This Is The Orion Nebula! ✨✨✨

Tuesday 12th July, 14:30 UTC

Make a note in your own time zone Zespacebloggers, probably the biggest event in astronomy in our lifetimes is about to drop a large amount of images and data from the new JWST.

Nasa has kindly provided us with a few images that are amongst the first targets of the JWST, some very familiar to those on this blog, and others that may become the new iconic images as we move from the Hubble era into the JWST one.

The Carina Nebula, a common feature here, and one of the most spectacular nebula's in our night sky. The nebula is located 8,500 light years from Earth in the constellation of Carina and contains the famous Eta Carina.

Next on the list is an exoplanet, WASP 96 B, a planet half the size of Jupiter orbiting it's sun every 3.4 days, and JWST has managed to capture a spectrum of light from the atmosphere of this planet as it passes between us and it's star. While this won't be a pretty picture of a planet, the ability to read the spectrum of light from a exoplanet, will allow us to give a much better view of the atmosphere and what it's actually made up of, not bad for a planet over 1,150 light years from Earth.

Next up is the Southern Ring Nebula NGC 3132, 2,000 light years from Earth in the constellation of Vela. This is a planetary nebula, the final shedding of the atmosphere of a star that was once not too dissimilar to our own sun. If you look closely you can see there are two stars in the centre, the white dwarf responsible for the ring is the small dot just above a binary partner star that has yet to end it's life. The heat from the tiny white dwarf is what is responsible for the nebula glow, as it bombards it with UV radiation.

Stephan's Quintet featured here recently, is a group of galaxies 290 million light years from Earth, I personally can't wait to see this one from JWST.

Finally there is SMACS 0723, a distant cluster of galaxies that include many examples of gravitational lensing, and I would suspect, this is the deep space image that is attempting to use that gravitational lensing to see further back in time than ever before, just a 100+ million years after the big bang.

There's a HUGE amount to look forward to this week, and just as we still turn to Hubble to take our breath away, the material coming from JWST will continue to do this long into the future.

Giant Planets at near-IR wavelengths with adaptive optics

l images not to scale; via ResearchGate

Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope combined the capabilities of the telescope’s two cameras to create a never-before-seen view of a star-forming region in the Carina Nebula. Captured in infrared light by the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), this combined image reveals previously invisible areas of star birth. 

Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

there are southern lights?!

YES THERE ARE MY FRIEND AURORA AUSTRALIS THE DAWN OF THE SOTUH. CAUSE THEY'RE IN THE SOUTH

they're the exact same thing as the northern lights: a phenomenon in the atmosphere due to the interaction of the solar winds against the earth's magnetic field and gases up there

HOWEVER

they differ in one major way however: pink as a color shows up more commonly than in the north!

LOOK AT HOW PRETTY

the classic green aurora is of course still around it is one of the more common colors but pink shows up just a bit more frequently than in the north!

unobtainable watermelon

they are absolutely stunning and one of the best ways to see them is on a cruise (ehhhhhhhh) or going to antarctica!!!!!

i'm obsessed with these funky little things like look at nature's neon lights she's so pretty. they're absolutely beautiful and it is on my bucket list to see both of them

Moon’s vast lava plain, Mare Imbrium close-up

l Roger Hyman l Jan 2022

NGC 6302, Butterfly

Another love - old asian cinema

𝑵𝒐𝒓𝒕𝒉 𝑨𝒎𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒄𝒂 𝑵𝒆𝒃𝒖𝒍𝒂

This view of the North America nebula combines both visible and infrared light observations, taken by the Digitized Sky Survey and NASA Spitzer Space Telescope. Clusters of young stars about one million years old can be found throughout the image.

miss those times...<3