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*Slams laptop shut til Monday*

Image descriptions:

The text “*Slams laptop shut til Monday*” is overlaid over each image.

1. Webb/Cranium Nebula - Mid-infrared. An outer bubble has a bluish tint; inner clouds are off-white. A vertical dark lane is present but interrupted and covered by clouds. Material appears to be erupting out the top of the nebula, and this effect is mirrored to a lesser degree at the bottom. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

2. Webb/Westerlund 2 - A cluster of stars inside a large nebula. Clouds of gas and dust are predominantly bright red in color and wispy, akin to flames, andclumped in the bottom-left corner. Other clouds, deeper in the cluster behind many of the stars, appear pale pink. The stars are concentrated in the top half of the image and are mostly small, bright white and six-pointed and cast blue light over the nebula. Other stars with very long spikes surrounding them lie in the foreground. Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, V. Almendros-Abad, M. Guarcello, K. Monsch, and the EWOCS team.

3. Webb and Chandra/IC 1623 -Backed by hot pink tendrils, swirls of speckled orange, and gauzy steel blue ribbons, two white clusters meet, gleaming with golden shafts of light.Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; IR: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare and J. Major

4. Webb/Uranus - A blue globe with a large white spot occupying most of the planet, surrounded by a series of rings that get brighter as you move outward. Beyond the rings are 14 moons appearing as points of light. The moons vary in brightness with the brightest, Miranda, just above 9 o'clock. Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, M. El Moutamid (SwRI), M. Hedman (University of Idaho)

Image descriptions continued in comments.

*Slams laptop shut til Monday*

Image descriptions:

The text “*Slams laptop shut til Monday*” is overlaid over each image.

1. Webb/Cranium Nebula - Mid-infrared. An outer bubble has a bluish tint; inner clouds are off-white. A vertical dark lane is present but interrupted and covered by clouds. Material appears to be erupting out the top of the nebula, and this effect is mirrored to a lesser degree at the bottom. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

2. Webb/Westerlund 2 - A cluster of stars inside a large nebula. Clouds of gas and dust are predominantly bright red in color and wispy, akin to flames, andclumped in the bottom-left corner. Other clouds, deeper in the cluster behind many of the stars, appear pale pink. The stars are concentrated in the top half of the image and are mostly small, bright white and six-pointed and cast blue light over the nebula. Other stars with very long spikes surrounding them lie in the foreground. Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, V. Almendros-Abad, M. Guarcello, K. Monsch, and the EWOCS team.

3. Webb and Chandra/IC 1623 -Backed by hot pink tendrils, swirls of speckled orange, and gauzy steel blue ribbons, two white clusters meet, gleaming with golden shafts of light.Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; IR: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare and J. Major

4. Webb/Uranus - A blue globe with a large white spot occupying most of the planet, surrounded by a series of rings that get brighter as you move outward. Beyond the rings are 14 moons appearing as points of light. The moons vary in brightness with the brightest, Miranda, just above 9 o'clock. Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, M. El Moutamid (SwRI), M. Hedman (University of Idaho)

Image descriptions continued in comments.

*Slams laptop shut til Monday*

Image descriptions:

The text “*Slams laptop shut til Monday*” is overlaid over each image.

1. Webb/Cranium Nebula - Mid-infrared. An outer bubble has a bluish tint; inner clouds are off-white. A vertical dark lane is present but interrupted and covered by clouds. Material appears to be erupting out the top of the nebula, and this effect is mirrored to a lesser degree at the bottom. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

2. Webb/Westerlund 2 - A cluster of stars inside a large nebula. Clouds of gas and dust are predominantly bright red in color and wispy, akin to flames, andclumped in the bottom-left corner. Other clouds, deeper in the cluster behind many of the stars, appear pale pink. The stars are concentrated in the top half of the image and are mostly small, bright white and six-pointed and cast blue light over the nebula. Other stars with very long spikes surrounding them lie in the foreground. Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, V. Almendros-Abad, M. Guarcello, K. Monsch, and the EWOCS team.

3. Webb and Chandra/IC 1623 -Backed by hot pink tendrils, swirls of speckled orange, and gauzy steel blue ribbons, two white clusters meet, gleaming with golden shafts of light.Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; IR: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare and J. Major

4. Webb/Uranus - A blue globe with a large white spot occupying most of the planet, surrounded by a series of rings that get brighter as you move outward. Beyond the rings are 14 moons appearing as points of light. The moons vary in brightness with the brightest, Miranda, just above 9 o'clock. Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, M. El Moutamid (SwRI), M. Hedman (University of Idaho)

Image descriptions continued in comments.

*Slams laptop shut til Monday*

Image descriptions:

The text “*Slams laptop shut til Monday*” is overlaid over each image.

1. Webb/Cranium Nebula - Mid-infrared. An outer bubble has a bluish tint; inner clouds are off-white. A vertical dark lane is present but interrupted and covered by clouds. Material appears to be erupting out the top of the nebula, and this effect is mirrored to a lesser degree at the bottom. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

2. Webb/Westerlund 2 - A cluster of stars inside a large nebula. Clouds of gas and dust are predominantly bright red in color and wispy, akin to flames, andclumped in the bottom-left corner. Other clouds, deeper in the cluster behind many of the stars, appear pale pink. The stars are concentrated in the top half of the image and are mostly small, bright white and six-pointed and cast blue light over the nebula. Other stars with very long spikes surrounding them lie in the foreground. Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, V. Almendros-Abad, M. Guarcello, K. Monsch, and the EWOCS team.

3. Webb and Chandra/IC 1623 -Backed by hot pink tendrils, swirls of speckled orange, and gauzy steel blue ribbons, two white clusters meet, gleaming with golden shafts of light.Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; IR: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare and J. Major

4. Webb/Uranus - A blue globe with a large white spot occupying most of the planet, surrounded by a series of rings that get brighter as you move outward. Beyond the rings are 14 moons appearing as points of light. The moons vary in brightness with the brightest, Miranda, just above 9 o'clock. Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, M. El Moutamid (SwRI), M. Hedman (University of Idaho)

Image descriptions continued in comments.

*Slams laptop shut til Monday*

Image descriptions:

The text “*Slams laptop shut til Monday*” is overlaid over each image.

1. Webb/Cranium Nebula - Mid-infrared. An outer bubble has a bluish tint; inner clouds are off-white. A vertical dark lane is present but interrupted and covered by clouds. Material appears to be erupting out the top of the nebula, and this effect is mirrored to a lesser degree at the bottom. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

2. Webb/Westerlund 2 - A cluster of stars inside a large nebula. Clouds of gas and dust are predominantly bright red in color and wispy, akin to flames, andclumped in the bottom-left corner. Other clouds, deeper in the cluster behind many of the stars, appear pale pink. The stars are concentrated in the top half of the image and are mostly small, bright white and six-pointed and cast blue light over the nebula. Other stars with very long spikes surrounding them lie in the foreground. Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, V. Almendros-Abad, M. Guarcello, K. Monsch, and the EWOCS team.

3. Webb and Chandra/IC 1623 -Backed by hot pink tendrils, swirls of speckled orange, and gauzy steel blue ribbons, two white clusters meet, gleaming with golden shafts of light.Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; IR: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare and J. Major

4. Webb/Uranus - A blue globe with a large white spot occupying most of the planet, surrounded by a series of rings that get brighter as you move outward. Beyond the rings are 14 moons appearing as points of light. The moons vary in brightness with the brightest, Miranda, just above 9 o'clock. Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, M. El Moutamid (SwRI), M. Hedman (University of Idaho)

Image descriptions continued in comments.

*Slams laptop shut til Monday*

Image descriptions:

The text “*Slams laptop shut til Monday*” is overlaid over each image.

1. Webb/Cranium Nebula - Mid-infrared. An outer bubble has a bluish tint; inner clouds are off-white. A vertical dark lane is present but interrupted and covered by clouds. Material appears to be erupting out the top of the nebula, and this effect is mirrored to a lesser degree at the bottom. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

2. Webb/Westerlund 2 - A cluster of stars inside a large nebula. Clouds of gas and dust are predominantly bright red in color and wispy, akin to flames, andclumped in the bottom-left corner. Other clouds, deeper in the cluster behind many of the stars, appear pale pink. The stars are concentrated in the top half of the image and are mostly small, bright white and six-pointed and cast blue light over the nebula. Other stars with very long spikes surrounding them lie in the foreground. Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, V. Almendros-Abad, M. Guarcello, K. Monsch, and the EWOCS team.

3. Webb and Chandra/IC 1623 -Backed by hot pink tendrils, swirls of speckled orange, and gauzy steel blue ribbons, two white clusters meet, gleaming with golden shafts of light.Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; IR: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare and J. Major

4. Webb/Uranus - A blue globe with a large white spot occupying most of the planet, surrounded by a series of rings that get brighter as you move outward. Beyond the rings are 14 moons appearing as points of light. The moons vary in brightness with the brightest, Miranda, just above 9 o'clock. Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, M. El Moutamid (SwRI), M. Hedman (University of Idaho)

Image descriptions continued in comments.

*Slams laptop shut til Monday*

Image descriptions:

The text “*Slams laptop shut til Monday*” is overlaid over each image.

1. Webb/Cranium Nebula - Mid-infrared. An outer bubble has a bluish tint; inner clouds are off-white. A vertical dark lane is present but interrupted and covered by clouds. Material appears to be erupting out the top of the nebula, and this effect is mirrored to a lesser degree at the bottom. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

2. Webb/Westerlund 2 - A cluster of stars inside a large nebula. Clouds of gas and dust are predominantly bright red in color and wispy, akin to flames, andclumped in the bottom-left corner. Other clouds, deeper in the cluster behind many of the stars, appear pale pink. The stars are concentrated in the top half of the image and are mostly small, bright white and six-pointed and cast blue light over the nebula. Other stars with very long spikes surrounding them lie in the foreground. Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, V. Almendros-Abad, M. Guarcello, K. Monsch, and the EWOCS team.

3. Webb and Chandra/IC 1623 -Backed by hot pink tendrils, swirls of speckled orange, and gauzy steel blue ribbons, two white clusters meet, gleaming with golden shafts of light.Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; IR: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare and J. Major

4. Webb/Uranus - A blue globe with a large white spot occupying most of the planet, surrounded by a series of rings that get brighter as you move outward. Beyond the rings are 14 moons appearing as points of light. The moons vary in brightness with the brightest, Miranda, just above 9 o'clock. Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, M. El Moutamid (SwRI), M. Hedman (University of Idaho)

Image descriptions continued in comments.

Westerlund 2 is a young cluster of thousands of stars — a cosmic garden where new suns rise from interstellar soil made of gas and dust. This close‑up view, roughly 12 light-years across, combines observations from NASA’s Chandra and @NASAWebb.✨

Visual Description:
This is a composite image of the young star cluster known as Westerlund 2. Here, scores of gleaming white specks ringed in neon pink are scattered across the image in a band that stretches from our lower right to our upper left, and beyond. Clouds of brick-orange dust enter the image from our lower left, and spread along the bottom edge of the frame, showing off the raw materials of this active stellar nursery.

X-ray, Chandra: NASA/CXC/SAO/Sejong Univ./Hur et al;
Infrared, Webb: NASA, ESA, CSA, V. Almendros-Abad, M. Guarcello, K. Monsch, and the EWOCS team.
Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare and K. Arcand

#nasa #space #stars #beautiful #garden

A black hole walks into a buffet... ⚫

At the heart of galaxy NGC 1365, a supermassive black hole is basically feasting at an all‑you‑can‑eat buffet in this image from Chandra and @NASAWebb. Located about 60 million light-years from Earth, this gobbling black hole has a mass of roughly 2 million suns... and growing.

Visual Description:
A close up image of spiral galaxy NGC 1365 and the supermassive black hole at its center. Here, the galaxy is shown at a dramatic angle, as if the bright pink core is gazing past our right shoulder. Swirls of pale, grey-blue material, resembling waves in a dark ocean, spiral toward the radiant pink core, which hangs at our lower left. Glowing pink circles, and flecks of red, dot the churning spiral galaxy.

X-ray, Chandra X-ray Observatory: NASA/CXC/SAO;
Infrared, Webb Space Telescope: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI;
Image processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare and J. Major

#nasa #space #galaxy #black #hole

To MoM-z14 & back! 💐

Let a caregiver in your life know your appreciation for them reaches the farthest galaxy ever detected!

The galaxy designated MoM-z14 was detected by Webb's NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and confirmed spectroscopically with its NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) instrument.

Through Webb, we are seeing this galaxy as it appeared in the distant past, only 280 million years after the universe began in the big bang. Its light has traveled through space for more than 13 billion years to reach us.

Like some other galaxies Webb has discovered in the early universe, MoM-z14 is brighter, more compact, and more chemically enriched than astronomers expected to find in this early era. While it may pass out of record books quickly as the farthest galaxy, MoM-z14 will still play a role in helping astronomers and theorists reach new understanding of the earliest chapters in the universe’s story.

Image description:
A wide field of view showing deep space, dotted with many small galaxies and a few foreground stars that display six diffraction spikes. Galaxy MoM-z14 is highlighted with a magnified image in a graphic pull-out box in the lower right corner. The galaxy appears as a blurry yellow blob with a small red area at its top. The text "To MoM-z14 & back <3" is overlaid on the image in white and gold letters.

What would you name this image? ✨

In this Webb image, we can get lost in the Cosmic Cliffs - a star-forming region that looks like craggy cliffs on a moonlit evening. Webb's extreme sensitivity to infrared light has revealed many new details.

Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Lead Producer: Paul Morris
Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
Music Credit: "Head in the Clouds" by George David Wilson [PRS] via Ninja Tune Production Music [PRS] and Universal Production Music

Don’t let anyone dull your shine 💫

The heart of galaxy M77 is shining so brightly in this Webb telescope image, it nearly outshines the galaxy itself. The intense glow is due to gas being pulled into a tight and rapid orbit around the central black hole. The motion of the gas heats it up, releasing tremendous amounts of radiation.

The first image is Webb’s mid-infrared view with swirling filaments of dust shown in blue. The glowing orange bubbles along the arms are being carved out by newly-formed star clusters.

In the second image, the near-infrared reveals a bar spanning 6,000 light-years across the central region. This bar is enclosed by a bright ring, called a starburst ring, formed by the inner ends of the galaxy’s two spiral arms. Starburst regions in galaxies are zones of high star formation rates.

The third image is a composite image, combining both mid and near-infrared shots into one.

Those bright orange lines radiating out of the center of all images are diffraction spikes, an optical effect caused by the telescope itself. When observing a bright object such as a star, the light gets slightly bent (or diffracted) around some of the telescope’s structures. Due to Webb’s optics, its images have a six-plus-two-pointed pattern around bright objects. Hubble images have four-pointed patterns due to its structure.

Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Leroy

#NASA #Webb #Galaxy

Don’t let anyone dull your shine 💫

The heart of galaxy M77 is shining so brightly in this Webb telescope image, it nearly outshines the galaxy itself. The intense glow is due to gas being pulled into a tight and rapid orbit around the central black hole. The motion of the gas heats it up, releasing tremendous amounts of radiation.

The first image is Webb’s mid-infrared view with swirling filaments of dust shown in blue. The glowing orange bubbles along the arms are being carved out by newly-formed star clusters.

In the second image, the near-infrared reveals a bar spanning 6,000 light-years across the central region. This bar is enclosed by a bright ring, called a starburst ring, formed by the inner ends of the galaxy’s two spiral arms. Starburst regions in galaxies are zones of high star formation rates.

The third image is a composite image, combining both mid and near-infrared shots into one.

Those bright orange lines radiating out of the center of all images are diffraction spikes, an optical effect caused by the telescope itself. When observing a bright object such as a star, the light gets slightly bent (or diffracted) around some of the telescope’s structures. Due to Webb’s optics, its images have a six-plus-two-pointed pattern around bright objects. Hubble images have four-pointed patterns due to its structure.

Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Leroy

#NASA #Webb #Galaxy

Don’t let anyone dull your shine 💫

The heart of galaxy M77 is shining so brightly in this Webb telescope image, it nearly outshines the galaxy itself. The intense glow is due to gas being pulled into a tight and rapid orbit around the central black hole. The motion of the gas heats it up, releasing tremendous amounts of radiation.

The first image is Webb’s mid-infrared view with swirling filaments of dust shown in blue. The glowing orange bubbles along the arms are being carved out by newly-formed star clusters.

In the second image, the near-infrared reveals a bar spanning 6,000 light-years across the central region. This bar is enclosed by a bright ring, called a starburst ring, formed by the inner ends of the galaxy’s two spiral arms. Starburst regions in galaxies are zones of high star formation rates.

The third image is a composite image, combining both mid and near-infrared shots into one.

Those bright orange lines radiating out of the center of all images are diffraction spikes, an optical effect caused by the telescope itself. When observing a bright object such as a star, the light gets slightly bent (or diffracted) around some of the telescope’s structures. Due to Webb’s optics, its images have a six-plus-two-pointed pattern around bright objects. Hubble images have four-pointed patterns due to its structure.

Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Leroy

#NASA #Webb #Galaxy

It’s heaven in my heart, and we could find you some *space* ✨

Webb looked at nearly 9000 star clusters in four different nearby galaxies and its data shows that more massive star clusters emerge more quickly from the clouds they are born in. Learning about star formation helps us understand galactic evolution, the dynamics within a galaxy, as well as how and where planets form.

This near-infrared image shows a section of one of the spiral arms of Messier 51 (M51), one of the four galaxies in this study. Thick star-forming gas is shown here in red and orange. Within these gas complexes, each tens to hundreds of light years across, Webb reveals the dense, extremely bright clusters of massive stars that have just recently formed. The countless stars strewn across the arm of the galaxy, many of which would be invisible to our eyes behind layers of dust, are also laid bare in infrared light.

All the star clusters observed as a part of this study were at different evolutionary stages: young clusters just starting to emerge from their natal clouds of gas, clusters that had partially dispersed the gas (both from Webb images), and fully unobstructed clusters visible in optical light (found in @NASAHubble images). With Webb’s ability to peer inside the gas clouds, scientists were able to then estimate the mass and age of each cluster. The most massive clusters had fully emerged and dispersed the clouds of gas after around five million years, while less massive clusters were between seven and eight million years old when they emerged from their nurseries. This finding impacts theories on planet formation. When gas is cleared away quickly within a star cluster, protoplanetary disks around stars are exposed to harsh ultraviolet radiation from stars sooner. This reduces the amount of gas from the nebula they can pull in, and gives them fewer opportunities to grow dust and create planets.

Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Pedrini, A. Adamo (Stockholm University) and the FEAST JWST team

Image description in comments. Read more in @ESAWebb's bio.

It’s heaven in my heart, and we could find you some *space* ✨

Webb looked at nearly 9000 star clusters in four different nearby galaxies and its data shows that more massive star clusters emerge more quickly from the clouds they are born in. Learning about star formation helps us understand galactic evolution, the dynamics within a galaxy, as well as how and where planets form.

This near-infrared image shows a section of one of the spiral arms of Messier 51 (M51), one of the four galaxies in this study. Thick star-forming gas is shown here in red and orange. Within these gas complexes, each tens to hundreds of light years across, Webb reveals the dense, extremely bright clusters of massive stars that have just recently formed. The countless stars strewn across the arm of the galaxy, many of which would be invisible to our eyes behind layers of dust, are also laid bare in infrared light.

All the star clusters observed as a part of this study were at different evolutionary stages: young clusters just starting to emerge from their natal clouds of gas, clusters that had partially dispersed the gas (both from Webb images), and fully unobstructed clusters visible in optical light (found in @NASAHubble images). With Webb’s ability to peer inside the gas clouds, scientists were able to then estimate the mass and age of each cluster. The most massive clusters had fully emerged and dispersed the clouds of gas after around five million years, while less massive clusters were between seven and eight million years old when they emerged from their nurseries. This finding impacts theories on planet formation. When gas is cleared away quickly within a star cluster, protoplanetary disks around stars are exposed to harsh ultraviolet radiation from stars sooner. This reduces the amount of gas from the nebula they can pull in, and gives them fewer opportunities to grow dust and create planets.

Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Pedrini, A. Adamo (Stockholm University) and the FEAST JWST team

Image description in comments. Read more in @ESAWebb's bio.

It’s heaven in my heart, and we could find you some *space* ✨

Webb looked at nearly 9000 star clusters in four different nearby galaxies and its data shows that more massive star clusters emerge more quickly from the clouds they are born in. Learning about star formation helps us understand galactic evolution, the dynamics within a galaxy, as well as how and where planets form.

This near-infrared image shows a section of one of the spiral arms of Messier 51 (M51), one of the four galaxies in this study. Thick star-forming gas is shown here in red and orange. Within these gas complexes, each tens to hundreds of light years across, Webb reveals the dense, extremely bright clusters of massive stars that have just recently formed. The countless stars strewn across the arm of the galaxy, many of which would be invisible to our eyes behind layers of dust, are also laid bare in infrared light.

All the star clusters observed as a part of this study were at different evolutionary stages: young clusters just starting to emerge from their natal clouds of gas, clusters that had partially dispersed the gas (both from Webb images), and fully unobstructed clusters visible in optical light (found in @NASAHubble images). With Webb’s ability to peer inside the gas clouds, scientists were able to then estimate the mass and age of each cluster. The most massive clusters had fully emerged and dispersed the clouds of gas after around five million years, while less massive clusters were between seven and eight million years old when they emerged from their nurseries. This finding impacts theories on planet formation. When gas is cleared away quickly within a star cluster, protoplanetary disks around stars are exposed to harsh ultraviolet radiation from stars sooner. This reduces the amount of gas from the nebula they can pull in, and gives them fewer opportunities to grow dust and create planets.

Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Pedrini, A. Adamo (Stockholm University) and the FEAST JWST team

Image description in comments. Read more in @ESAWebb's bio.

When you look at this image, what do you see? ✨

In this Webb image, we can get lost in a sea of galaxies that reveal details about the universe long before we were here.

Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Lead Producer: Paul Morris
Image credit :ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, G. Gozaliasl, A. Koekemoer, M. Franco, and the COSMOS-Web team
Music Credit: “First Light” by Lillian Mille [SACEM] via Collection Ideale [SACEM] and Universal Production Music

Putting the Webb in Webbys, again!! 🎉

We won both the Webby and People's Voice awards for best education and science social campaigns in @TheWebbyAwards! Saying we're grateful for you all doesn't even scratch the surface! Thank you so much for following, engaging, and voting, we are so lucky to share space with you all. 💗

Image description: 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. A white graphic with text "The Webby Awards" is overlaid on the image.

Shine, dream, smile. Oh, let us light up the night…

…with a pair of new stars, and maybe some planets! Webb captured these edge-on views of two protoplanetary disks, Tau 042021 (Image 1) and Oph 163131 (Image 2). The bright light from the young star in the center of each is mostly blocked, and above and below the disk, fine dust lit by reflected light from the star, has risen out of the disk as a nebula. How dust is distributed in the disk affects where and how planets can form.

The red, orange, and green colors of the disks in these images indicate various sizes of dust grains and molecules. The use of Webb’s near and mid-infrared instruments allows Webb to track these different size dust grains across the disk.

When a clump of gas inside a larger molecular cloud collapses to form a star, unused gas and dust is left orbiting the star in a thick disk. Over time, this dust too collides and collapses, slowly forming planetesimals which can, in turn, develop into planets. The planetesimals that can’t make the jump to being a fully-fledged planet are left behind as asteroids and comets orbiting the star. Gas that isn’t consumed by this process is blown away by the new star’s radiation over the course of tens of millions of years, ending the protoplanetary disk. By observing these disks at a much earlier age, we can work out how this process worked for our own Solar System, and how the different types of planets we see across the galaxy could have formed.

Additional data in these images were provided by @NASAHubble, and for Oph 163131 (second slide), the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). ALMA can see larger dust grains that are about a millimeter in size, which are concentrated in the central plane of this disk, creating the right conditions for the grains to grow and potentially form planets. A gap in the inner disk of Oph 163131 may be evidence that a planet is forming there, clearing out the dust around it.

Read more in @ESAWebb’s bio.

Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, ESA/Hubble, ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), G. Duchêne, M. Villenave

Image description in comments.

Shine, dream, smile. Oh, let us light up the night…

…with a pair of new stars, and maybe some planets! Webb captured these edge-on views of two protoplanetary disks, Tau 042021 (Image 1) and Oph 163131 (Image 2). The bright light from the young star in the center of each is mostly blocked, and above and below the disk, fine dust lit by reflected light from the star, has risen out of the disk as a nebula. How dust is distributed in the disk affects where and how planets can form.

The red, orange, and green colors of the disks in these images indicate various sizes of dust grains and molecules. The use of Webb’s near and mid-infrared instruments allows Webb to track these different size dust grains across the disk.

When a clump of gas inside a larger molecular cloud collapses to form a star, unused gas and dust is left orbiting the star in a thick disk. Over time, this dust too collides and collapses, slowly forming planetesimals which can, in turn, develop into planets. The planetesimals that can’t make the jump to being a fully-fledged planet are left behind as asteroids and comets orbiting the star. Gas that isn’t consumed by this process is blown away by the new star’s radiation over the course of tens of millions of years, ending the protoplanetary disk. By observing these disks at a much earlier age, we can work out how this process worked for our own Solar System, and how the different types of planets we see across the galaxy could have formed.

Additional data in these images were provided by @NASAHubble, and for Oph 163131 (second slide), the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). ALMA can see larger dust grains that are about a millimeter in size, which are concentrated in the central plane of this disk, creating the right conditions for the grains to grow and potentially form planets. A gap in the inner disk of Oph 163131 may be evidence that a planet is forming there, clearing out the dust around it.

Read more in @ESAWebb’s bio.

Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, ESA/Hubble, ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), G. Duchêne, M. Villenave

Image description in comments.

A big question about a big object - planet or star?

Webb directly imaged 29 Cygni b, an object 15 times more massive than Jupiter. In order to be able to classify it as a star or a planet, astronomers needed to figure out how it was formed. Stars and planets result from two different processes.Stars form from clouds of gas that fragment into pieces, each piece collapsing under its own gravity, growing smaller and denser. Planets result from small bits of rock and ice clumping together, and growing larger over time, with the largest planets then collecting gas to become like Jupiter. But is it possible such a big planet could have formed this way? The answer is yes.

Here’s what the data showed us. Webb detected the presence of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, providing strong evidence that 29 Cygni b is rich in heavier elements. This is consistent with objects that formed from a proto-planetary disk. Additionally, astronomers were able to determine that the angle of this planet’s orbit is aligned with the axis around which its star spins. This is similar to what we see in our own solar system.

Scientists are gathering data on three other targets that have similar profiles to 29 Cygni b, which will give us more insight into how the largest of planets form.

Read more at the link in our bio.

Credit: Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, William Balmer (JHU, STScI), Laurent Pueyo (STScI); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

Image description: A black square labeled “29 Cyg” at upper right. In the middle, a white star symbol is surrounded by a small blue trapezoid that widens from upper left to lower right of the star. The star is labeled with a capital A. The trapezoid indicates where the star’s light has been blocked by a coronagraph. To the star’s left beyond the blue trapezoid at 8 o’clock is a fuzzy white blob labeled with a lower-case b.

There’s nothing we love more than sharing the universe with you all. If you feel the same, vote for us in @TheWebbyAwards by Thursday, April 16!

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Image description: A closeup of a small section of the Helix Nebula, an expanding shell of gas and dust. Thousands of orange and gold comet-like pillars stream upward from the bottom, like thin liquid blown up a sheet of glass. These pillars are around the circumference of the arced shell, which forms a partial orange semi-circle at the bottom. The pillars are more numerous and denser at the bottom, and darker red. They fade to orange and then yellow in the arc. In the top two-thirds, they are thinner and more golden, and it’s easier to see the black background of space. Several bright blue stars, some with diffraction spikes, are scattered throughout. A few larger stars are on the right side. The text "We love the space we share with you! If you feel the same, vote for us by Thursday, April 16!" is overlaid on top of the image along with a white graphic with the words "The Webby Awards" with a graphic of the award.