#First image credit: ESA/Hubble and NASA

[celestialdaily]

The celestial object of the day is M13 or Hercules globular cluster!

The Arecibo message targeted this cluster, conveying encoded details about humanity. Within it, "blue stragglers," massive old and blue stars resulting from collisions within the cluster, can be found.

[spacetelescopescience]

Breathe in … and let go.

Now, take in this Hubble Space Telescope image of galaxy NGC 4258.

The first thing you might notice are the vibrant purple star clusters. These show up in ultraviolet light, which only Hubble is currently capable of detecting at high resolution. Why? These stars are still quite young.

The oldest stars are found at its core, which glows white.

The galaxy’s dust lanes are dark brown.

Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI.

[wonders-of-the-cosmos]

This image shows the spiral galaxy NGC 5037, which is found in the constellation of Virgo and was first documented by William Herschel in 1785. 

Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Rosario; L. Shatz

[apod]

2025 June 13

Rubin's Galaxy Image Credit: NASA, ESA, B. Holwerda (University of Louisville)

Explanation: In this Hubble Space Telescope image the bright, spiky stars lie in the foreground toward the heroic northern constellation Perseus and well within our own Milky Way galaxy. In sharp focus beyond is UGC 2885, a giant spiral galaxy about 232 million light-years distant. Some 800,000 light-years across compared to the Milky Way's diameter of 100,000 light-years or so, it has around 1 trillion stars. That's about 10 times as many stars as the Milky Way. Part of an investigation to understand how galaxies can grow to such enormous sizes, UGC 2885 was also part of An Interesting Voyage and American astronomer Vera Rubin's pioneering study of the rotation of spiral galaxies. Her work was the first to convincingly demonstrate the dominating presence of dark matter in our universe. A new U.S. coin has been issured to honor Vera Rubin, while the Vera C. Rubin Observatory is scheduled to unveil images from its first look at the cosmos on June 23.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250613.html

[spaceexp]

X-ray Signal Points to Destroyed Planet, Chandra Finds

A planet may have been destroyed by a white dwarf at the center of a planetary nebula — the first time this has been seen. As described in our latest press release, this would explain a mysterious X-ray signal that astronomers have detected from the Helix Nebula for over 40 years. The Helix is a planetary nebula, a late-stage star like our Sun that has shed its outer layers leaving a small dim star at its center called a white dwarf.

This composite image contains X-rays from Chandra (magenta), optical light data from Hubble (orange, light blue), infrared data from ESO (gold, dark blue), and ultraviolet data from GALEX (purple) of the Helix Nebula. Data from Chandra indicates that this white dwarf has destroyed a very closely orbiting planet.

Visual description: The Helix Nebula is a cloud of gas ejected by a dying star, known as a white dwarf. In this composite image, the cloud of gas strongly resembles a creature's eye. Here, a hazy blue cloud is surrounded by misty, concentric rings of pale yellow, rose pink, and blood orange. Each ring appears dusted with flecks of gold, particularly the outer edges of the eye-shape.

The entire image is speckled with glowing dots in blues, whites, yellows, and purples. At the center of the hazy blue gas cloud is a bright white dot with a pink outer ring and a smaller white dot.

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/Univ Mexico/S. Estrada-Dorado et al.; Ultraviolet: NASA/JPL; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI (M. Meixner)/NRAO (T.A. Rector); Infrared: ESO/VISTA/J. Emerson; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/K. Arcand;

[thespacewirednews]

Spin me right 'round 🌀

This spiral galaxy, spotted by our orbiting @NASAHubble telescope, is 45 million light-years from Earth. Tucked within its winding spiral arms are patches of glowing pink spots: these represent "H-alpha regions," signs of nebulae where new stars are being formed.

The Hubble Space Telescope has been studying the cosmos from its vantage point in low Earth orbit since it first lifted off in 1990. From determining the atmospheric composition of planets around other stars to discovering dark energy, Hubble has changed humanity's understanding of the universe.

Image description: A dazzling spiral galaxy, with gaseous arms in shades of pink, red, and white. Various stars, galaxies, and other cosmic phenomena fill the background.

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Thilker, J. Lee and the PHANGS-HST Team !

[blasteffect]

Tarantula Nebula !

This is a Hubble Space Telescope image of a star-forming region containing massive, young, blue stars in 30 Doradus, the Tarantula Nebula. Located within the Large Magellanic Cloud, this is one of the regions observed by a newly-completed survey named ULLYSES.

Some stars are so massive and so energetic that they’re a million times brighter than the Sun. This type of star dominated the early Universe, playing a key role in its development and evolution. The first of its kind are all gone now, but the modern Universe still forms stars of this type.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI, Francesco Paresce (INAF-IASF Bologna), Robert O'Connell (UVA), SOC-WFC3, ESO

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Hubble comes face-to-face with spiral's arms

The spiral galaxy NGC 3596 is on display in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image that incorporates six different wavelengths of light. NGC 3596 is situated 90 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Leo, the Lion. British astronomer Sir William Herschel first documented the galaxy in 1784.

NGC 3596 appears almost perfectly face-on when viewed from Earth, showcasing the galaxy's neatly wound spiral arms. These bright arms hold concentrations of stars, gas, and dust that mark the area where star formation is most active, illustrated by the brilliant pink star-forming regions and young blue stars tracing NGC 3596's arms.

What causes these spiral arms to form? It's a surprisingly difficult question to answer, partly because spiral galaxies are so diverse. Some have clear spiral arms, while others have patchy, feathery arms. Some have prominent bars across their centers, while others have compact, circular nuclei. Some have close neighbors, while others are isolated.

Early ideas about how spiral arms formed stumped astronomers with the "winding problem." If a galaxy's spiral arms are coherent structures, its arms would wind tighter and tighter as the galaxy spins, until the arms are no longer visible.

Now, researchers believe that spiral arms represent a pattern of high-density and low-density areas rather than a physical structure. As stars, gas, and dust orbit within a galaxy's disk, they pass in and out of the spiral arms. Much like cars moving through a traffic jam, these materials slow down and bunch up as they enter a spiral arm, before emerging and continuing their journey through the galaxy.

IMAGE: This Hubble Space Telescope image showcases the spiral galaxy NGC 3596. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Thilker

[kestarren]

Details in the Webb Telescope's view of part of the top of the Horsehead Nebula. "The “mane” of the Horsehead Nebula is shown here imaged by Webb’s *MIRI instrument. The mid-infrared light captured by MIRI reveals substances like dusty silicates and soot-like molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, K. Misselt (University of Arizona) and A. Abergel (IAS/University Paris-Saclay, CNRS)" * Mid-Infrared Instrument: "MIRI covers the wavelength range of 5 to 28 microns. First 3 images are from the NASA article: "Webb Captures Top of Iconic Horsehead Nebula in Unprecedented Detail" April 29, 2024.

The JWST ~ James Webb Space Telescope's view of part of the top, the "mane", of the Horsehead Nebula. "The Horsehead Nebula, imaged by the *NIRCam instrument on NASA’s Webb Telescope, features a portion of the horse’s “mane” about 0.8 light-years wide. The blue clouds at the bottom of the image are dominated by cold, molecular hydrogen. Red wisps above the nebula represent mainly atomic hydrogen gas. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, K. Misselt (University of Arizona) and A. Abergel (IAS/University Paris-Saclay, CNRS)" * "The Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) is Webb's primary imager that covers the infrared wavelength range 0.6 to 5 microns." The annotated picture below is also from the article.

Part of the Horsehead Nebula by Hubble Space Telescope. The Webb telescope zoomed in on the top right part of this, the horse's "mane."

[of-stars-and-dust]

Astronomy Picture of the Day

2025 June 13

Rubin's Galaxy

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, B. Holwerda (University of Louisville)

Explanation: In this Hubble Space Telescope image the bright, spiky stars lie in the foreground toward the heroic northern constellation Perseus and well within our own Milky Way galaxy. In sharp focus beyond is UGC 2885, a giant spiral galaxy about 232 million light-years distant. Some 800,000 light-years across compared to the Milky Way's diameter of 100,000 light-years or so, it has around 1 trillion stars. That's about 10 times as many stars as the Milky Way. Part of an investigation to understand how galaxies can grow to such enormous sizes, UGC 2885 was also part of An Interesting Voyage and American astronomer Vera Rubin's pioneering study of the rotation of spiral galaxies. Her work was the first to convincingly demonstrate the dominating presence of dark matter in our universe. A new U.S. coin has been issued to honor Vera Rubin, while the Vera C. Rubin Observatory is scheduled to unveil images from its first look at the cosmos on June 23.

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)

NASA Official: Amber Straughn

A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,

NASA Science Activation

& Michigan Tech. U.

[andromeda1023]

The glittering, glitzy contents of the globular cluster NGC 6652 sparkle in this star-studded image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The core of the cluster is suffused with the pale blue light of countless stars, and a handful of particularly bright foreground stars are adorned with criss-crossing diffraction spikes. NGC 6652 lies in our own Milky Way galaxy in the constellation Sagittarius, just under 30 000 light-years from Earth and only 6500 light-years from the Galactic centre.

Globular clusters are stable, tightly gravitationally bound clusters containing anywhere between tens of thousands and millions of stars. The intense gravitational attraction between the closely packed stars in globular clusters is what gives these star-studded objects their regular, spherical shape.

This image combines data from two of Hubble’s third-generation instruments; the Advanced Camera for Surveys and Wide Field Camera 3. As well as two instruments, this image draws on two different observing programmes from two different teams of astronomers. The first team set out to survey globular clusters in the Milky Way galaxy in the hope of shedding light on topics ranging from the ages of these objects to the gravitational potential of the galaxy as a whole. The second team of astronomers used a trio of exquisitely sensitive filters in Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 to disentangle the proportions of carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen in globular clusters such as NGC 6652.

[Image Description: A dense spherical cluster of stars. The stars merge into a bright core in the centre, and spread out to the edges gradually, giving way to an empty, dark background. Most of the stars are small points of light. A few stars with cross-shaped diffraction spikes appear larger, and stand out in front.]Credit:

ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Sarajedini, G. Piotto

[celestialdaily]

The celestial object of the day is the Water Lily Nebula!

This pre-planetary nebula (the phase before becoming a planetary nebula) has been discovered to have organic hydrocarbons that constitute the base for life!

[wonders-of-the-cosmos]

This striking image captures the interacting galaxy pair known as Arp-Madore 2339-661, so named because they belong to the Arp-Madore catalogue of peculiar galaxies. However, this particular peculiarity might be even odder than first meets the eye, as there are in fact three galaxies interacting here, not just two. 

The two clearly defined galaxies are NGC 7733 (smaller, lower right) and NGC 7734 (larger, upper left). The third galaxy is currently referred to as NGC 7733N, and can actually be spotted in this picture if you look carefully at the upper arm of NGC 7733, where there is a visually notable knot-like structure, glowing with a different colour to the arm and obscured by dark dust. 

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

[apod]

2025 May 26

Spiral Galaxy NGC 2566 from Webb Image Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Leroy

Explanation: What’s happening in the center of spiral galaxy NGC 2566? First, the eight rays that appear to be coming out of the center in the featured infrared image are not real — they are diffraction spikes caused by the mechanical structure of the Webb space telescope itself. The center of NGC 2566 is bright but not considered unusual, which means that it likely contains a supermassive black hole, although currently not very active. At only 76 million light years away, the light we see from NGC 2566 today left when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. The picturesque galaxy is close enough so that Earthly telescopes, including Webb and Hubble, can resolve the turbulent clouds of gas and dust where stars can form and so allows study of stellar evolution. NGC 2566, similar in size to our Milky Way Galaxy, is notable for its bright central bar and its prominent outer spiral arms.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap250526.html

[spacenutspod]

2 min read Hubble Spots the Spider Galaxy This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows the irregular galaxy UGC 5829. ESA/Hubble & NASA, R. Tully, M. Messa This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows the gauzy-looking celestial body UGC 5829, an irregular galaxy that lies about 30 million light-years away. Despite the lack of observations of this relatively faint galaxy, UGC 5829 has a distinct and descriptive name: the Spider Galaxy. Perhaps its distorted galactic arms with their glowing, star-forming tips hint at the clawed legs of an arachnid. The data in this image come from two Hubble observing programs. The first used Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys to look at relatively nearby galaxies in an effort to build color versus brightness diagrams of the stars in these galaxies. Each observation only took one Hubble orbit (about 95 minutes) but provided a valuable archival record of the types of stars in different galaxies and therefore different environments. The second program used Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 to look at star clusters in dwarf galaxies. Their observations leveraged Hubble’s ultraviolet capabilities along with its ability to see fine details to better understand the environment where stars form in dwarf galaxies. The star-forming regions of UGC 5829 are readily visible in this image as bright-pink nebulae or clouds. Text credit: European Space Agency (ESA) Download this image Media Contact: Claire AndreoliNASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MDclaire.andreoli@nasa.gov Share Details Last Updated Mar 22, 2024 Editor Andrea Gianopoulos Related Terms Astrophysics Galaxies Goddard Space Flight Center Hubble Space Telescope Irregular Galaxies Missions The Universe Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA Hubble Space Telescope Since its 1990 launch, the Hubble Space Telescope has changed our fundamental understanding of the universe. Galaxies Stories Stars Stories NASA Astrophysics

[thespacewirednews]

 Galaxy with ‘Forbidden’ Light

This whirling image features a bright spiral galaxy known as MCG-01-24-014, which is located about 275 million light-years from Earth. In addition to being a well-defined spiral galaxy, MCG-01-24-014 has an extremely energetic core known as an active galactic nucleus (AGN) and is categorized as a Type-2 Seyfert galaxy. Seyfert galaxies, along with quasars, host one of the most common subclasses of AGN. While the precise categorization of AGNs is nuanced, Seyfert galaxies tend to be relatively nearby and their central AGN does not outshine its host, while quasars are very distant AGNs with incredible luminosities that outshine their host galaxies.

There are further subclasses of both Seyfert galaxies and quasars. In the case of Seyfert galaxies, the predominant subcategories are Type-1 and Type-2. Astronomers distinguish them by their spectra, the pattern that results when light is split into its constituent wavelengths. The spectral lines that Type-2 Seyfert galaxies emit are associated with specific ‘forbidden’ emission lines. To understand why emitted light from a galaxy could be forbidden, it helps to understand why spectra exist in the first place. Spectra look the way they do because certain atoms and molecules absorb and emit light at very specific wavelengths. The reason for this is quantum physics: electrons (the tiny particles that orbit the nuclei of atoms and molecules) can only exist at very specific energies, and therefore electrons can only lose or gain very specific amounts of energy. These very specific amounts of energy correspond to the wavelengths of light that are absorbed or emitted.

Forbidden emission lines should not exist according to certain rules of quantum physics. But quantum physics is complex, and some of the rules used to predict it were formulated under laboratory conditions here on Earth. Under those rules, this emission is ‘forbidden’ – so improbable that it’s disregarded. But in space, in the midst of an incredibly energetic galactic core, those assumptions don’t hold anymore, and the ‘forbidden’ light gets a chance to shine out toward us. Text credit: European Space AgencyImage credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, C. Kilpatrick