens.

 

[➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone]

Hubble Captures New View of Colorful Veil

Mar 05, 2025

 

In this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image, Hubble once again lifts the veil on a famous — and frequently photographed — supernova remnant: the Veil Nebula. The remnant of a star roughly 20 times as massive as the Sun that exploded about 10,000 years ago, the Veil Nebula is situated about 2,400 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. Hubble images of this photogenic nebula were first taken in 1994 and 1997, and again in 2015.

 

This view combines images taken in three different filters by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3, highlighting emission from hydrogen, sulfur, and oxygen atoms...

 

https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/830089/

 

[➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone]

 

Hubble Unveils a Glittering View of Sh2-284

Hubble Mission Team Mar 08, 2025

 

A tiny fraction of the stellar nursery known as Sh2-284 is visible in this glittering, star-filled NASA Hubble Space Telescope image. This immense region of gas and dust is the birthing place of stars, which shine among the clouds. Bright clusters of newborn stars glow pink in infrared light, and clouds of gas and dust, resembling puffy cumulus clouds, are dotted with dark knots of denser dust.

 

This image shows an infrared view from Hubble, giving an excellent view of the stars that might otherwise be obscured by Sh2-284’s clouds. Unlike visible light, infrared wavelengths can travel through clouds of gas and dust, providing a glimpse of the stars forming within the obscuring clouds...

 

Read more

https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/hubble-unveils-a-glittering-view-of-sh2-284/

 

Pic Description: 

Hubble’s infrared view of emission nebula Sh2-284 provides a glimpse of the brilliant young stars hidden within clouds of gas and dust.

 

 

[Dustparticle]

I wonder when they will discover galaxies before the Big Bang? They are getting close.

 

https://news.arizona.edu/news/james-webb-space-telescope-reveals-unexpected-complex-chemistry-primordial-galaxy

[Dages]

"Before the bigbang" is impossible, so that would only push the bigbang further in the past

[➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone]

Hubble rocks out with cosmic guitar 

By Robert Lea published today 

 

The moshing galaxies of Arp 105 dazzle in the Space Image of the Day Monday (March 10), which comes courtesy Hubble...

 

It's a cosmic battle of the bands today as the Hubble Space Telescope brings us a stunning image of colliding galaxies forming the shape of a vast guitar...

 

The colliding elliptical galaxy (NGC 3561B) and a spiral galaxy (NGC 3561A) of Arp 105 have a "tidal tail" of gas, dust, and stars that stretch out 362,000 light-years.

 

https://www.space.com/space-exploration/hubble-rocks-out-cosmic-guitar

[There is 3 min explanation video in link]

 

Pix Description:

Elliptical galaxy NGC 3561B (upper left) and spiral galaxy NGC 3561A (lower right) form a shimmering guitar shape in the ongoing merger known collectively as Arp 105.

Image credit: NASA, ESA, the GOODS Team, and M. Giavalisco (University of Massachusetts, Amherst)

 

[➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone]

NASA's Webb Peers Deeper into Mysterious Flame Nebula

March 10, 2025 10:00AM Release ID: 2025-105

 

Summary

New population census answers the question: How small can you go when forming stars and brown dwarfs?

 

The Flame Nebula, a star-forming region in the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex, has a long history of observation from telescopes such as NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. However, the smallest stars within its dark and dusty heart have largely been hidden from view. The infrared vision from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has taken a first-time look, counting the smallest and faintest objects to determine the lowest mass required to form brown dwarfs.

 

Full Article

https://webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2025/news-2025-105.html

[10 sec Hubble/Webb comparison slideshow]

 

Pic Description-1: [1st Top]

This collage of images from the Flame Nebula shows a near-infrared light view from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope on the left, while the two insets at the right show the near-infrared view taken by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Much of the dark, dense gas and dust, as well as the surrounding white clouds within the Hubble image, have been cleared in the Webb images, giving us a view into a more translucent cloud pierced by the infrared-producing objects within that are young stars and brown dwarfs. Astronomers used Webb to take a census of the lowest-mass objects within this star-forming region.

 

Pic Description-2:[2nd]

This near-infrared image of a portion of the Flame Nebula from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope highlights three (3) low-mass objects, seen in the insets to the right. These objects, which are much colder than protostars, require the sensitivity of Webb’s instruments to detect them. These objects were studied as part of an effort to explore the lowest mass limit of brown dwarfs within the Flame Nebula.

Edited Tuesday at 06:46 PM by ➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone