Pic of the Week: Galactic Emoji

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): A composite image of Arp 107.(NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI)

This week’s image comes from the James Webb Space Telescope. It shows two colliding galaxies creating a unique image from the telescope’s viewpoint.

Here is more information about the image from NASA:

Smile for the camera! An interaction between an elliptical galaxy and a spiral galaxy, collectively known as Arp 107, seems to have given the spiral a happier outlook thanks to the two bright “eyes” and the wide semicircular “smile.” The region has been observed before in infrared by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope in 2005, however NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope displays it in much higher resolution. This image is a composite, combining observations from Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) and NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera)...Webb has captured these galaxies in the process of merging, which will take hundreds of millions of years. As the two galaxies rebuild after the chaos of their collision, Arp 107 may lose its smile, but it will inevitably turn into something just as interesting for future astronomers to study. Arp 107 is located 465 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Leo Minor.

Pic of the Week: The First Commercial Spacewalk

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): SpaceX Polaris Dawn crew conducts first private spacewalk. (SpaceX/Polaris)

This week’s image shows the first commercial spacewalk as part of the Polaris Dawn mission launched into space earlier this week by SpaceX. All four crew members were exposed to space as part of the process earlier today, but only two exited the spacecraft. The spacecraft was between 118 to 435 miles above the Earth during the spacewalks.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson posted this comment to Twitter/X:

Congratulations @PolarisProgram and @SpaceX on the first commercial spacewalk in history!

Today’s success represents a giant leap forward for the commercial space industry and @NASA ‘s long-term goal to build a vibrant U.S. space economy.

Pic of the Week: Picture Perfect Spiral Galaxy

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Hubble’s view of spiral galaxy IC 4709. (ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. Koss, A, Barth)

This week’s image comes from the Hubble Space Telescope. It shows an almost too perfect spiral galaxy that might have come from AI software, but it is a real image from NASA and ESA. You are looking at spiral galaxy IC 4709, which is about 240 million light-years away.

Here is more information on the image from the ESA’s Hubble site:

Its view here is studded with stars, many of which appear particularly large and bright thanks to their nearby locations in our own galaxy, and which feature the characteristic diffraction patterns caused by Hubble’s optics. Much further away — around 240 million light-years distant in fact, in the southern constellation Telescopium — is the spiral galaxy IC 4709. Its swirling disc filled with stars and dust bands is beautifully captured, as is the faint halo surrounding it. The compact region at its core might be the most remarkable sight, however: this is an active galactic nucleus (AGN).

Pic of the Week: Sparkling Candy Floss

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): The complex cluster of emission nebulae is known as N11. (NASA, ESA, J. M. Apellaniz from the Centro de Astrobiologia (CSIC/INTA Inst. Nac. de Tec. Aero., and Gladys Kober from NASA/Catholic University of America)

This week’s image is from the Hubble Space Telescope. It shows a cluster of stars that are about 160,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud that orbits our Milky Way.

Here is the full story from NASA:

A bubbling region of stars both old and new lies some 160,000 light-years away in the constellation Dorado. This complex cluster of emission nebulae is known as N11, and was discovered by American astronomer and NASA astronaut Karl Gordon Henize in 1956. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope brings a new image of the cluster in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a nearby dwarf galaxy orbiting the Milky Way.

About 1,000 light-years across, N11’s sprawling filaments weave stellar matter in and out of each other like sparkling candy floss. These cotton-spun clouds of gas are ionized by a burgeoning host of young and massive stars, giving the complex a cherry-pink appearance. Throughout N11, colossal cavities burst from the fog. These bubbles formed as a result of the vigorous emergence and death of stars contained in the nebulae. Their stellar winds and supernovae carved the surrounding area into shells of gas and dust.