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This video zooms into the nebula Hen 3-1357, nicknamed the Stingray Nebula, which has faded precipitously over just the past two decades. Witnessing such a swift rate of change in a planetary nebula is exceedingly rare, say researchers.
Credit: European Space Agency (ESA)/Hubble, Digitized Sky Survey, Nick Risinger
Archival data from the NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope reveal that the nebula Hen 3-1357, nicknamed the Stingray Nebula, has faded precipitously over just the past two decades. Witnessing such a swift rate of change in a planetary nebula is exceedingly rare, say researchers.
This image captured by Hubble in 1996 demonstrates how the nebula appeared before it dimmed drastically in brightness and changed shape. At this time, it was characterized by bright blue shells of gas near the center of the nebula.
Credit: NASA, European Space Agency (ESA), B. Balick (University of Washington), M. Guerrero (Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía), and G. Ramos-Larios (Universidad de Guadalajara)
China Launches New Solar Observatory ASO-S to Unravel the Sun's Secrets
A Long March-2D rocket launched the Advanced Space-based Solar Observatory (ASO-S), nicknamed, Kuafu-1, from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Gansu Province, China, on October 8, 2022, at 23:43 UTC (9 October, at 07:43 local time). It has successfully entered its planned orbit. The Advanced Space-based Solar Observatory (ASO-S) will “conduct observations on the solar magnetic field, solar flares and coronal mass ejections, to support the forecasting of catastrophic space weather.”
The probe, nicknamed Kuafu-1, will operate in an orbit 720 kilometers from Earth, permanently facing the sun. It has been described by its principal scientist, Gan Weiqun, as the world's first near-Earth satellite telescope to simultaneously monitor solar flares, coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and the sun's magnetic field. It can directly "look" at the sun, observing the sun by means of telemetry and remote sensing, and thus image it, Gan explained. It complements NASA's Parker Solar Probe launched in 2018. Parker is located very close to the sun and cannot perform direct imaging.
In 2021, China also launched an experimental solar satellite called Xihe. It operates in a sun-synchronous orbit at an average altitude of 517 kilometers with a solar Hα (H-alpha) imaging spectrometer as its main scientific payload.
All of the probe data will be freely available to scientists around the world after the ASO-S is commissioned, according to principal scientist, Gan Weiqun.
The Quintuplet Cluster near the Milky Way Galaxy's Center | Hubble
This 4-million-year-old cluster, The Quintuplet Cluster, is more dispersed than the Arches Cluster. It has stars on the verge of blowing up as supernovae. It is the home of the brightest star seen in the Milky Way, called the Pistol star.
Distance:25,000 light years
Credit: Don Figer (Space Telescope Science Institute) and NASA/European Space Agency (ESA)
Beginning from the full splendor of the Milky Way, this video—in infrared—zooms in slowly on the Quintuplet Cluster. Although named for its five brightest stars, the cluster is home to hundreds more, especially massive young stars.
The cluster is located close to the Arches Cluster and is just 100 light-years from the center of our galaxy. Its proximity to the dust at the center of the galaxy means that much of its visible light is blocked, which helped to keep the cluster unknown until its discovery in 1990, when it was revealed by observations in the infrared. Infrared images of the cluster, like the one shown in this video, allow us to see through the obscuring dust to the hot stars in the cluster.
Uncovering the Secrets of The Quintuplet Cluster | Hubble
Although this cluster of stars gained its name due to its five brightest stars, it is home to hundreds more. The huge number of massive young stars in the cluster is clearly captured in this NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope image.
The cluster is located close to the Arches Cluster and is just 100 light-years from the center of our galaxy. The cluster’s proximity to the dust at the center of the galaxy means that much of its visible light is blocked, which helped to keep the cluster unknown until its discovery in 1990, when it was revealed by observations in the infrared. Infrared images of the cluster, like the one shown here, allow us to see through the obscuring dust to the hot stars in the cluster.
The Quintuplet Cluster hosts two extremely rare luminous blue variable stars: the Pistol Star and the lesser known V4650 Sgr. If you were to draw a line horizontally through the center of this image from left to right, you could see the Pistol Star hovering just above the line about one third of the way along it. The Pistol Star is one of the most luminous known stars in the Milky Way and takes its name from the shape of the Pistol Nebula that it illuminates, but which is not visible in this infrared image. The exact age and future of the Pistol Star are uncertain, but it is expected to end in a supernova or even a hypernova in one to three million years.
The cluster also contains a number of red supergiants. These stars are among the largest in the galaxy and are burning their fuel at an incredible speed, meaning they will have a very short lifetime. Their presence suggests an average cluster age of nearly four million years. At the moment these stars are on the verge of exploding as supernovae. During their spectacular deaths they will release vast amounts of energy which, in turn, will heat the material—dust and gas—between the other stars.
This observation shows the Quintuplet Cluster in the infrared and demonstrates the leap in Hubble’s performance since its 1999 image of same object.
Terzan 1 is a globular cluster that lies about 22,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Scorpius. It is one of 11 globular clusters that were discovered by the Turkish-Armenian astronomer Agop Terzan between 1966 and 1971 when he was working in France, based mostly at Lyon Observatory.
Somewhat confusingly, the 11 Terzan globular clusters are numbered from Terzan 1 to Terzan 12. This is due to an error made by Terzan in 1971, when he rediscovered Terzan 5—a cluster he had already discovered and reported back in 1968—and named it Terzan 11. He published its discovery alongside those of Terzan 9, 10 and 12. He quickly realized his mistake, and attempted to have Terzan 12 renamed as Terzan 11. Unfortunately, he did not make it clear that Terzan 5 and Terzan 11 were one and the same, although another astronomer, Ivan Robert King, did publish a note to try and clear up the confusion. Nowadays, most papers recognize the original Terzan 5 and Terzan 12, and accept the oddity that there is no Terzan 11. There have, however, been instances of confusion in the scientific literature over the past few decades.
Terzan 1 is not a new target for Hubble—an image of the cluster was released back in 2015, taken by Hubble’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2). That instrument was replaced by the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) during the 2009 Hubble servicing mission. WFC3 has both superior resolving power and a wider field of view than WFPC2, and the improvement is obvious in this fantastically detailed image.
Credit: European Space Agency (ESA)/Hubble & NASA, R. Cohen
Jupiter with Moons Europa & Io | Juno Mission | NASA/JPL
Jupiter and Moons Europa (left, above), and Io (right, below)
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) manages the Juno mission for NASA. The mission's principal investigator is Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. The mission is part of NASA's New Frontiers Program, managed at the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the spacecraft.
NASA’s Juno spacecraft observed the complex colors and structure of Jupiter’s clouds, including this striking view of vortices—hurricane-like spiral wind patterns. These powerful storms can be over 30 miles (50 kilometers) in height and hundreds of miles across. Figuring out how they form is key to understanding Jupiter's atmosphere, as well as the fluid dynamics and cloud chemistry that create the planet's other atmospheric features. Scientists are particularly interested in the vortices' varying shapes, sizes, and colors. For example, cyclones, which spin counter-clockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern, and anti-cyclones, which rotate clockwise in the northern hemisphere and counter-clockwise in the southern hemisphere, exhibit very different colors and shapes.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) manages the Juno mission for NASA. The mission's principal investigator is Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. The mission is part of NASA's New Frontiers Program, managed at the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the spacecraft.
Jupiter's Great Red Spot | Juno Mission | NASA/JPL
This image of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot reveals a tangle of dark, veinous clouds weaving their way through a massive crimson oval. The JunoCam imager aboard NASA's Juno mission snapped pics of the most iconic feature of the solar system’s largest planetary inhabitant during a flyby.
“For hundreds of years scientists have been observing, wondering and theorizing about Jupiter’s Great Red Spot,” said Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. “Now we have the best pictures ever of this iconic storm. It will take us some time to analyze all the data from not only JunoCam, but Juno’s eight science instruments, to shed some new light on the past, present and future of the Great Red Spot.”
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) manages the Juno mission for NASA. The mission's principal investigator is Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. The mission is part of NASA's New Frontiers Program, managed at the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the spacecraft.
A Galactic Rose of Star Formation around a Supermassive Black Hole | ESO
Captured with the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) instrument on the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), this image of the distant spiral galaxy NGC 1097 shows a textbook example of a star-bursting nuclear ring. Located 45 million light-years away from Earth, in the constellation of Fornax, this ring lies at the very center of its galaxy. It spans only 5,000 light years across, being dwarfed by the full size of its host galaxy, which extends some tens of thousands of light-years beyond its center.
The darker lanes seen in this MUSE image show dust, gas and debris from the galaxy (or possibly from a satellite galaxy), which are being funnelled into the supermassive black hole at its center. This process heats up the surrounding matter forming an accretion disc around the black hole and launching huge amounts of energy into the surrounding area. Nearby dust is heated up and star formation accelerates in the area around the supermassive black hole, forming the star-bursting nuclear ring shown in pink and purple tones in the image.
MUSE is attached to Yepun, one of the four, 8.2-meter telescopes that make up the VLT at the European Southern Observatory’s Paranal Observatory. Its unique design has allowed researchers to map complex mechanisms within many galaxies and analyze the formation of stars and star clusters.
Credit: European Southern Observatory (ESO)/TIMER Survey
The Coral Sea: Northeast Coast of Australia | International Space Station
The Coral Sea off the northeast coast of Australia, as seen by European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti aboard the International Space Station for her Minerva Mission.
An international partnership of space agencies provides and operates the elements of the International Space Station (ISS). The principals are the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada. The ISS has been the most politically complex space exploration program ever undertaken.
Credit: European Space Agency/NASA-S.Cristoforetti
Word Bank: Gravitational Lensing | European Space Agency/Hubble
Gravitational lensing occurs when a large distribution of matter, such as a galaxy cluster, sits between Earth and a distant light source. As space is warped by massive objects, the light from the distant object bends as it travels to us and we see a distorted image of it. This effect was first predicted by Einstein’s general theory of relativity.
Credit: European Space Agency (ESA)/Hubble (M. Kornmesser & L. L. Christensen)
Gravitational Lensing of A Distant Quasar | European Space Agency/Hubble
This animation depicts how the mass of a galaxy is bending the light of a much more distant quasar through gravitational lensing. This way the quasar appear three times larger and 50 times brighter on the night sky.
Example Quasar's Name: J043947.08+163415.7
Credit: European Space Agency (ESA)/Hubble, L. Calçada
Zoom on Quintuple Quasar Galaxy Cluster: SDSS J1004+4112 | Hubble
The group of five quasar images was produced in a process called gravitational lensing, in which the gravitational field of a massive object—in this case, a cluster of galaxies—bends and amplifies light from an object—in this instance, a quasar—farther behind it.
Although other multiply lensed quasars have been seen before, for instance in the object known as the "Einstein Cross", this newly observed "quintuple quasar" is the only case so far in which multiple quasar images are produced by an entire galaxy cluster acting as a gravitational lens.
Quasar's name: SDSS J100434.05+4112
Credit: NASA, European Space Agency (ESA), Keren Sharon (Tel-Aviv University) and Eran Ofek (CalTech)
A Galaxy Cluster Creates Quintuple Quasar Images | Hubble
This NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope image was the first-ever picture of a distant quasar lensed into five images. The group of five quasar images (labeled) was produced in a process called gravitational lensing, in which the gravitational field of a massive object—in this case, a cluster of galaxies—bends and amplifies light from an object—in this instance, a quasar—farther behind it.
Although other multiply lensed quasars have been seen before, for instance in the object known as the "Einstein Cross", this newly observed "quintuple quasar" is the only case so far in which multiple quasar images are produced by an entire galaxy cluster acting as a gravitational lens.
Quasar's name: SDSS J100434.05+4112
Credit: NASA, European Space Agency (ESA), Keren Sharon (Tel-Aviv University) and Eran Ofek (CalTech)
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