A team of solar physicists has released a new study shedding light on the fine-scale structure of the Sun’s surface. Using the unparalleled power of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, built and operated by the NSF National Solar Observatory (NSO) on Maui, scientists have observed, for the first time ever in such high detail, ultra-narrow bright and dark stripes on the solar photosphere, offering unprecedented insight into how magnetic fields shape solar surface dynamics at scales as small as 20 kilometers (or 12.4 miles).
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As far back as 1912, astronomers realized that the Andromeda galaxy — then thought to be only a nebula — was headed our way. A century later, astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope were able to measure the sideways motion of Andromeda and found it was so negligible that an eventual head-on collision with the Milky Way seemed almost certain.
The Sun’s corona—the outermost layer of its atmosphere, visible only during a total solar eclipse—has long intrigued scientists due to its extreme temperatures, violent eruptions, and large prominences. However, turbulence in the Earth’s atmosphere has caused image blur and hindered observations of the corona. A ground-breaking recent development by scientists from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) National Solar Observatory (NSO), and New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), is changing that by using adaptive optics to remove the blur.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured new details of the auroras on our solar system’s largest planet. The dancing lights observed on Jupiter are hundreds of times brighter than those seen on Earth. With Webb’s advanced sensitivity, astronomers have studied the phenomena to better understand Jupiter’s magnetosphere.
Lurking 600 million light-years away, within the inky black depths between stars, there is an invisible monster gulping down any wayward star that plummets toward it. The sneaky black hole betrayed its presence in a newly identified tidal disruption event (TDE) where a hapless star was ripped apart and swallowed in a spectacular burst of radiation. These disruption events are powerful probes of black hole physics, revealing the conditions necessary for launching jets and winds when a black hole is in the midst of consuming a star, and are seen as bright objects by telescopes.
In celebration of the Hubble Space Telescope’s 35 years in Earth orbit, NASA is releasing an assortment of compelling images recently taken by Hubble, stretching from the planet Mars to star-forming regions, and a neighboring galaxy.
A celestial shadow known as the Circinus West molecular cloud creeps across this image taken with the Department of Energy-fabricated 570-megapixel Dark Energy Camera (DECam) — one of the most powerful digital cameras in the world. Within this stellar nursery’s opaque boundaries, infant stars ignite from cold, dense gas and dust, while outflows hurtle leftover material into space. DECam is mounted on the U.S. National Science Foundation Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, a Program of NSF NOIRLab. Credit: CTIO/NOIRLab/DOE/NSF/AURA
Image Processing: T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSF NOIRLab), D. de Martin & M. Kosari (NSF NOIRLab)
The U.S. National Science Foundation Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, the world’s most powerful solar telescope, operated by the NSF National Solar Observatory (NSO) near the summit of Maui’s Haleakalā, reached a major milestone: achieving first light with its most advanced instrument, the new Visible Tunable Filter (VTF). The solar image it produced shows early promise to the instrument’s scientific capabilities. Designed and built by the Institut für Sonnenphysik (KIS) in Freiburg, Germany, the VTF is the world’s largest imaging spectro-polarimeter, emerging as a centerpiece to the Inouye’s instrument suite.
Over the last decade, scientists have confirmed the presence of a an important type of magnetized waves called Alfvén waves in the Sun’s outer atmosphere – i.e., the corona. These waves, specific to plasma environments like those in the Sun, can transport energy from the lower atmosphere into the hot corona and solar wind.
An international team led by NSF NOIRLab astronomer Christina Williams has discovered the most distant spiral galaxy known to date. Named Zhúlóng, meaning ‘Torch Dragon’ in Chinese mythology, this ultra-massive system existed just one billion years after the Big Bang, and yet it shows a surprisingly mature structure. Zhúlóng was discovered as part of the PANORAMIC Survey conducted on the James Webb Space Telescope.
Gas and dust ejected by a dying star at the heart of NGC 1514 came into complete focus thanks to mid-infrared data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Its rings, which are only detected in infrared light, now look like “fuzzy” clumps arranged in tangled patterns, and a network of clearer holes close to the central stars shows where faster material punched through.
Using observations from the Gemini South telescope in Chile, one half of the International Gemini Observatory, partly funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and operated by NSF NOIRLab, astronomers have constructed a 3D representation of the newly discovered near-Earth asteroid 2024 YR4. The team determined that the unusually-shaped rock is one of the largest objects in recent history that could impact the Moon, and that it likely originated from the main asteroid belt.
The ice-giant planet Uranus, which travels around the Sun tipped on its side, is a weird and mysterious world. Now, in an unprecedented study spanning two decades, researchers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have uncovered new insights into the planet’s atmospheric composition and dynamics. This was possible only because of Hubble’s sharp resolution, spectral capabilities, and longevity.
For the first time, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured bright auroral activity on Neptune. Auroras occur when energetic particles, often originating from the Sun, become trapped in a planet’s magnetic field and eventually strike the upper atmosphere. The energy released during these collisions creates the signature glow.
The DESI collaboration has published a new analysis of dark energy using their first three years of collected data, which spans nearly 15 million galaxies and quasars. Combined with studies of the cosmic microwave background, supernovae, and weak lensing, the analysis hints that dark energy changes over time. Data Release 1, containing data from DESI’s survey validation and first year of observations, has now been made available for scientists and the public to explore.
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