spacetelescopescience

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Even though Stephan’s Quintet is called a quintet, only four of the galaxies here are close together (about 290 million light-years away from Earth). The fifth and leftmost galaxy, NGC 7320, is only about 40 million light-years away: https://bit.ly/42MkBik

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Before the James Webb Space Telescope launched, the very early universe was a time and place shrouded in mystery. Astronomers and engineers developed Webb specifically to reveal the universe’s origins and understand how our story began.

In this video, scientists discuss the breakthroughs and surprises Webb has uncovered so far, from “little red dots” to unexpectedly massive black holes.

Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI.

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Aurora lights, Webb camera, Neptune action! For the first time, astronomers have used the James Webb Space Telescope to capture bright auroral activity on Neptune. For many years, Neptune’s bright lights were the missing piece of the puzzle when it came to detecting auroras on the giant planets of our solar system.

Turns out, imaging the auroral activity on Neptune was only possible with Webb’s near-infrared sensitivity: https://webbtelescope.pub/424vcTI

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The James Webb Space Telescope provides high-resolution details of Herbig-Haro 49/50—an outflow from a nearby still-forming star and background galaxies. Webb reveals the fuzzy object at the tip of the outflow in the Spitzer image is actually a distant spiral galaxy: https://webbtelescope.pub/4iGQg9K

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Can we visit other galaxies? Nope, not yet! But we can still study other galaxies using powerful telescopes.

Quiz yourself about other space knowledge in the “How Do We Know?” section of ViewSpace: https://viewspace.org/video_library?tags=466

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The James Webb Space Telescope provides detailed views of Herbig-Haro 49/50—an outflow from the jet of a nearby still-forming star. This science visualization flies along the outflow and demonstrates how it actually has no relationship to the more distant spiral galaxy: https://webbtelescope.pub/4iGQg9K

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The James Webb Space Telescope captured this beautiful juxtaposition of the nearby protostellar outflow, known as Herbig-Haro 49/50, with a perfectly positioned, much more distant spiral galaxy.

Due to the close proximity of this outflow to Earth, this new infrared image of Herbig-Haro 49/50 allows researchers to examine its details like never before. With Webb, we can better understand how the activity of jets and resulting outflows, which are associated with the formation of young stars, affect their surrounding environment.

Explore every small detail of this object in a video: https://webbtelescope.pub/4iGQg9K

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Examine the case of the “Blue Lurker,” a rare class of star observed by Hubble. What to get more “News from the Universe”? Check out the extensive ViewSpace library: https://viewspace.org/video_library?tags=1637

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In 2013, the Hubble Space Telescope captured a comet (top right) approaching the Sun.

Comets are balls of rock and ice. They orbit the Sun in paths that either allow them to pass by the Sun once or repeatedly. A comet's long, glowing tail forms when the Sun's heat warms its nucleus, which releases gases and dust into space.

Consider the perspective: The comet is the object closest to us in this view.

The stars, which are bright white and blue, and have four diffraction spikes, are slightly more distant.

Larger, circular and disk-like galaxies are significantly farther.

The farthest galaxies appear as tiny dots.

Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Project (STScI, AURA).

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This galaxy cluster, observed by the James Webb Space Telescope, is key in studying the farthest star ever detected. That star, nicknamed Earendel, was first discovered by the Hubble Space Telescope through the magnifying effect of gravitational lensing.

Gravitational lensing “bends” the appearance of the distant galaxy that Earendel is found in—the Sunrise Arc. When Webb observed Earendel, the telescope revealed the star is more than twice as hot as our sun and about a million times more luminous.

This observation is a part of Webb’s focus on uncovering the mysteries of the early universe, a period where the first stars and galaxies formed. Earendel is thought to have formed only about 1 billion years after the big bang.

Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA; Dan Coe (STScI/AURA for ESA, JHU), Brian Welch (NASA-GSFC, UMD); Zolt G. Levay.

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A new James Webb Space Telescope image of the iconic planetary system HR 8799—which reveals an abundance of carbon dioxide—is telling researchers how these gas giants came to be.

Giant planets can take shape in two ways: by slowly building solid cores with heavier elements that attract gas, just like the giants in our solar system, or when particles of gas rapidly coalesce into massive objects from a young star’s cooling disk. Knowing which formation model is more common can give scientists clues to distinguish between the types of planets they find in other systems.

This carbon dioxide detection provides strong evidence that HR 8799’s four giant planets formed much like Jupiter and Saturn: https://webbtelescope.pub/3XLUwwq

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We recently surpassed 100,000 subscribers on our YouTube channel, and received the Silver Creator Award. Everyone in the Space Telescope Science Institute's Office of Public Outreach had a part in making our YouTube channel so successful.

Let us be a part of your adventure through the universe, subscribe to our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQXVf-94-RV7NVTOhVCNTiQ

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There’s a lot to examine in this James Webb Space Telescope image! Look for the clumpy parallel lines. These are outflows from young, actively forming stars.

As stars gather mass, they periodically emit high-speed jets of gas that collide with nearby gas and dust.

The discovery of these aligned outflows was only possible with Webb, owed to its exquisite spatial resolution and sensitivity in near-infrared light.

Keep reading: https://webbtelescope.org/.../news.../2024/news-2024-115

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By looking at these regions in a different kind of light than what our eyes can naturally see!

The James Webb Space Telescope observes our universe in the infrared, which can “escape” the gas and dust to reveal the dazzling events that are occurring in the cosmos.

Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI.

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Just as space telescopes have identified millions of stars and galaxies, they have also seen a great diversity of planets outside our solar system. These planets, known as exoplanets, form in protoplanetary disks that swirl around growing stars, giving each unique properties.

Observatories like the James Webb Space Telescope have the sensitivity to pick up new details about exoplanets. Those like TRAPPIST-1 b, a rocky planet like Earth, give off faint mid-infrared light, which Webb can measure. With these data, we can learn not only what temperatures planets can reach or if they can sustain an atmosphere, but also the qualities of the stars that they orbit. Data from TRAPPIST-1 b, for example, suggests that the planet doesn’t have any substantial atmosphere.

Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI); Thomas P. Greene (NASA Ames), Taylor Bell (BAERI), Elsa Ducrot (CEA), Pierre-Olivier Lagage (CEA).

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Almost everything we know about Altair, a bright star in the constellation Aquila, comes from studying its light. This ViewSpace interactive will show you how we study stars by observing images and spectra: https://bit.ly/4gy1xHH

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This scene, known as Lynds 483, will continue to change over millions of years. Today, we have the clearest view of it yet, thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope.

Two forming stars that fit into one pixel, hidden in a tiny, opaque disk of dust at the center, are responsible for sending out the jets and outflows that are represented in vibrant pink, purple, and blue hues.

Webb also shows us dust in unexpected places. Look along the edges of the semi-transparent cones. Distant stars look orange here, not white. This is because there’s additional dust around Lynds 483. Where the view is free of obscuring dust, stars shine brightly in white and blue.

Millions of years from now, when the stars are finished forming, they may each be about the mass of our sun. Their outflows will have cleared the area—sweeping away these semi-transparent ejections. All that may remain is a tiny disk of gas and dust where planets may eventually form.

Explore all the details of this Webb image: https://webbtelescope.pub/4h538oK