James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)

[Julsey]

But are there Vulcans out there? That is the question! 🧐

[➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone]

NASA’s Hubble Sees White Dwarf Eating Piece of Pluto-Like Object
By Goddard Space Centre 18 Sept 2025

Summary
Only Hubble with its unique ultraviolet vision could see this event

A celestial meal is taking place, and only the Hubble Space Telescope caught the feast in action. Just 260 light-years away — close in cosmic terms — a burned-out star called a white dwarf is snacking on a fragment of a Pluto-like object. The Pluto analog came from the system’s own version of the Kuiper Belt, an icy ring of debris that encircles our solar system. As the exo-Pluto wandered too close to the star, the white dwarf tore it apart and began snacking on it.

Thanks to its unique ultraviolet vision, only Hubble could identify this event. Scientists using Hubble analyzed the chemical composition of the doomed object as its pieces fell onto the white dwarf. They were surprised to find water and other icy content indicating that the object came from far out in the system’s Kuiper Belt analog. Without Hubble’s ultraviolet capability, this material — unseen in visible light — would not have been detected.

 

Full Article:
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/nasas-hubble-sees-white-dwarf-eating-piece-of-pluto-like-object/

 

Video Link:

 

 

Pic Description: 
This artist’s concept shows a white dwarf surrounded by a large debris disk. Debris from pieces of a captured, Pluto-like object is falling onto the white dwarf.

[➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone]

Soar through 44 million stars in Gaia telescope's latest 3D map of our galaxy — Space photo of the week

By Sophie Berdugo published 4 hours ago

 

Scientists have used the Gaia Space Telescope to create a 3D map of star kindergartens within the Milky Way, and you can fly through it.

 

Link to article:

https://www.livescience.com/space/astronomy/soar-through-44-million-stars-in-gaia-telescopes-latest-3d-map-of-our-galaxy-space-photo-of-the-week

 

Video link:

[A 2 1/2 min zoom-in and fly-through galaxies.]

https://cdn.jwplayer.com/previews/jlagFZdN

 

More info and pics on the Pismis 24:

[Incl 122.4MB wallpaper file. Lol]

https://esawebb.org/images/weic2518a/

 

 

Edited September 21 by ➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone

[➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone]

NASA's Webb Explores Largest Star-Forming Cloud in Milky Way

September 24, 2025 10:00am Release ID: 2025-141

 

Summary

The galactic center is packed with star-making material — why isn’t it producing more stars? Webb could reveal long-sought answers.

 

Sagittarius B2 is the Milky Way galaxy’s most massive and active star forming cloud, producing half of the stars created in the galactic center region despite having only 10 percent of the area’s star-making material. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope reveals stunning new views of the region, using both its near-infrared and mid-infrared instruments, to capture both its colorful stars and gaseous stellar nurseries in unprecedented detail. Astronomers think that analysis of Webb’s data will help unravel enduring mysteries of the star formation process, and why Sagittarius B2 is forming so many more stars than the rest of the galactic center...

 

Astronomers hope Webb will shed light on why star formation in the galactic center is so disproportionately low. Though the region is stocked with plenty of gaseous raw material, on the whole it is not nearly as productive as Sagittarius B2. While Sagittarius B2 has only 10 percent of the galactic center’s gas, it produces 50 percent of its stars. 

 

“Humans have been studying the stars for thousands of years, and there is still a lot to understand,” said Nazar Budaiev, a graduate student at the University of Florida and the co-principal investigator of the study. “For everything new Webb is showing us, there are also new mysteries to explore, and it’s exciting to be a part of that ongoing discovery.”

 

Full Article:

https://science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasas-webb-explores-largest-star-forming-cloud-in-milky-way/

 

Pic A Description: 

Stars, gas and cosmic dust in the Sagittarius B2 molecular cloud glow in near-infrared light, captured by Webb’s NIRCam instrument. The darkest areas of the image are not empty space but are areas where stars are still forming inside dense clouds that block their light.

 

Pic B Description: 

Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) shows the Sagittarius B2 (Sgr B2) region in mid-infrared light, with warm dust glowing brightly. To the right is one clump of clouds that captured astronomers’ attention. It is redder than the rest of the clouds in the image and corresponds to an area that other telescopes have shown to be one of the most molecularly rich regions known. Additional analysis of this intriguing region could yield important insights into why Sgr B2 is so much more productive in making stars than the rest of the galactic center.

 

Only the brightest stars in this region emit mid-infrared light that can be picked up by Webb’s MIRI instrument, which is why this image has so many fewer stars than that captured by Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera). The darkest areas of the image are not empty space but areas where cosmic dust and gas are so dense that light cannot penetrate them to reach the telescope.

 

[Pic C Side-by-side Note: There is a curtain/slide feature available via the article. ]

[➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone]

Not Spiral. Not Elliptical. So What Exactly Is This Galaxy?

By ESA/Hubble September 23, 2025

 

NGC 2775, a galaxy 67 million light-years away, is puzzling astronomers with its mix of traits.

 

The Hubble Space Telescope has released a new Picture of the Week, and this time the spotlight is on a galaxy that refuses to fit neatly into any category. The subject, known as NGC 2775, is located about 67 million light-years away in the constellation Cancer (The Crab). At its center lies a smooth, gas-free core that looks strikingly similar to an elliptical galaxy. Surrounding it, however, is a dusty ring sprinkled with uneven clusters of young stars, giving it the appearance of a spiral galaxy. So what is it exactly: spiral, elliptical — or something in between?

 

Because astronomers can only observe NGC 2775 from a single perspective, its true nature remains uncertain. Some scientists argue that it should be considered a spiral galaxy due to its delicate ring of dust and stars. Others, however, classify it as a lenticular galaxy, a transitional type that shares characteristics of both spirals and ellipticals.

 

Full Article:

https://scitechdaily.com/not-spiral-not-elliptical-so-what-exactly-is-this-galaxy/

 

Pic Description: 

NGC 2775 blurs the line between spiral and elliptical galaxies, leaving astronomers debating its true identity. Hubble’s latest view reveals evidence of past mergers and active hydrogen gas clouds that add to the mystery.

[➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone]

NASA's Webb Telescope Studies Moon-Forming Disk Around Massive Planet

September 29, 2025 10:00am Release ID: 2025-142

 

Summary

The disk offers insight into how the moons of solar system gas giants like Jupiter might have formed.

 

Our solar system contains eight major planets, and more than 400 known moons orbiting six of these planets. Where did they all come from? There are multiple formation mechanisms. The case for large moons, like the four Galilean satellites around Jupiter, is that they condensed out of a dust and gas disk encircling the planet when it formed. But that would have happened over 4 billion years ago, and there is scant forensic evidence today.

 

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has provided the first direct view of material in a disk around a large exoplanet, which is located over 625 light-years away. This disk is a possible construction yard for moons. Moons likely outnumber planets in our galaxy, and some might be habitats for life as we know it. So, understanding formation scenarios for moons is critical.

 

Full Article:

https://science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasas-webb-telescope-studies-moon-forming-disk-around-massive-planet/

 

Pic Description: 

An artistic rendering of a dust and gas disk encircling the young exoplanet, CT Cha b, 625 light-years from Earth. Spectroscopic data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope suggests the disk contains the raw materials for moon formation: diacetylene, hydrogen cyanide, propyne, acetylene, ethane, carbon dioxide, and benzene. The planet appears at lower right, while its host star and surrounding circumstellar disk are visible in the background.

[just1-4all]

FYI for all you space nuts (... like me! 🙂) :

 

On Zoom today(sorry, late notice for today's), tomorrow, and Monday at 1 pm EST (Oct 5, 6, 7) a new presentation, "In the Beginning", from the brothers and sisters at Museum Bible Tours https://museumbibletours.com/virtual-tours . Like our meetings, they are free to the public (donation-supported) and no collections taken. Q & A with the host follow these presentations. Learn, have fun, enjoy meeting new brothers and sisters from all over the world. 

[just1-4all]

2 hours ago, just1-4all said:

On Zoom today(sorry, late notice for today's), tomorrow, and Monday at 1 pm EST (Oct 5, 6, 7)

Oops! Correction: 1 pm GMT-7 and 4 pm EST, not  1 pm EST

 

Sorry about that. 😯

[just1-4all]

Start time for other time zones for "In the Beginning" presentation: 

 

1:00 PM Los Angeles

4:00 PM New York

9:00 PM London

10:00 PM Berlin/Vienna

7:00 AM Sydney (next day)

 

(Sorry for the Eastern-Standard-Time-centric thinking 🙄)

[Julsey]

9 hours ago, just1-4all said:

FYI for all you space nuts (... like me! 🙂) :

 

On Zoom today(sorry, late notice for today's), tomorrow, and Monday at 1 pm EST (Oct 5, 6, 7) a new presentation, "In the Beginning", from the brothers and sisters at Museum Bible Tours https://museumbibletours.com/virtual-tours . Like our meetings, they are free to the public (donation-supported) and no collections taken. Q & A with the host follow these presentations. Learn, have fun, enjoy meeting new brothers and sisters from all over the world. 

I didn’t know about these tours, so thank you!

[just1-4all]

19 hours ago, Julsey said:

thank you!

You're very welcome 😊

[Dustparticle]

 

 I cannot remember I post this or not, but very interesting.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MoM-z14

[Sweet Tooth]

11 hours ago, Dustparticle said:

 I cannot remember I post this or not, but very interesting.

Thanks sharing. Its almost z=15

[➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone]

Webb glimpses doomed star before its explosion

By EarthSky Voices October 9, 2025

 

This marks the first time a supernova’s source star has been identified at mid-infrared wavelengths.

 

The researchers said the discovery might help solve the decades-old mystery of why massive red supergiants are rarely seen to explode. That’s surprising, because scientists’ models predict these kinds of stars should make up the majority of core-collapse supernovae. That’s when massive stars, typically over eight times more massive than our sun, explode because their iron cores can no longer hold out against the force of gravity.

 

The new study suggests these stars do explode, but are simply hidden out of sight within thick clouds of dust. With Webb’s new capabilities, astronomers can finally pierce through the dust to spot these phenomena, closing the gap between theory and observation.

 

The peer-reviewed study was published on October 8, 2025, in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

 

Northwestern’s Charlie Kilpatrick led the study. He explained:

 

"For multiple decades, we have been trying to determine exactly what the explosions of red supergiant stars look like. Only now, with [the Webb Space Telescope], do we finally have the quality of data and infrared observations that allow us to say precisely the exact type of red supergiant that exploded and what its immediate environment looked like.

 

We’ve been waiting for this to happen, for a supernova to explode in a galaxy that Webb had already observed.

 

We combined Hubble and Webb data sets to completely characterize this star for the first time."

 

Full Article:

https://earthsky.org/space/webb-sees-doomed-star-before-it-exploded/

 

Pic Description:

These images show views from the Webb and Hubble space telescopes of a red supergiant star before and after it exploded. The star is not visible in the Hubble image before the explosion, but appears in the Webb image. The July 2025 view from Hubble shows the glowing aftermath of the explosion.

 

The Authors:

Kilpatrick is an expert on the lives and deaths of massive stars. He’s a research assistant professor at Northwestern’s Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA).

 

Another key coauthor on the paper is Aswin Suresh. He is a graduate student in physics and astronomy at Northwestern’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and member of Kilpatrick’s research group.

[➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone]

UK TV: 4 min news report on Euclid telescope.
Some nice pics and comments from one of the designers.

 

YouTube link:

 

 

Edited October 12 by ➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone

[➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone]

JWST may have found the Universe’s first stars powered by dark matter

By Colgate University. October 14, 2025

 

Summary:

New observations from the James Webb Space Telescope hint that the universe’s first stars might not have been ordinary fusion-powered suns, but enormous “supermassive dark stars” powered by dark matter annihilation. These colossal, luminous hydrogen-and-helium spheres may explain both the existence of unexpectedly bright early galaxies and the origin of the first supermassive black holes.            [ED Yet another theory...]

 

...Dark matter is thought to make up roughly a quarter of the universe, yet its nature remains one of science's greatest mysteries. Researchers believe it is composed of a still-undetected type of elementary particle. Decades of experiments have searched for these particles, but so far without success...

 

"For the first time we have identified spectroscopic supermassive dark star candidates in JWST, including the earliest objects at redshift 14, only 300 Myr after the Big Bang," said Freese, the Jeff and Gail Kodosky Endowed Chair in Physics and director of the Weinberg Institute and Texas Center for Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics at UT Austin. "Weighing a million times as much as the Sun, such early dark stars are important not only in teaching us about dark matter but also as precursors to the early supermassive black holes seen in JWST that are otherwise so difficult to explain."

 

Pic Description: 

Astronomers may have spotted the first evidence of “supermassive dark stars” — ancient giants powered by dark matter instead of fusion. Their discovery could illuminate how the universe’s first black holes and galaxies came to be. Credit: AI/ScienceDaily.com

 

Article link: 

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/10/251014014430

 

[JennyM]

On 10/12/2025 at 9:17 AM, ➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone said:

UK TV: 4 min news report on Euclid telescope.
Some nice pics and comments from one of the designers.

 

YouTube link:

 

 

Thanks I wonder what that dark matter all about. 

[JennyM]

5 hours ago, ➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone said:

JWST may have found the Universe’s first stars powered by dark matter

By Colgate University. October 14, 2025

 

Summary:

New observations from the James Webb Space Telescope hint that the universe’s first stars might not have been ordinary fusion-powered suns, but enormous “supermassive dark stars” powered by dark matter annihilation. These colossal, luminous hydrogen-and-helium spheres may explain both the existence of unexpectedly bright early galaxies and the origin of the first supermassive black holes.            [ED Yet another theory...]

 

...Dark matter is thought to make up roughly a quarter of the universe, yet its nature remains one of science's greatest mysteries. Researchers believe it is composed of a still-undetected type of elementary particle. Decades of experiments have searched for these particles, but so far without success...

 

"For the first time we have identified spectroscopic supermassive dark star candidates in JWST, including the earliest objects at redshift 14, only 300 Myr after the Big Bang," said Freese, the Jeff and Gail Kodosky Endowed Chair in Physics and director of the Weinberg Institute and Texas Center for Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics at UT Austin. "Weighing a million times as much as the Sun, such early dark stars are important not only in teaching us about dark matter but also as precursors to the early supermassive black holes seen in JWST that are otherwise so difficult to explain."

 

Pic Description: 

Astronomers may have spotted the first evidence of “supermassive dark stars” — ancient giants powered by dark matter instead of fusion. Their discovery could illuminate how the universe’s first black holes and galaxies came to be. Credit: AI/ScienceDaily.com

 

Article link: 

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/10/251014014430

 

beautifully computerized 

[Julsey]

22 hours ago, ➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone said:

JWST may have found the Universe’s first stars powered by dark matter

By Colgate University. October 14, 2025

 

Summary:

New observations from the James Webb Space Telescope hint that the universe’s first stars might not have been ordinary fusion-powered suns, but enormous “supermassive dark stars” powered by dark matter annihilation. These colossal, luminous hydrogen-and-helium spheres may explain both the existence of unexpectedly bright early galaxies and the origin of the first supermassive black holes.            [ED Yet another theory...]

 

...Dark matter is thought to make up roughly a quarter of the universe, yet its nature remains one of science's greatest mysteries. Researchers believe it is composed of a still-undetected type of elementary particle. Decades of experiments have searched for these particles, but so far without success...

 

"For the first time we have identified spectroscopic supermassive dark star candidates in JWST, including the earliest objects at redshift 14, only 300 Myr after the Big Bang," said Freese, the Jeff and Gail Kodosky Endowed Chair in Physics and director of the Weinberg Institute and Texas Center for Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics at UT Austin. "Weighing a million times as much as the Sun, such early dark stars are important not only in teaching us about dark matter but also as precursors to the early supermassive black holes seen in JWST that are otherwise so difficult to explain."

 

Pic Description: 

Astronomers may have spotted the first evidence of “supermassive dark stars” — ancient giants powered by dark matter instead of fusion. Their discovery could illuminate how the universe’s first black holes and galaxies came to be. Credit: AI/ScienceDaily.com

 

Article link: 

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/10/251014014430

 

I thought they used to say that they believed that dark matter made up most of the universe. 

[➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone]

2 hours ago, Julsey said:

I thought they used to say that they believed that dark matter made up most of the universe. 

From what I understand, they still believe this. Although what it is, and how they conclude that 95% of the universe is 'Dark Matter' escapes me.

[Dustparticle]

Thanks to Jehovah for James Webb telescope:

 

https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/dark-stars-james-webb-telescope/

 

https://www.space.com/astronomy/james-webb-space-telescope/jwst-captures-clearest-ever-image-of-m87-galaxys-supermassive-black-hole-jet

[➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone]

A Well-studied Spiral

By R. Chandar, J. Lee and HST 1 7 Oct 2025

 

NGC 7496 is a dusty spiral galaxy with a bar of stars stretching across its centre. Adding to its intrigue is an active galactic nucleus: a supermassive black hole that feasts on gas at the very heart of the galaxy...

 

A previous Hubble image of NGC 7496 was released in 2022. Today’s image incorporates new data that highlight the galaxy’s star clusters, which are surrounded by glowing red clouds of hydrogen gas. Astronomers collected these data in order to study nebulae like those that massive stars leave behind when they explode as supernovae and those from which newborn stars are made.

 

Full article:

https://www.esa.int/About_Us/Week_in_images/Week_in_images_13-17_October_2025

 

Pic Description: 

A spiral galaxy featuring a bright, glowing core that is crossed by a horizontal bar of yellowish light. Spiral arms emerge from each end of this bar and wrap around it, creating a disc that is stretched out to the right. Some areas, mostly along the arms, glow pink where stars are forming in nebulae. Webs of dark reddish dust also follow the arms. A star in our galaxy shines prominently, off to the right.

[➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone]

Two spiral arms of a beautiful galaxy captured feeding the black hole at its center

By Eric Ralls - Earth.com 17 Oct 2025

 

Astronomers used the ALMA radio array in Chile to show that two narrow spiral arms are funneling gas toward the central monster in the Circinus galaxy. The galaxy sits about 13 million light years away in the southern sky.

 

Only a small share of that inflow reaches the inner engine. Less than 12 percent keeps going inward, while the rest gets pushed back out.

 

Article link: 

https://www.earth.com/news/spiral-arms-captured-feeding-black-hole-at-center-of-the-circinus-galaxy/

 

Pic Description: 

Astronomer Walt Goesaert mapped how molecular gas is distributed in the Circinus galaxy, about 13 million light-years away. The galaxy is shown in the top left corner in visible light. The two insets are images taken with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA)

[➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone]

[Circinus cont.]

...The analysis estimates a feeding rate between about 0.3 and 7.5 Suns per year. That is plenty to power the core if most of it could reach the inner disk.

 

The geometry shows a layered structure. The molecular gas arms lie slightly wider than the dust and ionized components.

 

Pic 2 Description:

Spiral structures in the circumnuclear disk of the Circinus Galaxy’s black hole overlaid on the band 7 CO map. The dashed cyan arrow represents the proposed inflow through the NW hook that feeds the torus. The synthesized beam size is drawn in the bottom left as a filled ellipse, and the cyan cross indicates the AGN position.

 

The FULL Science:

https://arxiv.org/html/2510.05199v1

 

Edited October 19 by ➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone

[➕👇 ꓤꓱꓷꓠꓵ🎵Tone]

Aging White Dwarf Still Consuming Its Planetary System

October 22, 2025 10:00am Release ID: 2025-404

 

Summary

Dead star seen ripping planet apart.

 

In approximately 5 billion years, the Sun will deplete its hydrogen fuel and collapse under its own gravity, becoming a white dwarf. Though Earth-sized, this dense remnant will retain much of the Sun’s gravitational influence.

 

This transformation marks the end of our solar system as we know it. Or does it?

 

The universe is never idle. Everything is in a perpetual state of fluctuation. Still, it came as a surprise to astronomers to find a 3 billion-year-old white dwarf actively accreting material from its former planetary system – a discovery that challenges assumptions about the late stages of stellar remnant evolution.

 

The telltale forensic evidence came from observations with the W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea in Hawaiʻi. Spectroscopic analysis of light from the dwarf found 13 chemical elements that must have come from a small rocky body – an asteroid or dwarf planet.

 

Like an apple falling out of a tree, some unknown gravitational disturbance within the past few million years may have sent this object spiraling inward. It was then torn apart by tidal forces and absorbed into the white dwarf’s surrounding debris disk.

 

Article Link:

https://www.stsci.edu/contents/news-releases/2025/news-2025-404.html?utm_source=stsci&utm_campaign=inbox_astronomy&utm_id=2025-404

 

Pic Description:

This artist’s illustration shows a 3-billion-year-old white dwarf star accreting material from the remnants of its former planetary system. Gravitational instabilities caused a surviving planet to spiral inward and disintegrate under intense tidal forces, forming a debris disk. Spectroscopic analysis of the white dwarf’s atmosphere revealed the presence of this planetary debris