Inbox Astronomy: NASA Webb Explores Effect of Strong Magnetic Fields on Star Formation

INBOX ASTRONOMY

NASA Webb Explores Effect of Strong Magnetic Fields on Star Formation

Release date: Wednesday, April 2, 2025 10:00:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Two new research studies explore how a stellar nursery in the heart of the Milky Way is affected by the region’s strong magnetic fields.

Despite decades of study, the process of star formation still holds many mysteries. Stars are the source of nearly all the universe’s chemical elements, including carbon and oxygen, so understanding why and how they form — or not — is a crucial initial step in understanding how the universe works and the origins of just about everything, including life on Earth. 

At the heart of our Milky Way galaxy is the star-forming region Sagittarius C, which despite a wealth of raw material does not make as many stars as astronomers would expect. Two new studies have used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to investigate star formation in this extreme environment that is relatively near the supermassive black hole at the core of the Milky Way, at 200 light-years distance. 

  Read more  

Find additional articles, images, and videos at WebbTelescope.org

  Please do not reply to this message.
You are receiving this email because you are subscribed to the Inbox Astronomy mailing list.

 

Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute's Office of Public Outreach

 

Inbox Astronomy: 20-Year Hubble Study of Uranus Yields New Atmospheric Insights

INBOX ASTRONOMY

20-Year Hubble Study of Uranus Yields New Atmospheric Insights

Release date: Monday, March 31, 2025 1:00:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time

Uranus findings can aid the study of exoplanets.

Halfway through its fourth decade, Hubble’s long life has proven invaluable for studying the atmosphere of the mysterious ice giant Uranus. By repeatedly training Hubble on the distant cyan planet over the course of 20 years, researchers chronicled a two-decade story of seasonal changes. These astronomers have gained new understanding of the atmospheric dynamics of Uranus, which can serve as a proxy for studying exoplanets of similar size and composition.

  Read more  

Find additional articles, images, and videos at www.stsci.edu

  Please do not reply to this message.
You are receiving this email because you are subscribed to the Inbox Astronomy mailing list.

 

Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute's Office of Public Outreach

 

Inbox Astronomy: NASA Awards Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowships for 2025

INBOX ASTRONOMY

NASA Awards Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowships for 2025

Release date: Monday, March 31, 2025 10:00:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

The NHFP enables outstanding postdoctoral scientists to pursue independent research in any area of NASA Astrophysics, using theory, observations, simulations, experimentation, or instrument development.

The highly competitive NASA Hubble Fellowship Program (NHFP) recently named 24 new fellows to its 2025 class.  Over 650 applicants vied for the 2025 fellowships. Each fellowship provides the awardee up to three years of support at a U.S. institution.

  Read more  

Find additional articles, images, and videos at www.stsci.edu

  Please do not reply to this message.
You are receiving this email because you are subscribed to the Inbox Astronomy mailing list.

 

Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute's Office of Public Outreach

 

Inbox Astronomy: STScI Astronomer Carol Christian Elected AAAS Fellow

INBOX ASTRONOMY

STScI Astronomer Carol Christian Elected AAAS Fellow

Release date: Thursday, March 27, 2025 10:00:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Dr. Christian is being honored by the AAAS for exceptional leadership in bringing astronomy and astronomy images to the broader range of the public, notably the seeing impaired.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has elected Dr. Carol Christian, Hubble Space Telescope Outreach Project Scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, as a 2024 Fellow of the AAAS. She is currently team lead of 3D Astronomy, a project bringing Hubble telescope and Webb telescope data, as well as data from other sources, to visually impaired individuals. She's also co-investigator on the Career Exploration Lab program that supports educators with tools to engage blind and visually impaired students and includes a summer camp experience.

  Read more  

Find additional articles, images, and videos at www.stsci.edu

  Please do not reply to this message.
You are receiving this email because you are subscribed to the Inbox Astronomy mailing list.

 

Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute's Office of Public Outreach

 

Inbox Astronomy: NASA's Webb Sees Galaxy Mysteriously Clearing Fog of Early Universe

INBOX ASTRONOMY

NASA's Webb Sees Galaxy Mysteriously Clearing Fog of Early Universe

Release date: Wednesday, March 26, 2025 12:00:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time

Unexpected, bright hydrogen emission caught astronomers by surprise.

The early universe was filled with a thick fog of neutral hydrogen. Even though the first stars and galaxies emitted copious amounts of ultraviolet light, that light struggled to pierce the fog. It took hundreds of millions of years for the neutral hydrogen to become ionized, electrons stripped from protons, allowing light to travel freely through space.

Astronomers are seeking to understand this unique time of transformation, known as the era of reionization. A newly discovered galaxy illuminated this era in an unexpected way. JADES-GS-z13-1, observed just 330 million years after the big bang, shows bright hydrogen emission that should have been absorbed by the cosmic fog. Theorists are struggling to explain how its light could have pierced the fog at such an early time.

  Read more  

Find additional articles, images, and videos at WebbTelescope.org

  Please do not reply to this message.
You are receiving this email because you are subscribed to the Inbox Astronomy mailing list.

 

Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute's Office of Public Outreach

 

Inbox Astronomy: NASA's Webb Captures Neptune's Auroras For First Time

INBOX ASTRONOMY

NASA's Webb Captures Neptune's Auroras For First Time

Release date: Wednesday, March 26, 2025 6:00:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Long-sought auroral glow finally emerges under Webb’s powerful gaze.

Neptune lies in the frigid, dark, vast frontier of the outer edges of our solar system about 3 billion miles away from the Sun.

It’s only been visited once by a spacecraft back in 1989, and since then, observatories like NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have tracked the planet’s changing weather. Hubble even discovered a new moon orbiting the planet in 2013.

In many images, the planet appears as a blueish orb, sometimes with disappearing and reappearing dark spots. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has now revealed a different appearance—for the first time, a bright auroral glow from this ice giant.

  Read more  

Find additional articles, images, and videos at WebbTelescope.org

  Please do not reply to this message.
You are receiving this email because you are subscribed to the Inbox Astronomy mailing list.

 

Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute's Office of Public Outreach

 

Inbox Astronomy: NASA's Webb Telescope Unmasks True Nature of the Cosmic Tornado

INBOX ASTRONOMY

NASA's Webb Telescope Unmasks True Nature of the Cosmic Tornado 

Release date: Monday, March 24, 2025 10:00:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Webb’s exquisite details reveal a chance, random alignment of a protostellar outflow and a distant spiral galaxy.

When peering out into space, we get a 2D view of a 3D universe. Sometimes, images will capture objects that appear close to each other on the sky, but are actually at wildly different distances and are unassociated with each other.

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope captured this beautiful juxtaposition of the nearby protostellar outflow known as Herbig-Haro 49/50 with a perfectly positioned, more distant spiral galaxy. Due to the close proximity of this Herbig-Haro object to the Earth, this new composite infrared image of the outflow from a young star allows researchers to examine details on small spatial scales like never before. With Webb, we can better understand how the jet activity associated with the formation of young stars can affect their surrounding environment.

  Read more  

Find additional articles, images, and videos at WebbTelescope.org

  Please do not reply to this message.
You are receiving this email because you are subscribed to the Inbox Astronomy mailing list.

 

Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute's Office of Public Outreach

 

Inbox Astronomy: NASA's Webb Images Young, Giant Exoplanets, Detects Carbon Dioxide

INBOX ASTRONOMY

NASA's Webb Images Young, Giant Exoplanets, Detects Carbon Dioxide

Release date: Monday, March 17, 2025 10:00:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Findings suggest giant exoplanets in HR 8799 system likely formed like Jupiter and Saturn.

The first planet outside our solar system was discovered in the 1990’s, but it wasn’t until more than a decade later astronomers actually obtained a direct image of one. It’s extremely difficult to image an exoplanet, as stars in other planetary systems can be thousands of times brighter and bigger than their planets.

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is equipped with a highly sensitive coronagraph, a tiny mask that blocks the light of the star, allowing Webb to image exoplanets.

Webb’s new images of two iconic systems, HR 8799 and 51 Eridani, and their planets have stunned researchers, and provided additional information into the chemical make-up of the young gas giants.

  Read more  

Find additional articles, images, and videos at WebbTelescope.org

  Please do not reply to this message.
You are receiving this email because you are subscribed to the Inbox Astronomy mailing list.

 

Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute's Office of Public Outreach

 

Inbox Astronomy: NASA's Webb Peers Deeper into Mysterious Flame Nebula

INBOX ASTRONOMY

NASA's Webb Peers Deeper into Mysterious Flame Nebula

Release date: Monday, March 10, 2025 10:00:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

New population census answers the question: How small can you go when forming stars and brown dwarfs?

The Flame Nebula, a star-forming region in the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex, has a long history of observation from telescopes such as NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. However, the smallest stars within its dark and dusty heart have largely been hidden from view. The infrared vision from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has taken a first-time look, counting the smallest and faintest objects to determine the lowest mass required to form brown dwarfs.

  Read more  

Find additional articles, images, and videos at WebbTelescope.org

  Please do not reply to this message.
You are receiving this email because you are subscribed to the Inbox Astronomy mailing list.

 

Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute's Office of Public Outreach