Latest posts tagged with #NASAWebb on Bluesky
Illustration of Webb's hexagonal mirror segments each showing a different space image centered on a starry background.
The Space Telescope Science Institute has announced the selection of 254 James Webb Space Telescope Cycle 5 General Observer programs: https://news.stsci.edu/4bneuDE 🔭 🧪 #NASAWebb
STScI is pleased to announce that Dr. Quyen Hart, project scientist for #NASAWebb science communications at STScI, and Dr. Heidi Hammel, vice president for science at @aura-astronomy.bsky.social, have been selected for the 2026 cohort of @aas.org's Shapley Visiting Lecturers.
A globular star cluster. Numerous stars are spread throughout on a black background. Many appear as bright white stars, but there are a few larger orange stars. The concentration of stars in the center creates a bright white glow that becomes more diffuse further out.
NGC 6440 is a crowded cluster of stars, making it hard to resolve the makeup of separate stars. The sensitivity and resolution of #NASAWebb recently identified variations in the helium and oxygen amounts between stars.
Credit: ESA, NASA, CSA, P. Freire; M. Cadelano, C. Pallanca.
#NASAWebb has revolutionized our ability to study the formation and growth of new planetary systems, some with similarities to our own.
⏰ On Wednesday, March 18, join us for a conversation on what we’ve learned about young planetary systems and their supply of ingredients needed for life.
At center right is a compact star cluster composed of luminous red, blue, and white points of light. Faint jets with clumpy, diffuse material extend in various directions from the bright cluster. Above and to the right is a smaller cluster of stars. Translucent red wisps of material stretch across the scene. Background galaxies are scattered across this swath of space, appearing as small blue-white and orange-white dots or fuzzy, thin disks. The background of space, which is easiest to see in the top-left corner, is black.
The Extreme Outer Galaxy—the region more than 58,000 light-years from the Milky Way’s galactic center—is pretty extreme! 😎 #NASAWebb observed a portion of Digel Cloud 2, revealing newly formed stars that are expelling jets of material from their poles: https://bit.ly/4qpOdu4
For alumna Liliana Flores, taking an Intro to Astronomy course on a whim changed the entire trajectory of her education. Read more below.
#womeninstem #IWD2026 #NASAWebb
www.uwb.edu/news/2026/02/12/explorin...
A grayscale pixelated image displaying a detection of astronomical data. A red circle marks one position near the top center, while a green dashed circle marks another position lower down, also near the center, that has a large white dot at its center. A small legend at the bottom-left labels these annotations: a red line for the “Position assuming lunar impact” and a green dashed line for the “Observed position of 2024 YR4”.
Asteroid 2024 YR4 will not impact the Moon, according to data from a recent observation by #NASAWebb. Learn why Webb plays a crucial role in planetary defense: https://go.nasa.gov/40bCbtL
#NASAWebb has revolutionized our ability to study the formation and growth of new planetary systems, some with similarities to our own.
On March 18 (7 p.m. ET), join us for a conversation on what we’ve learned about young planetary systems and their supply of ingredients needed for life.
Learning about the TRAPPIST-1 system—an environment composed of seven rocky planets orbiting a red dwarf star—has been an ongoing endeavor. And now #NASAWebb is expanding the scientific story in exciting and new ways: https://bit.ly/4kH9X3i
Side-by-side images of the same nebula show how differently it appears in near-infrared, on the left, versus mid-infrared light, on the right. Left image is labeled NIRCam and the right is labeled MIRI. In near-infrared, the nebula’s outer bubble has a white edge and its inner clouds are orange, with a distinct dark lane cutting vertically through the center. Stars and background galaxies appear around the nebula and through the outer bubble. In mid-infrared, the outer bubble has a bluish tint and there is more material in the inner clouds, which are colored off-white. The vertical dark lane is still present but more interrupted and covered by the clouds. Material appears to be erupting out the top of the nebula, and this effect is mirrored to a lesser degree at the bottom, opposite end.
ICYMI: Astronomers are losing their minds over #NASAWebb’s latest images of the very brainy-looking nebula PMR 1. Its distinctive form is the result of a dying star expelling its outer layers: science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasas-webb... 🔭 🧪
A spiral galaxy with a bright supermassive black hole. The galaxy appears cloudy white with orange-red regions filled with stars that spiral outward from the bright center. A large eight-pronged diffraction pattern emanates from the central black hole. Many orange and red stars and galaxies are strewn about. The background of space is black.
Galaxy NGC 7469 has one of the most studied black holes in the universe. #NASAWebb’s resolution and sensitivity has made it easier to study the large amount of dust and compact nature of the region.
Credit: ESA, NASA, CSA.
“Braaains!” Like zombies on the hunt, the Spitzer and #NASAWebb infrared space telescopes went looking for brains in space and captured these uncanny images of nebula PMR 1. A dying star is creating the nebula by expelling its outer layers: https://go.nasa.gov/3MJuY0U
A nebula appears like a transparent bubble with a white edge, inside which are two hemispheres of orange clouds being blown out from the center, split by a dark vertical lane, giving the overall appearance of a see-through skull with a brain inside, as seen from above. A few stars appear with eight points, and small background galaxies can be seen around and through the outer bubble.
Astronomers are losing their minds over #NASAWebb’s latest images of the very brainy-looking nebula PMR 1. Its distinctive form is the result of a dying star expelling its outer layers: https://news.stsci.edu/4tVQccE 🔭 🧪
Astronomers have used #NASAWebb—most powerful infrared telescope to date—to search for brown dwarfs at very low masses in a nearby nebula that contains newborn stars.
Join Dr. Kevin Luhman (Penn State) for a discussion on the surprising aspect of these new brown dwarfs TONIGHT at 7 p.m. ET. 🔭
An image labeled “SN 2025 p h t in NGC 1637, Hubble W F C 3 2024 + Webb NIRCam 2024”. The majority of the image shows a face-on spiral galaxy speckled with myriad blue and red stars. The yellowish core of the galaxy forms a fuzzy oval tilted to the upper right. About halfway from the core to the edge of the image at about 4 o’clock, a small region is outlined with a white box. A shaded, nearly transparent white triangle extends to a pullout at upper right labeled “before explosion”, with short lines forming a crosshair that points to a red star at the center. Below this are three more square images, all with crosshairs at the same location. 1) Hubble August 2024, with nothing visible in the crosshairs, 2) Webb October 2024, with a red star in the crosshairs, 3) Hubble July 2025, with a blue supernova in the crosshairs.
A star has died! For the first time, astronomers have used #NASAWebb to identify which specific star exploded as a supernova. The star—located in galaxy NGC 1637—was a red supergiant surrounded by so much dust that it was invisible to Hubble: https://news.stsci.edu/4alt51V
#NASAWebb provided the first vertical view of Uranus's ionosphere, revealing auroras shaped by its tilted magnetic field: https://esawebb.org/news/weic2602
Astronomers have used #NASAWebb—most powerful infrared telescope to date—to search for brown dwarfs at very low masses in a nearby nebula that contains newborn stars.
Join Dr. Kevin Luhman (Penn State) for a discussion on the surprising aspect of these new brown dwarfs on Feb. 24, at 7 p.m. ET. 🔭
A cluster of stars inside a large nebula of gas and dust. The gas and dust are predominantly bright red and wispy, and are clumped along the left and bottom corners. Other clouds, deeper in the cluster behind many of the stars, appear pale pink toward center-right. The stars are concentrated in the top half of the image and are mostly small, bright white and eight-pointed. They cast blue light over the bulk of the scene. A few stars with very long spikes surrounding them lie in the foreground.
#NASAWebb uncovered the full population of brown dwarfs (objects more massive than Jupiter but smaller than stars) in star cluster Westerlund 2. Many of our Milky Way galaxy's hottest, brightest, and most massive stars also exist in this region.
Credit: ESA, NASA, CSA.
In more than three years, #NASAWebb has “supercharged” what astronomers can learn about star formation—reshaping what we know with its sharp near- and mid-infrared observations.
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI. 🔭 🧪
A face-on view of spiral galaxy NGC 1566 showing its central core, spiral arms, and scattered stars. Credit: NASA; ESA; CSA; STScI; Janice Lee (STScI); Thomas Williams (Oxford); PHANGS team
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope on Flickr (Jan 29, 2024)
Explore spiral galaxy NGC 1566, a stunning structure 60 million light-years away in the constellation Dorado. #NASAWebb #NGC1566
flic.kr/p/2pvgUUL
Astronomers have used #NASAWebb—most powerful infrared telescope to date—to search for brown dwarfs at very low masses in a nearby nebula that contains newborn stars.
Join Dr. Kevin Luhman (Penn State) for a discussion on the surprising aspect of these new brown dwarfs on Feb. 24, at 7 p.m. ET. 🔭
It’s a continuous cycle: space telescope technology 🔁 astronomical observations. As we learn about the universe with space telescopes, like #Hubble and #NASAWebb, investigating ongoing mysteries and answering new questions requires state-of-the-art technology. Credit: STScI.
Among the objects being studied by #NASAWebb are exoplanets: planets orbiting stars other than our sun.
In a virtual talk on February 5, STScI's Dr. Néstor Espinoza will share the latest advancements learned from those alien worlds, paving the road to answer the ultimate question, “Are we alone?“
In the lower half is a narrow, horizontal cloud of gas and dust that stretches from edge to edge. It is largely pink at left and a mix of greens, oranges and reds at right. Two actively forming stars known as Herbig-Haro 797 are hidden on the right side, within the pinched waist of an orange section. A bright star with long diffraction spikes lies along the top right edge, and a few smaller stars are spread around. The background is covered in a thin blue haze.
Two stars in this #NASAWebb image are responsible for the horizontal jets. Known as Herbig-Haro 797, they are ingesting gas and dust—and periodically sending out two-sided jets. They’ll form over thousands of years.
Credit: ESA, NASA, CSA.
An area of deep space with thousands of galaxies in various shapes and sizes on a black background. Most are circles or ovals, with a few spirals. More distant galaxies are smaller, appearing as dots, while closer galaxies are larger and some appear to be glowing. Red and orange galaxies contain more dust or more stellar activity.
Over three years #NASAWebb observed the same area as the Hubble Ultra Deep Field for nearly 100 hours. Webb revealed more than 2,500 objects, including extremely distant galaxies that contain clues about galaxy growth in the early universe.
Credit: ESA, NASA, CSA.
A wide field of view showing deep space dotted with many small galaxies and a few foreground stars that display diffraction spikes. One galaxy is highlighted with a magnified image in a pull-out box in the lower right corner. The galaxy is labeled MoM-z14 and appears as a blurry yellow blob with a small red area at its top.
#NASAWebb has set a new cosmic distance record: MoM-z14, the furthest galaxy ever confirmed (for now). In this image we see the galaxy as it appeared only 280 million years after the universe began in the big bang: https://news.stsci.edu/49Uanyg
Cassiopeia A, a supernova remnant. This is a circular-shaped cloud of gas and dust with complex structure. The inner shell is made of bright pink and orange filaments studded with clumps and knots that look like tiny pieces of shattered glass. Around the exterior of the inner shell, particularly at the upper right, there are curtains of wispy gas that look like campfire smoke. The white smoke-like material also appears to fill the cavity of the inner shell, featuring structures shaped like large bubbles. Around and within the nebula, there are various stars seen as points of blue and white light. Outside the nebula, there are also clumps of yellow dust, with a particularly large clump at the bottom right corner that appears to have very detailed striations. The background of space is black.
Cassiopeia A has been observed by astronomers since its discovery in 1948. Its close distance and brightness help telescopes like #NASAWebb see intricate details in the supernova remnant, informing astronomers about how its progenitor star exploded: https://bit.ly/4rGZQ1v
A field of galaxies captured by the James Webb Space Telescope, showcasing a prominent group of galaxies and stars from the Milky Way. Credit: G. Gozaliasl, A. Koekemoer, M. Franco and the COSMOS-Web team (ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA)
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope on Flickr (Apr 29, 2025)
This image showcases a rich tapestry of galaxies, including a prominent group shining with white-gold light, as seen by #NASAWebb.
flic.kr/p/2r1FCHM
A rectangular image of the Serpens Nebula with black vertical rectangles at the bottom left and top right to indicate missing data. A young star-forming region is filled with wispy orange, red, and blue layers of gas and dust. The upper left corner of the image is filled with mostly orange dust, and within that orange dust, there are several small red plumes of gas that extend from the top left to the bottom right at the same angle. At center-left is a larger star that is circled. This star has Webb’s signature diffraction spikes, but along the right also has an arc of white, with the circular edge starting at the center of the star. Mostly blue gas fills the center. There is a particularly bright central star. The gas to the right is a darker orange. Small points of light are sprinkled across the field. The brightest sources have extensive eight-pointed diffraction spikes.
#NASAWebb helped researchers figure out how crystalline silicates, which require intense heat to form, can end up at the incredibly cold outskirts of planetary systems. Before-and-after data show silicates form near a star and are shot out by its winds: https://news.stsci.edu/4qUo7A1
Watch as the most detailed infrared view of the Helix Nebula from #NASAWebb is put into context using the famous visible light image from Hubble and previous infrared imaging from the retired Spitzer Space Telescope: news.stsci.edu/4qPKTsL
