Category Archives: "Science"

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A section of the Cat’s Paw Nebula, a local star-forming region composed of gas, dust, and young stars. Four roughly circular areas are toward the center of the frame: a small oval toward the top left, a large circle in the top center, and two ovals at bottom left and right. Each circular area has a luminous blue glow, with the top center and bottom left areas the brightest. Brown-orange filaments of dust, which vary in density, surround these four bluish patches and stretch toward the frame’s edges. Small zones, such as to the left and right of the top-center blue circular area, appear darker and seemingly vacant of stars. Toward the center are small, fiery red clumps scattered among the brown dust. Many small, yellow-white stars are spread across the scene, some with eight-pointed diffraction spikes that are characteristic of Webb. A few larger blue-white stars with diffraction spikes are scattered throughout, mostly toward the top left and bottom right. In the top right corner is a bright red-orange oval.

NASA’s Webb Scratches Beyond Surface of Cat’s Paw for 3rd Anniversary

It’s the cat’s meow! To celebrate its third year of revealing stunning scenes of the cosmos in infrared light, NASA’s ...
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Gemini North and Gemini South Capture the Fading Light of SN 2025kg. Three panel image shows how the light faded with time.

International Gemini Observatory and SOAR Discover Surprising Link Between Fast X-ray Transients and the Explosive Death of Massive Stars

Using a combination of telescopes, including the International Gemini Observatory, funded in part by the U.S. National Science Foundation and ...
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An image of a nearby star and its vicinity. The star itself has been blocked out and its bright light has been removed, appearing black. A dashed circle with a star symbol at the center of the image marks the star’s location. A fuzzy blue disk surrounds the star. An orange spot, near the star and inside this disk around 2 o’clock, is identified as a planet orbiting the star. A fainter orange spot at the lower left edge marks a distant star.

Likely Saturn-Mass Planet Imaged by NASA Webb Is Lightest Ever Seen

Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have captured compelling evidence of a planet with a mass similar to Saturn ...
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Many stars and galaxies including two spiral galaxies and three merging galaxies.

Ever-changing Universe Revealed in First Imagery From NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory

The NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory, a major new scientific facility jointly funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and ...
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A compact brightening bursts to life at the edge of a sunspot! This multi-instrument figure showcases high-resolution observations of the same active region. Panels a–b show data from the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager at the NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory. Panels c–e show spectra from the ViSP instrument at the Inouye. Panels f–h show images from the VBI instrument at the Inouye using three different light filters known as G-band, Hβ, and Ca II K. The panels reveal a small-scale, transient brightening (indicated by the black arrow) occurring at the boundary between opposite magnetic polarities (inside the blue box). One arcsecond corresponds to 720 km on the Sun.

Small-Scale Solar Explosion Reveals Big Clues About Magnetic Reconnection

Using the world’s largest solar telescope, a team of scientists has captured one of the most detailed views ever of ...
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Magnetic Curtains on the Sun: NSF Inouye Solar Telescope Reveals Ultra-Fine Striations in Solar Surface

Magnetic Curtains on the Sun: NSF Inouye Solar Telescope Reveals Ultra-Fine Striations in Solar Surface

A team of solar physicists has released a new study shedding light on the fine-scale structure of the Sun’s surface ...
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A three-panel image, two at the top and one stretched across the bottom. At the top of the image is the title “Three Future Scenarios for Milky Way and Andromeda Encounter.” This title is extended over all three panels. In the top left panel, two spiral galaxies are widely separated against the black background of space. Beneath these galaxies are the words “Galaxies bypass at 1 million light-year separation.” In the top right panel, two face-on spiral galaxies are close together. Their spiral arms appear stretched toward each other. At the bottom of this panel are the words “At 500,000 light-years, dark matter provides friction that brings galaxies to a close encounter.” In the bottom panel, two spiral galaxies have collided, resulting in a broad X-shaped patch of milky white. Mottled clouds of dark brown dust are superimposed. At the bottom of this panel are the words “A 100,000 light-year separation leads to a collision.”

Apocalypse When? Hubble Casts Doubt on Certainty of Galactic Collision

As far back as 1912, astronomers realized that the Andromeda galaxy -- then thought to be only a nebula -- was headed ...
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Dark pink loops rise and fall from a swath of dark pink in the bottom right corner over a light pink background.

“Raindrops in the Sun’s Corona”: New Adaptive Optics Shows Stunning Details of our Star’s Atmosphere

The Sun’s corona—the outermost layer of its atmosphere, visible only during a total solar eclipse—has long intrigued scientists due to ...
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Three panels, each showing a close-up near-infrared image of Jupiter’s north pole, in shades of orange. The planet is mostly dark. Thick, bright arcs and rings caused by auroras cover the pole. The center and right panels each show the aurora a few minutes later in time, as Webb’s field of view slowly scans over the planet.

NASA’s Webb Reveals New Details, Mysteries in Jupiter’s Aurora

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured new details of the auroras on our solar system’s largest planet. The dancing ...
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Six-panel illustration marked "Artist's Concept." The upper left panel shows the silhouette of supermassive black hole that is adrift inside a galaxy. The middle upper panel shows a yellow star drifting near the black hole. The three following panels show the star being shredded in bright white concentric streamers followed by a white explosion. the bottom right panel is an external view of the galaxy showing a bright white star-like object that is the site if the explosion as viewed in X-rays and visible light.

NASA’s Hubble Pinpoints Roaming Massive Black Hole

Lurking 600 million light-years away, within the inky black depths between stars, there is an invisible monster gulping down any ...
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Composite shows four Hubble images in quarters. At top left is a crisp view of Mars in shades of orange, blues, and browns. At top right is planetary nebula NGC 2899, which is shaped like a single macaroni noodle, with its central torus appearing semi-transparent and blue and green, and its top and bottom edges in orange. At bottom left is a tiny portion of the Rosette Nebula. Very dark gray material shaped like a triangle takes up the center. At bottom right is barred spiral galaxy NGC 5335 with a milky yellow center that forms a bar surrounded by multiple blue star-filled spiral arms that wrap up counterclockwise.

Hubble’s Window on the Universe: NASA Celebrates Hubble’s 35th Year in Orbit

In celebration of the Hubble Space Telescope’s 35 years in Earth orbit, NASA is releasing an assortment of compelling images recently ...
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An overall red glittery image with a dark back crack running diagonally through it.

Circinus West: A Dark Nebula Harboring a Nest of Newly Formed Stars

A celestial shadow known as the Circinus West molecular cloud creeps across this image taken with the Department of Energy-fabricated ...
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