Category: Goddard Space Flight Center

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Hubble Views a Dim but Distinct Galaxy

Source: NASA

2 min read

This image of the softly luminous spiral galaxy UGC 11105 is from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. It lies about 110 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Hercules.

Astronomers have different ways of quantifying how bright celestial objects are. Apparent magnitude is one of those methods. It describes how bright an object appears to an observer on Earth, which is not the same thing as measuring how bright an object actually is; or its intrinsic brightness. Apparent magnitude depends heavily on an object’s proximity to Earth.

To better understand how apparent magnitude works, consider streetlights; each lamppost is putting out the same amount of light, but the light that is closer to you is much brighter than one several blocks away. Although their intrinsic brightness is the same, their apparent brightness is different.

UGC 11105 has an apparent magnitude, or brightness, of around 13.6 in the light our eyes are sensitive to, called visible or optical light. However, this image also holds ultraviolet data, allowing us to see wavelengths beyond those that the human eye can see. Because of its proximity and our perspective here on Earth, the Sun appears to be about 14 thousand trillion times brighter than UGC 11105, even though UGC 11105 is an entire galaxy. Hubble’s sensitivity and location above Earth’s light-distorting atmosphere allows the observatory to see extraordinarily dim objects in visible light, ultraviolet light, and a small portion of infrared light.

Text credit: European Space Agency (ESA)

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Hubble Sees a Merged Galaxy

Source: NASA

2 min read

This new NASA Hubble Space Telescope image shows ESO 185-IG013, a luminous blue compact galaxy (BCG). BCGs are nearby galaxies that show an intense burst of star formation. They are unusually blue in visible light, which sets them apart from other high-starburst galaxies that emit more infrared light. Astrophysicists study BCGs because they provide a relatively close-by equivalent for galaxies from the early universe. This means that BCGs can help scientists learn about galaxy formation and evolution that may have been happening billions of years ago.

Hubble imaged ESO 185-IG013 in ultraviolet, visible, and infrared wavelengths to reveal details about its past. Hundreds of young star clusters, many of which are younger than 100 million years, populate the galaxy. A large number of star clusters are only 3.5 million years old – relative infants compared to the timescale of our universe. Scientists predict that many of these youngest clusters will not last, since young clusters can often perish after expelling too much of their gas. The large number of young star clusters indicates that this galaxy was part of a recent galaxy collision and merger. The perturbed structure of the galaxy, which likely occurred from the violent interactions of gas and dust during the collision, is another sign. The merger supplied the system with lots of fuel for star formation, which continues to take place today.

ESO 185-IG013 also contains a tidal shell, the diffuse glow surrounding its bright center, which is a common signal of galaxy mergers. Scientists believe that in a galaxy merger, the smaller of the two interacting galaxies gets disrupted by the larger galaxy, losing most of its material. This releases the material, which then gets pulled in again by the gravity of the larger galaxy. The dense area where the material gets repositioned is called the shell, and it contains many star clusters. In addition to the shell, ESO 185-IG013 boasts a tail of gas in the northeast.

All of the stars in the system have a combined mass more than 7 billion times that of our Sun. The system is located about 260 million light-years away.

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Hubble Captures a Suspected Galaxy Encounter

Source: NASA

2 min read

UGC 3912 is classified as a spiral galaxy … but you wouldn’t know it from this detailed NASA Hubble Space Telescope image. UGC 3912’s distorted shape is typically indicative of a gravitational encounter with another galaxy. When galaxies interact – either brush up against each other’s gravitational fields or even collide – their stars, dust, and gas can be pulled into new paths. UGC 3912 might have once been an organized-looking spiral, but it looks like it’s been smudged out of shape by a giant thumb.

Fortunately, when galaxies interact, the individual stars and objects that orbit them remain whole even though their orbits can change so dramatically that the entire galaxy’s shape is altered.  That’s because the distances between stars in galaxies are so vast that they don’t crash into one another, just continue serenely along their new orbits.

Astronomers are studying UGC 3912  as part of an investigation into supernovae activity – when stars at least eight times larger than our Sun explode at the end of their lives. Hubble is examining one of the several types of supernovae, a hydrogen-rich phenomenon known as Type II. Though ample Type II supernovae have been observed, they exhibit enormous diversity in their brightness and spectroscopy and are not well understood. 

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NASA Puts Next-Gen Exoplanet-Imaging Technology to the Test

Source: NASA

A cutting-edge tool to view planets outside our solar system has passed two key tests ahead of its launch as part of the agency’s Roman Space Telescope by 2027.
The Coronagraph Instrument on NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will demonstrate new technologies that could vastly increase the number of planets outside our solar system (exoplanets) that scientists can directly observe. Designed and built at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, it recently passed a series of critical tests ahead of launch. That includes tests to ensure the instrument’s electrical components don’t interfere with those on the rest of the observatory and vice versa.  
“This is such an important and nerve-wracking stage of building a spacecraft instrument, testing whether or not everything works as intended,” said Feng Zhao, deputy project manager for the Roman Coronagraph at JPL. “But we have an amazing team who built this thing, and it passed the electrical components tests with flying colors.”
A coronagraph blocks light from a bright cosmic object, like a star, so that scientists can observe a nearby object that would otherwise be hidden by the glare. (Think of a car’s sun visor.) The light reflected or emitted by a planet carries information about the chemicals in the planet’s atmosphere and other potential signs of habitability, so coronagraphs will likely be a critical tool in the search for life beyond our solar system.
But if scientists were trying to obtain images of an Earth-like planet in another solar system (same size, same distance from a star similar to our Sun), they wouldn’t be able to see the planet in the star’s glare, even with the best coronagraphs and most powerful telescopes operating today.

The Roman Coronagraph aims to change that paradigm. The innovations that have gone into the instrument should make it possible to see planets similar to Jupiter in size and distance from their star. The Coronagraph team expects these advances will help enable the leap to viewing more Earth-like planets with future observatories.
As a technology demonstration, the Roman Coronagraph’s primary goal is to test technologies that have not been flown in space before. Specifically, it will test sophisticated light-blocking capabilities that are at least 10 times better than what’s currently available. Scientists expect to push its performance even further to observe challenging targets that could yield novel scientific discoveries.
Making the Grade
Even with the Coronagraph blocking a star’s light, a planet will still be exceptionally faint, and it might take a full month of observations to get a good picture of the distant world. To make these observations, the instrument’s camera detects individual photons, or single particles of light, making it far more sensitive than previous coronagraphs.
That’s one reason the recent tests were crucial: The electrical currents that send power to the spacecraft’s components can produce faint electrical signals, mimicking light in the Coronagraph’s sensitive cameras – an effect known as electromagnetic interference. Meanwhile, signals from the Coronagraph could similarly disrupt Roman’s other instruments.
The mission needs to ensure neither will happen when the telescope is operating in an isolated, electromagnetically quiet environment 1 million miles (about 1.5 million kilometers) from Earth. So a team of engineers put the fully assembled instrument in a special isolated, electromagnetically quiet chamber at JPL and turned it on to full power.
They measured the instrument’s electromagnetic output to make sure it fell below the level required to operate aboard Roman. The team used injection clamps, transformers, and antennas to produce electrical disturbances and radio waves similar to what the rest of the telescope will generate. Then they measured the instrument’s performance, looking for excessive noise in the camera images and other unwanted responses from the optical mechanisms.
“The electric fields we generate with the antennas are about the same strength as what’s generated by a computer screen,” said Clement Gaidon, the Roman Coronagraph electrical systems engineer at JPL. “That’s a pretty benign level, all things considered, but we have very sensitive hardware onboard. Overall, the instrument did a fantastic job navigating across the electromagnetic waves. And props to the team for wrapping this test campaign in record time!”
A Wide Field of View
The lessons learned from the Coronagraph technology demonstration will be separate from the Roman Space Telescope’s primary mission, which includes multiple science objectives. The mission’s principal tool, the Wide Field Instrument, is designed to generate some of the largest images of the universe ever taken from space. These images will enable Roman to conduct groundbreaking surveys of cosmic objects such as stars, planets, and galaxies, and study the large-scale distribution of matter in the universe.
For example, by taking repeated images of the center of the Milky Way – like a multiyear time-lapse movie – the Wide Field Instrument will discover tens of thousands of new exoplanets. (This planet survey will be separate from the observations made by the Coronagraph).
Roman will also make 3D maps of the cosmos to explore how galaxies have formed and why the universe’s expansion is speeding up, measuring the effects of what astronomers call “dark matter” and “dark energy.” With these wide-ranging capabilities, Roman will help answer questions about big and small features of our universe.
More About the Mission
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is managed at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, with participation by JPL and Caltech/IPAC in Southern California, the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, and a science team comprising scientists from various research institutions. The primary industrial partners are Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colorado; L3Harris Technologies in Melbourne, Florida; and Teledyne Scientific & Imaging in Thousand Oaks, California.
The Roman Coronagraph Instrument was designed and is being built at JPL, which manages the instrument for NASA. Contributions were made by ESA (the European Space Agency), JAXA (the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency), the French space agency CNES (Centre National d’Études Spatiales), and the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany. Caltech, in Pasadena, California, manages JPL for NASA. The Roman Science Support Center at Caltech/IPAC partners with JPL on data management for the Coronagraph and generating the instrument’s commands.
For more information about the Roman telescope, visit:
https://roman.gsfc.nasa.gov/
News Media Contacts
Calla CofieldJet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.626-808-2469calla.e.cofield@jpl.nasa.gov
Claire AndreoliNASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.301-286-1940claire.andreoli@nasa.gov
2024-010      

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Hubble Observes a Galactic Distortion

Source: NASA

1 min read

The galaxy NGC 5427 shines in this new NASA Hubble Space Telescope image. It’s part of the galaxy pair Arp 271, and its companion NGC 5426 is located below this galaxy and outside of this image’s frame. However, the effects of the pair’s gravitational attraction is visible in the galactic distortion and cosmic bridge of stars seen in the lower-right region of the image.

In 1785, British astronomer William Herschel discovered the pair, which is locked in an interaction that will last for tens of millions of years. Whether they will ultimately collide and merge is still uncertain, but their mutual gravitational attraction has already birthed many new stars. These young stars are visible in the faint bridge connecting the two galaxies, located at the bottom of the image. Such a bridge provides an avenue for the two galaxies to continue sharing the gas and dust that becomes new stars. Scientists believe Arp 271 can serve as a blueprint for future interactions between our Milky Way Galaxy and our neighbor the Andromeda Galaxy, expected to happen in about 4 billion years. 

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NASA Search and Rescue Technology Saves Explorers, Enables Exploration

Source: NASA

In 2023, NASA-developed search and rescue technologies aided first responders in locating and saving 350 lives in the United States. Now, NASA is incorporating that same technology in astronaut missions.

NASA provides technical expertise to the international satellite-aided search and rescue effort known as Cospas-Sarsat. This technical expertise has enabled the development of multiple emergency location beacon types, which explorers can use when in need.
Should an explorer become distressed or lost, they can activate the 406 MHz frequency beacon. The beacon sends a distress signal to a GPS (Global Positioning System) satellite in space, which then relays the signal location to the Cospas-Sarsat network. With the precise position of the beacon, the network can alert first responders anywhere in the world and initiate the rescue.
These beacons provide explorers with a sense of safety as they venture on land, air, and sea. There are three types of beacons available for users: personal locator beacons, used by hikers and other land explorers; emergency position indicating radio beacons, for boaters and sailors; and emergency locator transmitters for aircraft pilots.
In 2023, 51 rescues were made for activated personal locator beacons; 255 for emergency position indicating radio beacons; and 44 for emergency locator transmitters, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
NASA’s Search and Rescue office has a long legacy of Earth-based beacon development and is now applying that expertise to support NASA’s Artemis campaign. For Artemis I, beacons placed on the Orion spacecraft located the uncrewed capsule as it splashed down in the Pacific Ocean after its 1.4-million-mile journey around the Moon and back.
Going further, for Artemis II, NASA’s first crewed mission under Artemis, the agency is including second-generation beacons called ANGEL (Advanced Next-Generation Emergency Locators) on the astronauts’ life preservers and installing another location beacon onto the Orion spacecraft capsule. In the event NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen of CSA (Canadian Space Agency) may need to exit from Orion without the assistance of recovery personnel, NASA will be able to locate them immediately using the ANGEL beacon locations.
In July 2023, as part of the at-sea recovery testing for Artemis missions, search and rescue team members were aboard the USS John P. Murtha to validate ANGEL and the newly developed SAINT (SAR Intelligent Terminal) application, which tracks the beacons’ locations in real-time. The team is now readying itself for the next at-sea test of Artemis recovery procedures in February.
The Search and Rescue office is a part of the SCaN (Space Communications and Navigation) program office and is essential for NASA’s endeavors to the Moon and Mars. The office has a unique portfolio that advances NASA’s exploration capabilities while enabling the life-saving technology used by Earth-based adventurers.
NOAA manages the U.S. network region for Cospas-Sarsat, which relies on flight and ground technologies originally developed at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
The SCaN program at NASA Headquarters in Washington provides strategic oversight to the Search and Rescue office. U.S. region rescue efforts are led by the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Air Force, and many other local rescue authorities.
By Kendall MurphyNASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

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How is the 2024 Total Solar Eclipse Different than the 2017 Eclipse?

Source: NASA

5 min read

On April 8, the Moon’s shadow will sweep across the United States, as millions will view a total solar eclipse. For many, preparing for this event brings memories of the magnificent total solar eclipse on Aug. 21, 2017.

In 2017, an estimated 215 million U.S. adults (88% of U.S. adults) viewed the solar eclipse, either directly or electronically. They experienced the Moon pass in front of the Sun, blocking part or all of our closest star’s bright face. The eclipse in 2024 could be even more exciting due to differences in the path, timing, and scientific research.

Wider, More Populated Path

The path of totality – where viewers can see the Moon totally block the Sun, revealing the star’s outer atmosphere, called the corona – is much wider during the upcoming total solar eclipse than it was during the eclipse in 2017. As the Moon orbits Earth, its distance from our planet varies. During the 2017 total solar eclipse, the Moon was a little bit farther away from Earth than it will be during upcoming total solar eclipse, causing the path of that eclipse to be a little skinnier. In 2017, the path ranged from about 62 to 71 miles wide. During the April eclipse, the path over North America will range between 108 and 122 miles wide – meaning at any given moment, this eclipse covers more ground. 

The 2024 eclipse path will also pass over more cities and densely populated areas than the 2017 path did. This will make it easier for more people to see totality. An estimated 31.6 million people live in the path of totality this year, compared to 12 million in 2017. An additional 150 million people live within 200 miles of the path of totality.

You don’t need to live within the path of totality to see the eclipse – in April, 99% of people who reside in the United States will be able to see the partial or total eclipse from where they live. Every contiguous U.S. state, plus parts of Alaska and Hawaii, will experience at least a partial solar eclipse.

Longer Time in Totality

In April, totality will last longer than it did in 2017. Seven years ago, the longest period of totality was experienced near Carbondale, Illinois, at 2 minutes, 42 seconds. 

For the upcoming eclipse, totality will last up to 4 minutes, 28 seconds, in an area about 25 minutes northwest of Torreón, Mexico. As the eclipse enters Texas, totality will last about 4 minutes, 26 seconds at the center of the eclipse’s path. Durations longer than 4 minutes stretch as far north as Economy, Indiana. Even as the eclipse exits the U.S. and enters Canada, the eclipse will last up to 3 minutes, 21 seconds. 

During any total solar eclipse, totality lasts the longest near the center of the path, widthwise, and decreases toward the edge. But those seeking totality shouldn’t worry that they need to be exactly at the center. The time in totality falls off pretty slowly until you get close to the edge.

Heightened Solar Activity

Every 11 years or so, the Sun’s magnetic field flips, causing a cycle of increasing then decreasing solar activity. During solar minimum, there are fewer giant eruptions from the Sun, such as solar flares and coronal mass ejections. But during solar maximum, the Sun becomes more active.

In 2017, the Sun was nearing solar minimum. Viewers of the total eclipse could see the breathtaking corona – but since the Sun was quiet, streamers flowing into the solar atmosphere were restricted to just the equatorial regions of the star. The Sun is more magnetically symmetrical during solar minimum, causing this simpler appearance. During the 2024 eclipse, the Sun will be in or near solar maximum, when the magnetic field is more like a tangled hairball. Streamers will likely be visible throughout the corona. In addition to that, viewers will have a better chance to see prominences – which appear as bright, pink curls or loops coming off the Sun.

With lucky timing, there could even be a chance to see a coronal mass ejection – a large eruption of solar material – during the eclipse.

Expanded Scientific Research

During the total eclipse in 2024, NASA is funding several research initiatives that build on research done during the 2017 eclipse. The projects, which are led by researchers at different academic institutions, will study the Sun and its influence on Earth with a variety of instruments, including cameras aboard high-altitude research planes, ham radios, and more. In addition to those projects, instruments that were launched during the 2023 annular solar eclipse on three sounding rockets will again be launched during the upcoming total solar eclipse.

Two spacecraft designed to study the Sun’s corona – NASA’s Parker Solar Probe and ESA (European Space Agency) and NASA’s Solar Orbiter – have also launched since the 2017 solar eclipse. These missions will provide insights from the corona itself, while viewers on Earth see it with their own eyes, providing an exciting opportunity to combine and compare viewpoints.

Special thanks to Michael Zeiler for his calculations on the populations in the eclipse path.

The 2017 total solar eclipse viewing analysis was conducted by Professor Jon D. Miller of the University of Michigan. This study was supported by a collaborative agreement between the University of Michigan and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (award NNX16AC66A).

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NASA’s Webb Depicts Staggering Structure in 19 Nearby Spiral Galaxies

Source: NASA

It’s oh-so-easy to be absolutely mesmerized by these spiral galaxies. Follow their clearly defined arms, which are brimming with stars, to their centers, where there may be old star clusters and – sometimes – active supermassive black holes. Only NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope can deliver highly detailed scenes of nearby galaxies in a combination of near- and mid-infrared light – and a set of these images was publicly released today.

These Webb images are part of a large, long-standing project, the Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS (PHANGS) program, which is supported by more than 150 astronomers worldwide. Before Webb took these images, PHANGS was already brimming with data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, the Very Large Telescope’s Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer, and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, including observations in ultraviolet, visible, and radio light. Webb’s near- and mid-infrared contributions have provided several new puzzle pieces.

“Webb’s new images are extraordinary,” said Janice Lee, a project scientist for strategic initiatives at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. “They’re mind-blowing even for researchers who have studied these same galaxies for decades. Bubbles and filaments are resolved down to the smallest scales ever observed, and tell a story about the star formation cycle.”

Excitement rapidly spread throughout the team as the Webb images flooded in. “I feel like our team lives in a constant state of being overwhelmed – in a positive way – by the amount of detail in these images,” added Thomas Williams, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.

Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) captured millions of stars in these images, which sparkle in blue tones. Some stars are spread throughout the spiral arms, but others are clumped tightly together in star clusters.

The telescope’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) data highlights glowing dust, showing us where it exists around and between stars. It also spotlights stars that haven’t yet fully formed – they are still encased in the gas and dust that feed their growth, like bright red seeds at the tips of dusty peaks. “These are where we can find the newest, most massive stars in the galaxies,” said Erik Rosolowsky, a professor of physics at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada.

Something else that amazed astronomers? Webb’s images show large, spherical shells in the gas and dust. “These holes may have been created by one or more stars that exploded, carving out giant holes in the interstellar material,” explained Adam Leroy, a professor of astronomy at the Ohio State University in Columbus.

Now, trace the spiral arms to find extended regions of gas that appear red and orange. “These structures tend to follow the same pattern in certain parts of the galaxies,” Rosolowsky added. “We think of these like waves, and their spacing tells us a lot about how a galaxy distributes its gas and dust.” Study of these structures will provide key insights about how galaxies build, maintain, and shut off star formation.

Evidence shows that galaxies grow from inside out – star formation begins at galaxies’ cores and spreads along their arms, spiraling away from the center. The farther a star is from the galaxy’s core, the more likely it is to be younger. In contrast, the areas near the cores that look lit by a blue spotlight are populations of older stars.

What about galaxy cores that are awash in pink-and-red diffraction spikes? “That’s a clear sign that there may be an active supermassive black hole,” said Eva Schinnerer, a staff scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany. “Or, the star clusters toward the center are so bright that they have saturated that area of the image.”

There are many avenues of research that scientists can begin to pursue with the combined PHANGS data, but the unprecedented number of stars Webb resolved are a great place to begin. “Stars can live for billions or trillions of years,” Leroy said. “By precisely cataloging all types of stars, we can build a more reliable, holistic view of their life cycles.”

In addition to immediately releasing these images, the PHANGS team has also released the largest catalog to date of roughly 100,000 star clusters. “The amount of analysis that can be done with these images is vastly larger than anything our team could possibly handle,” Rosolowsky emphasized. “We’re excited to support the community so all researchers can contribute.”

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency.

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NASA’s LRO Spots Japan’s Moon Lander 

Source: NASA

On Jan. 19, 2024, at 10:20 a.m. EST, the JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) landed on the lunar surface. Five days later, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft passed over the landing site and photographed SLIM.

LRO acquired the image at an altitude of about 50 miles (80 km). Bright streaks on the left side of the image are rocky material ejected from the nearby, relatively young Shioli crater.
Japan is the fifth nation to complete a soft landing on the lunar surface.

LRO is managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Launched on June 18, 2009, LRO has collected a treasure trove of data with its seven powerful instruments, making an invaluable contribution to our knowledge about the Moon. Arizona State University manages and operates the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, LROC.

Media Contact:Nancy N. JonesNASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

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Hubble Captures a Faint Bridge of Stars

Source: NASA

2 min read

One of the galaxies from a galactic group known as Arp 295 is visible in this new NASA Hubble Space Telescope image, along with part of the faint 250,000-light-year-long bridge of stars and gas that stretches between two of the galaxies. The galaxies have passed close enough together that their mutual gravity created this cosmic streamer. 

When galaxies pass close enough to gravitationally disrupt each other’s shape, they are known as interacting galaxies. This type of interaction happens over billions of years and repeated close passages can result in the merger of the two galaxies. Galactic mergers are thought to be common, and even our own Milky Way is expected to merge with the massive, neighboring Andromeda galaxy in about 4 billion years.

Arp 295 is made up of three spiral galaxies designated Arp 295a, Arp 295b, and Arp 295c. Arp 295a is the edge-on galaxy seen in the center of the image, and Arp 295c is the smaller and bluer face-on spiral to its right. Arp 295b is off the top left of this image and not visible here. Together, they are the largest of a loose grouping of galaxies located about 270 million light-years in the direction of the constellation Aquarius. 

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