Tag

Infrared Astronomy

All articles tagged with #infrared astronomy

space3 days ago•104 min saved

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

space3 days ago•5 min saved

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

space12 days ago•13 min saved

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

space22 days ago•38 min saved

JWST reveals exoplanet baked by its blazing star

Using the James Webb Space Telescope’s infrared capabilities, scientists have detected an exoplanet so close to its star that its dayside is intensely heated, producing extreme temperatures and atmospheric signatures that shed light on how ultra-hot worlds redistribute heat and retain their atmospheres.

via Yahoo|

#exoplanet #exoplanet-atmosphere #hot-exoplanet

space2 months ago•5 min saved

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

science2 months ago•21 min saved

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

science2 months ago•8 min saved

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

space3 months ago•9 min saved

Astronomers Capture Rare Planet Collision 11,000 Light-Years Away

Astronomers observed a rare planetary smash around Gaia20ehk, about 11,000 light-years away, inferred from dips in visible light paired with a surge in infrared as a hot debris cloud occludes the star—providing a rare real-time glimpse of a planet-formation catastrophe similar to how Earth's Moon formed.

via ZME Science|

#debris-disk #exoplanets #gaia20ehk

science4 months ago•99 min saved

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

astronomy4 months ago•53 min saved

Webb reveals a glowing cosmic wheel in spiral galaxy NGC 5134

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope captured a detailed infrared image of the spiral galaxy NGC 5134, about 65 million light-years away in Virgo, revealing glowing dust clouds and newborn stars that illustrate the ongoing cycle of stellar birth, death and recycling in galaxies.

via Space|

#astronomy #infrared-astronomy #james-webb-space-telescope

space5 months ago•78 min saved

Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Flare Reveals Molecules From Another Star

NASA’s SPHEREx infrared telescope observed interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS flare up as it was exiting the solar system in December 2025, revealing a coma rich in water vapor, carbon dioxide and complex organics (including methane, methanol and cyanide) and a pear-shaped dust tail. The observations suggest sunlight penetrated buried ices, triggering a delayed release of materials formed around another star. 3I/ATLAS is only the third confirmed interstellar object, discovered in 2025, with the findings published in February 2026 in the Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society.

via Space|

#3iatlas #astrochemistry #infrared-astronomy

space5 months ago•75 min saved

Webb sharpens its view of a black hole's dusty feeding disk

JWST’s high-contrast observations of the Circinus galaxy reveal the clearest view yet of the dusty torus feeding its central supermassive black hole. About 87% of the infrared emission comes from the inner disk near the hole, less than 1% from the outflow known as the North Arc, and ~12% from dust farther out. The findings, based on two 2024–2025 Webb observations using a seven‑aperture setup, provide an effective resolution like a 13‑meter telescope and challenge decades of outflow‑driven infrared models, confirming the torus as the primary fuel reservoir for black hole growth. The study was published Jan. 13 in Nature Communications.

via Space|

#black-hole #circinus-galaxy #dusty-torus

space5 months ago•55 min saved

JWST reveals brown dwarfs in Westerlund 2: a stellar nursery’s hidden population

JWST’s infrared portrait of Westerlund 2, a young, massive star cluster about 20,000 light-years away in Gum 29, shows thousands of stars and brown dwarfs—“failed stars” too light to fuse—identified via methane and PAH emission. The discovery sheds light on ongoing star formation and how planet-forming disks around massive stars evolve, offering a new window into the life cycles of stars in our galaxy.

via Live Science|

#brown-dwarfs #infrared-astronomy #james-webb-space-telescope

space5 months ago•7 min saved

Webb Reveals Dust Feeding Circinus Black Hole, Upending Core Emission Views

Webb’s Aperture Masking Interferometer on NIRISS allowed a high‑contrast look at Circinus’ core, yielding the sharpest view yet of a black hole’s surroundings. The study finds roughly 87% of the near‑infrared emission comes from hot dust near the black hole’s torus rather than from outflows, overturning decades of models that emphasized outflows. This marks the first extragalactic infrared interferometry in space and demonstrates Webb’s ability to double effective resolution in a focused region, offering a technique to study other bright black holes and build a broader picture of accretion versus outflow contributions.

via NASA Science (.gov)|

#black-holes #circinus-galaxy #infrared-astronomy

science6 months ago•6 min saved

James Webb Telescope Captures Galaxy's Dramatic Transformation

Using the JWST, astronomers observed the galaxy Virgil transforming from a seemingly normal galaxy into a 'cosmic monster' with a supermassive black hole at its core, revealing insights into early galaxy evolution and the potential existence of hidden black hole populations in the universe.

via Space|

#galaxy-evolution #infrared-astronomy #james-webb-space-telescope