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Infrared Astronomy

All articles tagged with #infrared astronomy

JWST Unveils Lion Nebula’s Infrared Mane in New Image
space13 days ago

JWST Unveils Lion Nebula’s Infrared Mane in New Image

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope released a new infrared image of the Lion Nebula (NGC 2392), revealing a glowing purple gas ‘mane’ surrounding a white-dwarf core. The view, built from JWST’s NIRCam and MIRI data, shows details unseen in prior images and confirms the nebula will continue to expand, with the lion’s face potentially fading over roughly 10,000 years. The central nose-like purple spot marks the dying star’s remnant powering the nebula.

via Space|
#infrared-astronomy#james-webb-space-telescope#lion-nebula
Webb Telescope Turns Time Machine, Revealing Galaxies Moments After the Big Bang
space26 days ago

Webb Telescope Turns Time Machine, Revealing Galaxies Moments After the Big Bang

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope uses its larger 6.5-meter mirror and infrared vision to peer back to the universe’s earliest epochs, capturing galaxies formed within a few hundred million years after the Big Bang and pushing the record beyond Hubble’s reach (e.g., MoM-z14 at ~13.5 billion years ago). Webb reveals a cosmic dawn that is brighter and more chemically evolved than pre‑Webb models predicted, with some galaxies seen just 50–300 million years after the Big Bang—reminding us that each image is both a snapshot of the present instrument and a window into a long-ago cosmos that has since evolved.

via spacedaily.com|
#cosmic-dawn#early-galaxies#infrared-astronomy
NASA primes the Roman Space Telescope for a late-summer liftoff
space27 days ago

NASA primes the Roman Space Telescope for a late-summer liftoff

NASA has fueled the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope for its Aug. 30 liftoff aboard SpaceX's Falcon Heavy, nine months ahead of schedule and under budget. The hydrazine-fueled observatory is expected to generate over 500 terabytes of data per year and features a Wide Field Instrument that can image the infrared sky 50 times wider than JWST, enabling studies of dark matter, dark energy, and thousands of supernovae while guiding JWST's future targets. Roman will reach and operate at the L2 point powered by its propellant.

via Space|
#infrared-astronomy#lagrange-point-2#nasa
JWST Finds Two Dyson-Sphere Candidates Were Just Galaxies Aligned Behind Stars
space28 days ago

JWST Finds Two Dyson-Sphere Candidates Were Just Galaxies Aligned Behind Stars

Astronomers used the James Webb Space Telescope to test two strong Dyson-sphere candidates by hunting for the telltale mid-infrared waste heat that would accompany a megastructure around a star. After sifting through about five million Milky Way stars and confirming the most promising cases, JWST revealed that both candidates were actually distant galaxies almost perfectly aligned behind foreground stars, producing the infrared excess. One is a hot dust-obscured galaxy; the other a dusty starburst. While the false positives rule out these two Dyson-sphere interpretations, they refine search methods and lay groundwork for future telescopes with adaptive optics to separate stars from background galaxies.

via ScienceAlert|
#background-galaxies#dyson-sphere#infrared-astronomy
NASA's Roman Space Telescope Aims to Unveil Dark Energy and Exoplanets
space1 month ago

NASA's Roman Space Telescope Aims to Unveil Dark Energy and Exoplanets

NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is set to launch on Aug. 30 from Kennedy Space Center aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy to a Sun-Earth L2 orbit. It will tackle dark energy, dark matter, and exoplanets while conducting wide-field infrared surveys about 100 times larger than the Hubble Deep Field, potentially capturing light from up to a billion galaxies over a five-year mission (with possible extension). The spacecraft carries two instruments—the Wide Field Instrument and a Coronagraph—whose data will be released to the public immediately, and it will be named after NASA's first chief astronomer, Nancy Grace Roman, marking a milestone in women’s contributions to space science.

via upi.com|
#dark-energy#exoplanets#infrared-astronomy
JWST marks four years with infrared portrait of Centaurus A's tumultuous core
space1 month ago

JWST marks four years with infrared portrait of Centaurus A's tumultuous core

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope marks its fourth anniversary with a stunning infrared image of Centaurus A, a nearby galaxy shaped by a two‑billion‑year merger. JWST’s infrared vision through dust reveals millions of stars and details of the galaxy’s active center, including jet-driven gas flows and a warped, star-forming disk tied to its supermassive black hole, illustrating how AGN activity can sculpt galactic structure and advancing our understanding of galaxy evolution.

via Space|
#active-galactic-nucleus#centaurus-a#galaxy-merger
JWST Marks Fourth Anniversary With New Infrared Portraits of Centaurus A
space1 month ago

JWST Marks Fourth Anniversary With New Infrared Portraits of Centaurus A

To mark its fourth year of science operations, NASA, ESA, and CSA released new JWST images of Centaurus A (NGC 5128), showcasing the galaxy's dust structures and star-forming regions in unprecedented infrared detail thanks to the telescope's NIRCam and MIRI cameras, enabling galactic archaeology and a clearer view of Centaurus A's turbulent past and evolution.

via PetaPixel|
#centaurus-a#galaxy-evolution#infrared-astronomy
Webb Resolves 16.5 Million Stars in the Cigar Galaxy, Unveiling a Brief, Intense Starburst
space1 month ago

Webb Resolves 16.5 Million Stars in the Cigar Galaxy, Unveiling a Brief, Intense Starburst

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has resolved 16.5 million stars in Messier 82 (the Cigar Galaxy) in a deep infrared image, revealing a starburst forming stars about ten times faster than the Milky Way. The count represents Webb’s resolution limit in this image, not the galaxy’s total stellar population, as many stars are too faint or buried in dust. The burst is expected to last only a few hundred million years and is thought to be triggered by a past galactic encounter, with outflows and dust structures visible. The study showcases how Webb and Hubble data together can help reconstruct M82’s history and the mechanics of extreme star formation in nearby galaxies.

via Space Daily|
#galaxy-evolution#infrared-astronomy#james-webb-space-telescope
Webb Discovers Neptune’s Hidden Auroras, Solving a 30-Year Mystery
space3 months ago

Webb Discovers Neptune’s Hidden Auroras, Solving a 30-Year Mystery

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has for the first time imaged Neptune’s auroras, solving a decades-long mystery. Webb’s near-infrared spectroscopy detected infrared auroral signatures and the H3+ ion, revealing mid-latitude auroras caused by Neptune’s tilted magnetic field, while the planet’s upper atmosphere has cooled substantially since the Voyager 2 flyby. Ongoing Webb observations will deepen understanding of Neptune’s magnetosphere and atmospheric dynamics.

via The Daily Galaxy|
#auroras#infrared-astronomy#james-webb-space-telescope
Roman Space Telescope readies to outpace Hubble with a 300MP sky survey
science4 months ago

Roman Space Telescope readies to outpace Hubble with a 300MP sky survey

NASA has completed assembly and testing of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, a 300‑megapixel instrument with 18 4K sensors designed to image a sky patch 100 times larger than Hubble’s and observe more infrared light. It could launch as early as September 2026 on a SpaceX rocket, several months ahead of the May 2027 target, and at 42 feet tall it’s the largest telescope built at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. NASA says Roman will accomplish in about a year what Hubble would take around 2,000 years, enabling deep views of hundreds of millions of stars; the project even featured a drone in the clean room to illustrate its scale.

via Digital Camera World|
#hubble-space-telescope#infrared-astronomy#nancy-grace-roman-space-telescope
NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Launches Ahead of Schedule and Under Budget
science4 months ago

NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Launches Ahead of Schedule and Under Budget

NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is fully built and ready for a September launch, eight months early and under budget, after repurposing surplus spy-satellite hardware. The observatory will perform a wide-field infrared survey with a two-instrument payload (a Wide Field Instrument with 18 detectors and a coronagraph for direct exoplanet imaging), enabling large-scale cosmic mapping, study of dark energy via baryon acoustic oscillations, and a microlensing survey that could reveal tens of thousands of exoplanets. Commissioning should take about 90 days, with the mission expected to operate for roughly a decade on its fuel supply.

via Ars Technica|
#baryon-acoustic-oscillations#exoplanets#infrared-astronomy
Planetary collision near Gaia20ehk may mirror Earth's Moon formation
science5 months ago

Planetary collision near Gaia20ehk may mirror Earth's Moon formation

Astronomers have captured signs of a catastrophic collision between two planets orbiting Gaia20ehk, a sunlike star roughly 11,000 light-years away; the event, inferred from dips in visible light and a surge in infrared emission, suggests a planet-on-planet smash and may mirror the giant impact that formed Earth’s Moon, providing a rare look at planet formation and hinting Rubin Observatory could find more such events in the next decade.

via Live Science|
#astrophysical-journal-letters#earth-moon#gaia20ehk