In Webb’s images, the galaxies look like faint red smudges, which is why extra data, known as spectra, were critical for the team’s conclusions. Those spectra show that light from these galaxies is being absorbed by large amounts of neutral hydrogen gas. “The gas must be very widespread and cover a very large fraction of … Read more
“People often ask about this, and simulating these difficult-to-imagine processes helps me connect the mathematics of relativity to actual consequences in the real universe,” said Jeremy Schnittman, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who created the visualizations. “So I simulated two different scenarios, one where a camera — a stand-in … Read more
XRISM is a collaborative mission between JAXA and NASA, with contributions from over 70 institutions in Japan, the U.S., Canada, and Europe. NASA Goddard developed the Resolve detector and many of the instrument subsystems, together with the two X-ray Mirror Assemblies. Goddard is also responsible for the Science Data Center, which developed analysis software and … Read more
On the left is the starburst galaxy M82 as observed by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope in 2006. The small box at the galaxy’s core corresponds to the area captured so far by the NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. The red filaments as seen by Webb are the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon … Read more
Webb’s view in mid-infrared wavelengths also illustrates a new perspective into the diverse and dynamic activity of this region. In the MIRI view of NGC 604, there are noticeably fewer stars. This is because hot stars emit much less light at these wavelengths, while the larger clouds of cooler gas and dust glow. Some of … Read more
Afterglows emit radio, infrared, optical, UV, X-ray, as well as gamma-ray light, which provides more data about the original burst. Afterglows also linger for hours to days (or even years) longer than their initial explosion, creating more opportunities for discovery. Source link
After that initial burst of gamma rays, the debris from the explosion continued to glow, fading as it expanded outward. Our Swift, Hubble, Chandra, and Spitzer telescopes, along with a number of ground-based observatories, were poised to look at this afterglow from the explosion in ultraviolet, optical, X-ray, and infrared light. Such coordination between satellites … Read more
Spiral galaxy NGC 628 is 32 million light-years away in the constellation Pisces. Webb’s image of NGC 628 shows a densely populated face-on spiral galaxy anchored by its central region, which has a light blue haze that takes up about a quarter of the view. In this circular core is the brightest blue area. Within … Read more
The LISA mission will enable observations of gravitational waves produced by merging supermassive black holes, seen here in a computer simulation. Most big galaxies contain central black holes weighing millions of times the mass of our Sun. When these galaxies collide, eventually their black holes do too. Download high-resolution video from NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio. … Read more
“There’s ongoing debate in the scientific community about how galaxies evolve,” said Kimberly Weaver, an astrophysicist at Goddard who led the work. “We find supermassive black holes in the centers of nearly all Milky Way-sized galaxies, and an open question is how much influence they have compared to the effects of star formation. Studying nearby … Read more