Nebulae

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An area in the Orion nebula filled with dark, puffy clouds. On the image’s right side is a large area of clouds crossed by a dark bar. The region glows in red and whitish colors lit by a protostar within. At the other side a large jet of material ejected by the protostar appears to be made of thin, wispy, blue, and pink clouds. A couple of foreground stars shine brightly in front of the nebula.

Hubble Captures Young Stars Changing Their Environments

2 min read

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image peers into the dusty recesses of the nearest massive star-forming region to Earth, the…

Article4 days ago
A few dozen white stars, some with Webb’s signature 8-point diffraction spikes, on the black background of space. Tightly packed, red-orange filaments extend horizontally from upper left to lower right, with a bulging upward curve on the right that is closer to the top. The filaments resemble wood grain.

NASA’s Webb Reveals Intricate Layers of Interstellar Dust, Gas

6 min read

Once upon a time, the core of a massive star collapsed, creating a shockwave that blasted outward, ripping the star…

Article6 days ago
A portion of Webb’s 2023 observation of Wolf-Rayet 140. A bright white hexagon is toward the bottom left-center. This is the two stars. Blue diffraction spikes point diagonally toward 8, 11, and 1 o’clock. Surrounding the central light are a series of regularly spaced rings. A segment of each of the rings at around 2 o’clock appears brighter. These bright patches form a line that travels to the upper right. A few blue background dots are on the black background of space.

Webb Watches Carbon-Rich Dust Shells Form, Expand in Star System

6 min read

Astronomers have long tried to track down how elements like carbon, which is essential for life, become widely distributed across…

Article1 week ago

NASA’s Chandra, Hubble Tune Into ‘Flame-Throwing’ Guitar Nebula

6 min read

Normally found only in heavy metal bands or certain post-apocalyptic films, a “flame-throwing guitar” has now been spotted moving through…

Article2 months ago
At center right is a compact star cluster composed of luminous red, blue, and white points of light. Faint jets with clumpy, diffuse material extend in various directions from the bright cluster. Above and to the right is a smaller cluster of stars. Translucent red wisps of material stretch across the scene, though there are patches and a noticeable gap in the top left corner that reveal the black background of space. Background galaxies are scattered across this swath of space, appearing as small blue-white and orange-white dots or fuzzy, thin disks. There are two noticeably larger points, foreground stars, with diffraction spikes: an orange-white point on the left, and a blue-white point in the top right.

NASA’s Webb Peers into the Extreme Outer Galaxy

5 min read

Astronomers have directed NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to examine the outskirts of our Milky Way galaxy. Scientists call this…

Article4 months ago

Cassiopeia A, Then the Cosmos: 25 Years of Chandra X-ray Science

5 min read

By Rick Smith On Aug. 26, 1999, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory opened its powerful telescopic eye in orbit and captured its…

Article5 months ago

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