James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)

[Barbllm]

https://www.space.com/astronomy/james-webb-space-telescope/spectacular-spiral-galaxy-revealed-by-james-webb-space-telescope-space-photo-of-the-day-for-march-4-2026

 

"The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has captured a truly spectacular view of the spiral galaxy NGC 5134, revealing glowing dust clouds, newborn stars and the ongoing cycle of stellar life and death.

 

Located about 65 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo, the galaxy may seem distant, but in cosmic terms, it's relatively close. This proximity allows the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to resolve remarkable details in the tightly wound spiral arms of the galaxy."

[➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone]

Astronomers Produce the Largest Image Ever Taken of the Heart of the Milky Way

By Matthew Williams - 08 March 2026 11:40 PM 

 

The central region of our Milky Way, sometimes referred to as the "Bulge," remains something of an enigma to astronomers. Because it is densely packed with stars and clouds of dust and gas, capturing images of its interior has historically been very difficult. But with advances in radio astronomy over many decades, which can capture light that is otherwise blocked at visible wavelengths, astronomers have made some immensely fascinating finds there. In addition to the well-known supermassive black hole (SMBH), Sagittarius A*, there is chemistry at work that could shed light on the origins of life in our galaxy.

 

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international team of astronomers has captured the central region of the Milky Way in unprecedented detail. The image reveals a region measuring 650 light-years in diameter filled with a complex network of filaments composed of dense clouds of cosmic gas, known as the Central Molecular Zone (CMZ). As the largest ALMA image taken to date, the rich dataset will allow astronomers to examine the rich chemistry and how stars evolve in the most extreme region of our galaxy.

 

Article link:

https://www.universetoday.com/articles/astronomers-produce-the-largest-image-ever-taken-of-the-heart-of-the-milky-way

 

[ED: Couple of nice videos in the article.]

Video 1:

 

 

 

Pic Description: 

The largest image of the Milky Way's center, captured by the ESO's ALMA array. Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/S. Longmore et al./ESO/D. Minniti et al.

Edited March 10 by ➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone

[Barbllm]

"Just like Earth" except for the lava showers.

 

[➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone]

Astronomers collect rare evidence of two planets colliding

by William Poor, University of Washington. 11 March 2026

 

Anastasios (Andy) Tzanidakis was combing through old telescope data from 2020 when he found an otherwise boring star acting very strangely. The star, named Gaia20ehk, was about 11,000 light-years from Earth near the constellation Puppis. It was a stable "main sequence" star, much like our sun, which meant that it should emit steady, predictable light. Yet this star began to flicker wildly.

 

"The star's light output was nice and flat, but starting in 2016 it had these three dips in brightness. And then, right around 2021, it went completely bonkers," said Tzanidakis, a doctoral candidate in astronomy at the University of Washington. "I can't emphasize enough that stars like our sun don't do that. So when we saw this one, we were like, 'Hello, what's going on here?'"

 

The cause of the flickering had nothing to do with the star itself: Huge quantities of rocks and dust—seemingly from out of nowhere—were passing in front of the distant star as the material orbited the system, patchily dimming the light that reached Earth. The likely source of all that debris was even more remarkable: a catastrophic collision between two planets.

 

"It's incredible that various telescopes caught this impact in real time," Tzanidakis said. "There are only a few other planetary collisions of any kind on record, and none that bear so many similarities to the impact that created Earth and the moon. If we can observe more moments like this elsewhere in the galaxy, it will teach us lots about the formation of our world."

 

The analysis of the star is published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

 

Article link:

https://phys.org/news/2026-03-astronomers-rare-evidence-planets-colliding.html

 

Pic Descriptions:

PIC 1 (Top): Lead author Andy Tzanidakis’s rendering of the planetary collision he suspects occurred around star Gaia20ehk in 2021. Credit: Andy Tzanidakis

PIC 2: Star Gaia20ehk—seen here in the center of the orange crosshairs in the inset image—is roughly 11,000 light-years from Earth, near the constellation Puppis. Photo: NASA/NSF NOIRLab

 

Edited March 12 by ➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone

[➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone]

Largest-Ever Radio Map of The Sky Reveals 13.7 Million Hidden Objects

13 March 2026 By Ivan Farkas

 

Our view of the cosmos changes completely based on how we observe it.

 

Now, astronomers have released the data from the largest-ever sky survey at radio wavelengths, revealing nearly 13.7 million celestial objects in light the human eye literally cannot see unaided.

 

This is the third data release from the LOFAR Two-metre Sky Survey (LoTSS-DR3). It provides an unprecedented collection of cosmic objects that emit radio waves.

 

These include some of the most extreme phenomena in the Universe, including galaxies being whipped into weird shapes by Death-Star-like beams from supermassive black holes.

 

The survey covers 88 percent of the northern sky and comprises approximately 13,000 hours of data collected over years.

 

Article link:

https://www.sciencealert.com/largest-ever-radio-map-of-the-sky-reveals-13-7-million-hidden-objects

 

Pic Description: 

A selection of active galaxies with supermassive black holes at their centers, illustrating the variety of shapes that can result from the activity of black holes and their interaction with the environment. (Maya Horton/LoTSS-Team)

 

[Watching and Waiting]

This just stunning in terms of the amount of data over such a long period of time.

 

16 hours ago, ➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone said:

largest-ever sky survey at radio wavelengths

 

From the linked article cited in your post:

 

“The telescope array is an interferometer composed of some 20,000 antennas spread between 52 individual stations – 38 in the Netherlands and 14 across other European countries. Spanning more than 1,000 kilometers (600 miles), they can act as a mass of individual sensors or work together as a single radio telescope the size of Europe.”

 

"The volume of data we handled – 18.6 petabytes in total – was immense and required continuous processing and monitoring over many years, using more than 20 million core hours of computing time,"

 

This is absolutely mind-boggling, hard to wrap your head around.  Thank you for posting these updates.

 

[Barbllm]

The JWST is picking up little red dots. 

 

 

They could be an Imperial reconnaissance probe droid like the ones used on Hoth to find the rebel base.

 

[Dustparticle]

18 hours ago, Barbllm said:

The JWST is picking up little red dots. 

 

 

They could be an Imperial reconnaissance probe droid like the ones used on Hoth to find the rebel base.

 

 

In relation to this, this article is funny. Jehovah is laughing at them.

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/webb-telescope-photos-show-mysterious-123034486.html

 

[➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone]

Hubble Unexpectedly Catches Comet Breaking Up

Wednesday 18 March 2026 10:00am Release ID: 2026-010

 

Researchers’ long-sought experiment happened serendipitously.

 

When scientists recently trained the Hubble Space Telescope on a comet, they got much more of a show than they expected—the comet was crumbling before their eyes! Comet K1, whose full name is Comet C/2025 K1 (ATLAS), had just passed its closest approach to the Sun and was heading out of the solar system. Though it had been intact just days before, K1 fragmented into at least four pieces while Hubble was watching. The odds of that happening while Hubble viewed the comet are extraordinarily low.

 

Each piece looked like a tiny comet, with a fuzzy envelope of gas and dust surrounding it. From its perch in space, Hubble clearly resolved the fragments, though from the ground they appeared only as barely distinguishable blobs. 

 

...a happy twist of fate....

 

Article link:

https://www.stsci.edu/contents/news-releases/2026/news-2026-010.html?utm_source=hubble&utm_campaign=inbox_astronomy&utm_id=2026-010

 

4 min video explanation: 

 

 

Pic Description: 

This series of images from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope of the fragmenting comet C/2025 K1 (ATLAS) was taken over the course of three consecutive days: Nov. 8, 9, and 10, 2025. This is the first time Hubble has witnessed a comet so early in the process of breaking up.

Image: NASA, ESA, Dennis Bodewits (AU); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

Flight path is also illustrated. 

 

[➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone]

Hubble Revisits Crab Nebula to Track 25 Years of Expansion

23 March 2026 10am Release ID: 2026-009

 

Movement in the Crab Nebula is clearly detectable between Hubble images

 

In the year 1054, careful observers of the stars noted a new light in the sky, which was so bright it could be seen during the day for 23 days, and remained visible in the night sky for more than a year afterward. It was a supernova, a massive star exploding 6,500 light-years away. The remnant of the supernova was first seen through telescopes in the 1700s. It was eventually, and somewhat puzzlingly, nicknamed the Crab Nebula, likely a result of leggy-looking filaments extending from a central mass as seen through early telescopes.  

 

In the mid-twentieth century, Edwin Hubble was one of several astronomers who connected the Crab to Chinese astronomical records. On the cusp of a new millennium, the telescope named for Hubble captured an intricately detailed portrait of the full supernova remnant, and 25 years later it has turned again to the ancient site to track the nebula’s expansion and ongoing evolution.

 

Article link:

https://www.stsci.edu/contents/news-releases/2026/news-2026-009.html

 

Video link:

 

 

Pic Description:

This 2024 image that NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured of the Crab Nebula, paired with its past observations and those of other telescopes, allows astronomers to study how the supernova remnant is expanding and evolving over time. 

Image: NASA, ESA, STScI, William Blair (JHU); 

Image Processing: Joseph De

Pasquale (STScI).