Galaxy SDSSJ1504+54

The tiny red spot in this image is one of the most efficient star-making galaxies ever observed, converting gas into stars at the maximum possible rate. The galaxy is shown here in an image from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), which first spotted the rare galaxy in infrared light.

Visible-light observations from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (inset) reveal that the starlight in this galaxy is extraordinarily compact, with most of the light emitted by a region just a fraction of the size of the Milky Way galaxy. Within that tiny region, stars are forming at a rate hundreds of times that of our galaxy.

Astronomers have combined these star-formation and size measurements from WISE and Hubble, with a measurement of the amount of gas -- fuel for star formation -- from the IRAM Plateau de Bure interferometer to confirm that SDSSJ1504+54 is forming stars at the maximum theoretical rate. This is a case of star formation at its most extreme.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI/IRAM

Note: For more information, see Galaxy Goes Green in Burning Stellar Fuel. There are two inset photos taken by Hubble (Figure 1 and Figure 2) that show the galaxy in much finer detail than the image above; unfortunately, both are TIF files, which Blogger doesn't allow the uploading of. The location of the galaxy in the above image is actually in the lower right corner; there are several red spots in the image, which can be confusing.

Artist’s Impression of the Pulsar PSR J0348+0432 and Its White Dwarf Companion

This artist’s impression shows the exotic double object that consists of a tiny, but very heavy neutron star that spins 25 times each second, orbited every two and a half hours by a white dwarf star. The neutron star is a pulsar named PSR J0348+0432 that is giving off radio waves that can be picked up on Earth by radio telescopes. Although this unusual pair is very interesting in its own right, it is also a unique laboratory for testing the limits of physical theories.

This system is radiating gravitational radiation, ripples in spacetime. Although these waves (shown as the grid in this picture) cannot be yet detected directly by astronomers on Earth they can be sensed indirectly by measuring the change in the orbit of the system as it loses energy.

As the pulsar is so small the relative sizes of the two objects are not drawn to scale.

Illustration credit: ESO/L. Calçada

Note: For more information, see Einstein Was Right — So Far.

Artist's Impression of a Starburst Galaxy

This illustration shows a messy, chaotic galaxy undergoing bursts of star formation. This star formation is intense; it was known that it affects its host galaxy, but this new research shows it has an even greater effect than first thought. The winds created by these star formation processes stream out of the galaxy, ionizing gas at distances of up to 650,000 light-years from the galactic center.

Illustration credit: ESA, NASA, L. Calçada

Note: For more information, see Entire Galaxies Feel the Heat from Newborn Stars - Bursts of Star Birth Can Curtail Future Galaxy Growth.

Comet C2012 S1 ISON as of 10 April 2013

This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image of Comet (C/2012 S1) ISON was photographed on April 10, when the comet was slightly closer than Jupiter’s orbit at a distance of 386 million miles from the Sun (394 million miles from Earth).

Even at that great distance the comet is already active as sunlight warms the surface and causes frozen volatiles to sublimate. A detailed analysis of the dust coma surrounding the solid, icy nucleus reveals a strong, jet blasting dust particles off the sunward-facing side of the comet’s nucleus.

Preliminary measurements from the Hubble images suggest that the nucleus of ISON is no larger than three or four miles across. This is remarkably small considering the high level of activity observed in the comet so far, said researchers. Astronomers are using these images to measure the activity level of this comet and constrain the size of the nucleus, in order to predict the comet’s activity when it skims 700,000 miles above the sun's roiling surface on November 28.

The comet’s dusty coma, or head of the comet, is approximately 3,100 miles across, or 1.2 times the width of Australia. A dust tail extends more than 57,000 miles, far beyond Hubble’s field of view.

More careful analysis is currently underway to improve these measurements and to predict the possible outcome of the sungrazing perihelion passage of this comet.

This image was taken in visible light. The blue false color was added to bring out details in the comet structure.

ISON stands for International Scientific Optical Network, a group of observatories in ten countries who have organized to detect, monitor, and track objects in space. ISON is managed by the Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics, part of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Image credit: NASA, ESA, J.-Y. Li (Planetary Science Institute), and the Hubble Comet ISON Imaging Science Team

Note: For more information, see Hubble Sees Comet ISON and Comet ISON Meteor Shower.

PV Cephei and Gyulbudaghian's Nebula

The Universe is rarely static, although the timescales involved can be very long. Since modern astronomical observations began we have been observing the birthplaces of new stars and planets, searching for and studying the subtle changes that help us to figure out what is happening within.

The bright spot located at the edge of the bluish fan-shaped structure in this Hubble image is a young star called V* PV Cephei, or PV Cep. It is a favorite target for amateur astronomers because the fan-shaped nebulosity, known as GM 1-29 or Gyulbudaghian’s Nebula, changes over a timescale of months. The brightness of the star has also varied over time.

Images of PV Cep taken in 1952 showed a nebulous streak, similar to a comet’s tail. However, these had vanished when new images of the star were obtained some twenty-five years later. Instead, the blue fan-shaped nebula had appeared. Twenty-five years is a very short period on cosmic timescales, so astronomers think that the mysterious streak may have been a temporary phenomenon, such as the remnants of a massive stellar flare — similar to the solar flares we are used to seeing in the Solar System.

At the same time as this was happening, the star itself was brightening. This provided the light to illuminate the newly formed fan-shaped nebula. This brightening might be related to the start of the hydrogen-burning phase of the star, which would mean that it was reaching maturity.

PV Cep is thought to be surrounded by a disc of gas and dust, which would stop light from escaping in all directions. The fan-like appearance is therefore probably a result of starlight escaping from the dust disc and projecting onto the nebula.

PV Cep is located in the northern constellation of Cepheus at a distance of over 1600 light-years from Earth.

Photo credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA. Acknowledgement: Alexey Romashin

Enceladus

This face-on color view of Enceladus was taken by the international Cassini spacecraft on 31 January 2011, from a distance of 81,000 km, and processed by amateur astronomer Gordan Ugarković.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/G. Ugarković

Orion B Molecular Cloud

This image shows the Orion B molecular cloud, a vast star-forming complex in the constellation Orion, as viewed at far-infrared wavelengths with ESA's Herschel Space Observatory. At about 1300 light-years, Orion B is one of the closest regions of star formation.

This massive stellar nursery reveals itself through the glow of cosmic dust in the interstellar material that pervades it. Heated by radiation from newborn stars, the dust shines brightly at far-infrared wavelengths, revealing a tangled network of filaments.

The bright yellow, white and pink areas in the image are the densest regions, where many protostars and newborn stars are found. Darker regions correspond to colder portions of the cloud where star formation is not as active. On the right-hand side of the image, the cloud exhibits a very sharp edge where the material in Orion B is being compressed by powerful winds blowing from clusters of massive stars located beyond the field of this image. These mighty stellar winds have sculpted the iconic Horsehead Nebula, glowing brightly on the right-hand edge of the Herschel image.

Herschel's far-infrared view of Orion B also shows other pockets of star-forming gas and dust nestled in the intricate structure of this cloud: NGC 2024, also known as the Flame Nebula, and NGC 2023 on the right-hand side of the image, to the left of the Horsehead Nebula; and NGC 2071 and NGC 2068 on the left-hand side of the image.

This false-color image combines data acquired with the PACS instrument at 70 micron (shown in blue) and 160 micron (shown in green) and with the SPIRE instrument at 250 micron (shown in red).

Image credit: ESA/Herschel/PACS, SPIRE/N. Schneider, Ph. André, V. Könyves (CEA Saclay, France) for the 'Gould Belt survey' Key Programme.

Note: For more information, see A Horsehead, A Flame and Hidden Gems in Orion B and Herschel’s View of the Horsehead Nebula.

SN 1006

SN 1006: A supernova remnant whose progenitor explosion was seen from Earth over a thousand years ago.

A long Chandra observation reveals SN 1006 supernova remnant in exquisite detail. By overlapping ten different pointings of Chandra's field-of-view, astronomers have stitched together a cosmic tapestry of the debris field that was created when a white dwarf star exploded, sending its material hurtling into space as seen from Earth over a millennium ago. In this new Chandra image, low, medium, and higher-energy X-rays are colored red, green, and blue respectively. Since SN 1006 belongs to the class of supernovas used to measure the expansion of the Universe, the new Chandra data provide insight into these important objects.

Scale: Image is 34 arcmin across. (about 70 light years)

Image credit: NASA/CXC/Middlebury College/F.Winkler

Note: For more information, see SN 1006: X-Ray View of A Thousand-Year-Old Cosmic Tapestry.

Kepler-62 and Kepler-69

The diagram compares the planets of the inner solar system to Kepler-62, a five-planet system about 1,200 light-years from Earth in the constellation Lyra. The five planets of Kepler-62 orbit a star classified as a K2 dwarf, measuring just two thirds the size of the sun and only one fifth as bright. At seven billion years old, the star is somewhat older than the sun.

Much like our solar system, Kepler-62 is home to two habitable zone worlds, Kepler-62f and Kepler-62e. Kepler-62f orbits every 267 days and is only 40 percent larger than Earth, making it the smallest exoplanet known in the habitable zone of another star. The other habitable zone planet, Kepler-62e, orbits every 122 days and is roughly 60 percent larger than Earth.

The size of Kepler-62f is known, but its mass and composition are not. However, based on previous exoplanet discoveries of similar size that are rocky, scientists are able to determine its mass by association.

The two habitable zone worlds orbiting Kepler-62 have three interior companions, two larger than the size of Earth and one about the size of Mars. Kepler-62b, Kepler-62c and Kepler-62d, orbit every five, 12, and 18 days, respectively, making them very hot and inhospitable for life as we know it.

The artistic concepts of the Kepler-62 planets are the result of scientists and artists collaborating to help imagine the appearance of these distant worlds.

The diagram compares the planets of the inner solar system to Kepler-69, a two-planet system about 2,700 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus. The two planets of Kepler-69 orbit a star that belongs to the same class as our sun, called G-type.

Kepler-69c, is 70 percent larger than the size of Earth, and is the smallest yet found to orbit in the habitable zone of a sun-like star. Astronomers are uncertain about the composition of Kepler-69c, but its orbit of 242 days around a sun-like star resembles that of our neighboring planet Venus. The companion planet, Kepler-69b, is just over twice the size of Earth and whizzes around its star once every 13 days.The artistic concepts of the Kepler-69 planets are the result of scientists and artists collaborating to help imagine the appearance of these distant worlds.

Illustration credits: (Top) NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech; (Bottom) NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech

Note: For more information, see:
* PIA16888: Lining Kepler Habitable Zone Planets Up
* PIA17001: Kepler-62f, a Small Habitable Zone World (Artist Concept)
* PIA17002: Morning Star (Artist Concept)
* PIA17003: Super-Venus (Artist Concept)
* PIA17004: Kepler-62e (Artist Concept)
* Kepler Discovers Smallest 'Habitable Zone' Planets
* Kepler Discovers its Smallest Habitable Zone Planets

The Horsehead Nebula in Infrared

Astronomers have used NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to photograph the iconic Horsehead Nebula in a new, infrared light to mark the 23rd anniversary of the famous observatory's launch aboard the space shuttle Discovery on April 24, 1990.

Looking like an apparition rising from whitecaps of interstellar foam, the iconic Horsehead Nebula has graced astronomy books ever since its discovery more than a century ago. The nebula is a favorite target for amateur and professional astronomers. It is shadowy in optical light. It appears transparent and ethereal when seen at infrared wavelengths. The rich tapestry of the Horsehead Nebula pops out against the backdrop of Milky Way stars and distant galaxies that easily are visible in infrared light.

Hubble has been producing ground-breaking science for two decades. During that time, it has benefited from a slew of upgrades from space shuttle missions, including the 2009 addition of a new imaging workhorse, the high-resolution Wide Field Camera 3 that took the new portrait of the Horsehead.

Image Credit: NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage Team

Note: For more information, see A Fresh Take on the Horsehead Nebula and The Horsehead Nebula in New Light.

HFLS3

This artist's impression shows the "starburst" galaxy HFLS3. The galaxy appears as little more than a faint, red smudge in images from the Herschel space observatory. But appearances can be deceiving for it is making stars more than 2,000 times faster than our own Milky Way galaxy, one of the highest star-formation rates ever seen in any galaxy. Amazingly, it is seen at a time when the universe was less than a billion years old, challenging galaxy evolution theories.

Illustration credit: ESA–C. Carreau

Note: For more information, see Astronomers Discover Massive Star Factory in Early Universe and Star Factory in the Early Universe Challenges Galaxy Evolution Theory.

Early Galaxies Found by ALMA

A team of astronomers has used ALMA (the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) to pinpoint the locations of over 100 of the most fertile star-forming galaxies in the early Universe.

The best map so far of these distant dusty galaxies was made using the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX), but the observations were not sharp enough to unambiguously identify these galaxies in images at other wavelengths. ALMA needed just two minutes per galaxy to pinpoint each one within a comparatively tiny region 200 times smaller than the broad APEX blobs, and with three times the sensitivity.

This image shows six of the galaxies as seen in the sharp new observations by ALMA (in red). The big red circles indicate the regions where galaxies had been detected by APEX. The earlier telescope did not have sharp enough images to pin down the identity of the galaxies, many candidates appear in each circle. The ALMA observations, at submillimeter wavelengths, are overlaid on an infrared view of the region as seen by the IRAC camera on the Spitzer Space Telescope (colored blue).

Image credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), APEX (MPIfR/ESO/OSO), J. Hodge et al., A. Weiss et al., NASA Spitzer Science Center

Note: For more information, see ALMA Pinpoints Early Galaxies at Record Speed.

Energy From Above Affecting Surface of Europa

This graphic of Jupiter's moon Europa maps a relationship between the amount of energy deposited onto the moon from charged-particle bombardment and the chemical contents of ice deposits on the surface in five areas of the moon (labeled A through E).

Energetic ions and electrons tied to Jupiter's powerful magnetic field smack into Europa as the field sweeps around Jupiter. The magnetic field travels around Jupiter even faster than Europa orbits the planet. Most of the energetic particles hitting Europa strike the moon's "trailing hemisphere," the half facing away from the direction Europa travels in its orbit. The "leading hemisphere," facing in the direction of travel, receives fewer of the charged particles.

Researchers assessed the amount of sulfate hydrates -- compared with relatively pristine water -- in the surface ice in five widely distributed areas of Europa. They used data from observations made by the near infrared spectrometer (NIMS) instrument on NASA's Galileo spacecraft, which orbited Jupiter from 1995 to 2003. They found that the concentration of frozen sulfuric acid on the surface varies greatly. It ranges from undetectable levels near the center of Europa's leading hemisphere, to more than half of the surface material near the center of the trailing hemisphere. The concentration is closely related to the amount of energy received from electrons and sulfur ions striking the surface, with a distribution controlled by interactions between Jupiter and Europa's magnetic fields.

This pattern could provide direction for the best places to study the surface of Europa for learning about material churned up from the moon's subsurface, which includes a deep saltwater ocean beneath an icy shell. The portions of the surface least affected by the bombardment of charged particles from above are most likely to preserve the original chemical compounds that erupted from the interior. Understanding the chemical ingredients of Europa's subsurface ocean could help scientists determine whether, as many suspect, the ocean could have supported life in the past or even now.

The images of Europa used for the base maps of this figure were taken by the solid state imager on Galileo. The areas labeled A through E are the areas covered by five sets of NIMS observations, and color-coded with darker, bluer portions having more sulfate hydrates and brighter, pinker portions having more water ice. The mapped patterns for energy input are derived from models for the flux of electrons and ions delivered by Jupiter's magnetic field. The color-code key at the right is labeled in units of mega electron volts per square centimeter per second.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/JHUAPL/University of Colorado

Note: For more information, see Where are the Best Windows Into Europa's Interior?

Palomar 2 Globular Star Cluster

Globular clusters are relatively common in our sky, and generally look similar. However, this image, taken using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, shows a unique example of such a cluster — Palomar 2.

Palomar 2 is part of a group of 15 globulars known as the Palomar clusters. These clusters, as the name suggests, were discovered in survey plates from the first Palomar Observatory Sky Survey in the 1950s, a project that involved some of the most well-known astronomers of the day, including Edwin Hubble. They were discovered quite late because they are so faint — each is either extremely remote, very heavily hidden behind blankets of dust, or has a very small number of remaining stars.

This particular cluster is unique in more than one way. For one, it is the only globular cluster that we see in this part of the sky, the northern constellation of Auriga (The Charioteer). Globular clusters orbit the center of a galaxy like the Milky Way in the same way that satellites circle around the Earth. This means that they normally lie closer in to the galactic center than we do, and so we almost always see them in the same region of the sky. Palomar 2 is an exception to this, as it is around five times further away from the center of the Milky Way than other clusters. It also lies in the opposite direction — further out than Earth — and so it is classed as an “outer halo” globular.

It is also unusual due to its brightness. The cluster is veiled by a mask of dust, dampening the apparent brightness of the stars within it and making it appear as a very faint burst of stars. The stunning NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image above shows Palomar 2 in a way that could not be captured from smaller or ground-based telescopes — some amateur astronomers with large telescopes attempt to observe all of the obscure and well-hidden Palomar 15 as a challenge, to see how many they can pick out from the starry sky.

Photo credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

NGC 2768

The soft glow in the picture above is NGC 2768, an elliptical galaxy located in the northern constellation of Ursa Major (The Great Bear). It appears here as a bright oval on the sky, surrounded by a wide, fuzzy cloud of material. This image, taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, shows the dusty structure encircling the center of the galaxy, forming a knotted ring around the galaxy’s brightly glowing middle. Interestingly, this ring lies perpendicular to the plane of NGC 2768 itself, stretching up and out of the galaxy.

The dust in NGC 2768 forms an intricate network of knots and filaments. In the center of the galaxy are two tiny, S-shaped symmetric jets. These two flows of material travel outwards from the galactic center along curved paths, and are masked by the tangle of dark dust lanes that spans the body of the galaxy.

These jets are a sign of a very active center. NGC 2768 is an example of a Seyfert galaxy, an object with a supermassive black hole at its center. This speeds up and sucks in gas from the nearby space, creating a stream of material swirling inwards towards the black hole known as an accretion disc. This disk throws off material in very energetic outbursts, creating structures like the jets seen in the image above.

Photo credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA; Acknowledgment: Judy Schmidt.

Kappa Coronae Borealis

Kappa Coronae Borealis, based on Herschel PACS observations at 100 μm. North is up and east is left. The star is in the center of the frame (not visible in this graphic) with an excess of infrared emission detected around it, interpreted as a dusty debris disc containing asteroids and/or comets. The inclination of the planetary system is constrained at an angle of 60º from face-on.

Image credit: ESA/Bonsor et al (2013)

Note: For more information, see Retired Star Found with Planets and Debris Disk.

Light Curves for a Lensing White Dwarf System

This chart shows data from NASA's Kepler space telescope, which looks for planets by monitoring changes in the brightness of stars. As planets orbit in front of a star, they block the starlight, causing periodic dips. The plot on the left shows data collected by Kepler for a star called KOI-256, which is a small red dwarf. At first, astronomers thought the dip in starlight was due to a large planet passing in front of the star. But certain clues, such as the sharpness of the dip, indicated it was actually a white dwarf -- the dense, heavy remains of a star that was once like our sun. In fact, in the data shown at left, the white dwarf is passing behind the red dwarf, an event referred to as a secondary eclipse. The change in brightness is a result of the total light of the system dropping.

The plot on the right shows what happens when the white dwarf passes in front of, or transits, the star. The dip in brightness is incredibly subtle because the white dwarf, while just over half as massive as our sun, is only the size of Earth, much smaller than the red dwarf star. The blue line shows what would be expected given the size of the white dwarf. The red line reveals what was actually observed: the mass of the white dwarf is so great, that its gravity bent and magnified the light of the red star. Because the star's light was magnified, the transiting white dwarf blocked an even smaller fraction of the total starlight than it would have without the distortion. This effect, called gravitational lensing, allowed the researchers to precisely measure the mass of the white dwarf.

Image credit: NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech

Note: For more information, see Gravity-Bending Find Leads to Kepler Meeting Einstein; also, PIA16885: Dead Star Warps Light of Red Star (Artist's Animation).

IC 1295

This intriguing picture from ESO’s Very Large Telescope shows the glowing green planetary nebula IC 1295 surrounding a dim and dying star. It is located about 3300 light-years away in the constellation of Scutum (The Shield). This is the most detailed picture of this object ever taken.

Photo credit: ESO

Note: For more information, see A Ghostly Green Bubble.

The International Space Station During STS-134

The International Space Station in the Sun taken during STS-134 mission's fourth spacewalk. The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer was installed one week earlier during the mission's first spacewalk. ESA astronaut Roberto Vittori flew with the crew as part of his DAMA mission.

Photo credit: NASA

SN UDS10Wil - Most Distant Supernova

This is a NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope view looking long ago and far away at a supernova that exploded over 10 billion years ago – the most distant Type Ia supernova ever detected. The supernova's light is just arriving at Earth, having traveled more than 10 billion light-years (redshift 1.914) across space.

Astronomers spotted the supernova in December 2010 in the Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey (CANDELS) field, and named it SN UDS10Wil (nicknamed SN Wilson). The small box in the top image pinpoints the supernova's host galaxy in the CANDELS survey. The image is a blend of visible and near-infrared light, taken by Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). The search technique involved taking multiple near-infrared images with WFC3 spaced roughly 50 days apart over the span of three years, looking for a supernova's faint glow.

The three bottom images, taken in near-infrared light with WFC3, demonstrate how the astronomers found the supernova. The image at the far left shows the host galaxy without the supernova. The middle image, taken a year later, reveals the galaxy with the supernova. The supernova cannot be seen because it is too close to the center of its host galaxy. To detect the supernova, astronomers subtracted the left image from the middle image to see the light from the supernova alone, shown in the image at far right.

The astronomers then used WFC3's spectrometer and the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope to verify the supernova's distance and to decode its light, finding the unique signature of a Type Ia supernova.

Photo credit: NASA, ESA, A. Riess (STScI and JHU), and D. Jones and S. Rodney (JHU)

Note: For more information, see Hubble Breaks Record for Furthest Supernova.

Starburst Galaxy J082354.96

Visible as a small, sparkling hook in the dark sky, this beautiful object is known as J082354.96+280621.6, or J082354.96 for short. It is a starburst galaxy, so named because of the incredibly (and unusually) high rate of star formation occurring within it.

One way in which astronomers probe the nature and structure of galaxies like this is by observing the behavior of their dust and gas components; in particular, the Lyman-alpha emission. This occurs when electrons within a hydrogen atom fall from a higher energy level to a lower one, emitting light as they do so. This emission is interesting because this light leaves its host galaxy only after extensive scattering in the nearby gas — meaning that this light can be used as a pretty direct probe of what a galaxy is made up of.

The study of this Lyman-alpha emission is common in very distant galaxies, but now a study named LARS (Lyman Alpha Reference Sample) [1] is investigating the same effect in galaxies that are closer by. Astronomers chose fourteen galaxies, including this one, and used spectroscopy and imaging to see what was happening within them. They found that these Lyman-alpha photons can travel much further if a galaxy has less dust — meaning that we can use this emission to infer how dusty the source galaxy is.

The LARS study relies heavily on the high resolving power of Hubble. When Hubble is decommissioned, no telescope will be able to make observations like this in the far ultraviolet part of the spectrum — meaning that small, glittering galaxies imaged and probed by studies like LARS may give us some of the most detailed data we have to work with for some time to come.

Photo credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. Hayes

Young Stellar Objects in the SMC's Wing

The tip of the "wing" of the Small Magellanic Cloud galaxy is dazzling in this new view from NASA's Great Observatories. The Small Magellanic Cloud, or SMC, is a small galaxy about 200,000 light-years way that orbits our own Milky Way spiral galaxy.

The colors represent wavelengths of light across a broad spectrum. X-rays from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory are shown in purple; visible-light from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is colored red, green and blue; and infrared observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope are also represented in red.

The spiral galaxy seen in the lower corner is actually behind this nebula. Other distant galaxies located hundreds of millions of light-years or more away can be seen sprinkled around the edge of the image.

The SMC is one of the Milky Way's closest galactic neighbors. Even though it is a small, or so-called dwarf galaxy, the SMC is so bright that it is visible to the unaided eye from the Southern Hemisphere and near the equator. Many navigators, including Ferdinand Magellan who lends his name to the SMC, used it to help find their way across the oceans.

Modern astronomers are also interested in studying the SMC (and its cousin, the Large Magellanic Cloud), but for very different reasons. Because the SMC is so close and bright, it offers an opportunity to study phenomena that are difficult to examine in more distant galaxies. New Chandra data of the SMC have provided one such discovery: the first detection of X-ray emission from young stars, with masses similar to our sun, outside our Milky Way galaxy.

Image credit: NASA/CXC/JPL-Caltech/STScI

Note: For more information, see A Confetti-Like Collection of Stars and NGC 602: Taken Under the "Wing" of the Small Magellanic Cloud.

Black Hole Eats a Super-Jupiter

Astronomers using ESA’s Integral and XMM-Newton space telescopes, NASA’s Swift and the MAXI (Monitor of All-sky X-ray Image) instrument on the International Space Station have made the first detection of a substellar object being disrupted by a black hole. The discovery was made in the 47 million-light-year-distant galaxy, NGC 4845.
substellar object moving through space and encountering the black hole, whereupon its outer layers are ripped away and spiral towards the black hole. The debris becomes heated and emits a blast of X-ray radiation before fading away once the material is consumed.

The object lies in the mass range of 14–30 Jupiter masses, corresponding to either a brown dwarf or a large gas planet.

Video credit: ESA

Note: For more information, see Black Hole Wakes Up and Has a Light Snack.

Revealing the Cosmic Microwave Background with Planck

This animation illustrates the painstaking detective work performed by cosmologists in the Planck Collaboration to extract the cosmic microwave background from 15.5 months of data collected by Planck.

The first image in the sequence shows the sources of emission detected on the whole sky at the microwave and submillimeter wavelengths probed by Planck, which range from 11.1 mm to 0.3 mm (corresponding to frequencies between 27 GHz and 1 THz).

The different sources include discrete emission from individual galactic and extragalactic sources, and diffuse radio and thermal emission from interstellar material in the Milky Way.

The cosmologists had to remove all possible contamination due to emission by foreground sources before they could fully explore the cosmic microwave background, which is unveiled in the final slide of the animation.

Video credit: ESA and the Planck Collaboration

All-Sky Map of Dark Matter Distribution in the Universe

This all-sky image shows the distribution of dark matter across the entire history of the Universe as seen projected on the sky. It is based on data collected with ESA's Planck satellite during its first 15.5 months of observations. Dark blue areas represent regions that are denser than the surroundings, and bright areas represent less dense regions. The gray portions of the image correspond to patches of the sky where foreground emission, mainly from the Milky Way but also from nearby galaxies, is too bright, preventing cosmologists from fully exploiting the data in those areas.

The image was compiled by analyzing the tiny distortions imprinted on the photons of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) by the gravitational lensing effect of massive cosmic structures. As photons traveled through these structures, which consist primarily of dark matter, their paths were bent, slightly changing the pattern of the CMB.

The reconstruction technique used to compile this image relies on deviations of the shapes of hot and cold spots in the CMB from their 'typical' shape, and it is impossible to avoid the introduction of statistical 'noise' in the reconstruction; approximately half of the modes in this image are due to this noise.

This image is the first measurement performed over almost the entire sky of the gravitational potential that distorts the CMB, and is one of the highlights of Planck's cosmological results. With these unique data, cosmologists can investigate 13 billion years of the formation of structure in the Universe. The data agree very well with the expectations from the leading cosmological model that describes the origin and evolution of cosmic structure in the Universe.

Image credit: ESA and the Planck Collaboration

Note: For more information, see Planck Sees a Cosmic Journey 13 Billion Years in the Making.

MSL’s Parachute Flapping in the Wind

These seven HiRISE images were acquired between August 12, 2012 and January 13, 2013, and show distinct changes in the parachute (at bottom, attached to the backshell at top). In the first four images there are only subtle changes, perhaps explained by differences in viewing and illumination geometry.

Sometime between September 8, 2012 and November 30, 2012, there was a major change in which the parachute extension to the southeast (lower right) was moved inward, so the parachute covers a smaller area. In the same time interval some of the dark ejecta around the backshell brightened, perhaps from deposition of airborne dust.

Another change happened between December 16, 2012 and January 13, 2013, when the parachute shifted a bit to the southeast. This type of motion may kick off dust and keep parachutes on the surface bright, to help explain why the parachute from Viking 1 (landed in 1976) remains detectable.

The parachute is the largest one of its kind ever constructed, coming in about 65 feet in diameter (you can see a scale here, courtesy JPL) The gap between the white and orange-hued sections prevented the chute from becoming torn during the descent phase.

You can also see a 3D view of the parachute on the ground here. The parachute’s suspension lines were made from Technora, with a fiber similar to Kevlar. The color is a creamy yellow, which is why they are not visible in the images such as those in the Phoenix lander descent image which were white.

Photo credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Note: This is a big story today. For more information, see PIA16813: MSL's Parachute Flapping in the Wind and Used Parachute on Mars Flaps in the Wind.

The Moon from the International Space Station

The fragility of the Earth's atmosphere is illustrated by the thin blue line in this image that fades into the darkness of space. An astronaut took the photo from the International Space Station.

Photo credit: NASA

Note: For more information, see Don't Let This Happen to Your Planet.

Messier 77

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured this vivid image of spiral galaxy Messier 77 – a galaxy in the constellation of Cetus, some 45 million light-years away from us. The streaks of red and blue in the image highlight pockets of star formation along the pinwheeling arms, with dark dust lanes stretching across the galaxy's starry center. The galaxy belongs to a class of galaxies known as Seyfert galaxies, which have highly ionized gas surrounding an intensely active center.

Photo credit: NASA, ESA & A. van der Hoeven

Note: For more information, see Hubble Observes the Hidden Depths of Messier 77.

W3 Molecular Cloud

This three-color image of the W3 giant molecular cloud combines Herschel bands at 70 μm (blue), 160 μm (green) and 250 μm (red). The image spans about 2x2 degrees. North is up and east is to the left.

W3 is an enormous stellar nursery about 6200 light-years away in the Perseus Arm, one of the Milky Way galaxy's main spiral arms, that hosts both low- and high-mass star formation. In this image, the low-mass protostars are seen as tiny yellow dots embedded in cool red filaments, while the highest-mass stars – with greater than eight times the mass of our Sun – emit intense radiation, heating up the gas and dust around them and appearing here in blue. W3 Main and W3 (OH) contain the most recent high-mass star formation.

Image credit: ESA/PACS & SPIRE consortia, A. Rivera-Ingraham & P.G. Martin, Univ. Toronto, HOBYS Key Programme (F. Motte)

Note: For more information, see Hunting High-Mass Stars with Herschel; also, Hunting Massive Stars with Herschel and PIA16883: Churning Out Stars. For a larger annotated image, click here.

NGC 2547

This image from the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile, shows the bright open star cluster NGC 2547. Between the bright stars, far away in the background of the image, many remote galaxies can be seen, some with clearly spiral shapes.

Photo credit: ESO

Note: For more information, see Young, Hot and Blue.