It might be the end of the road for two of NASA’s most iconic telescopes as the space agency looks to reduce the funding for the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, much to the dismay of scientists who rely heavily on the cosmic observations of the missions. The Fujifilm X100VI is the Most Fun I’ve Had With a Camera in Years Shortly after the fate of its 2024 budget was sealed, NASA released its budget proposal for 2025, requesting $1.58 billion for its astrophysics division. Despite the 3% increase from what the space agency received this year to spend on astrophysics research, it represents a small reduction in the amount spent on Hubble and a major downgrade for Chandra’s budget. The proposed budget for Hubble Space Telescope in 2025 is $88.9 million, a slight decrease from $98.3 million in 2024, while the Chandra X-Ray Observatory would drop from $68.3 million in 2023 to $41.1 million in 2025 and a further reduction to $26.6 million the following year. “The reduction to Chandra will start orderly mission drawdown to minimal operations,” the budget document read. In its budget request, NASA argues that the Chandra spacecraft “has been degrading over its mission lifetime to the extent that several systems require active management to keep temperatures within acceptable ranges for spacecraft operations. This makes scheduling and the post processing of data more complex, increasing mission management costs beyond what NASA can currently afford.” Patrick Slane, director of the Chandra X-ray Center, responded in a statement, arguing that, while temperatures of the spacecraft have been increasing, the team has “developed thermal models and processes to manage this situation and have done so with amazing success—experiencing little or no decrease in observing efficiency, which far exceeds the initial requirements for the mission.” In the statement, Slane also expressed confusion over NASA’s claim of increasing costs, recalling that there was only one instance in which the Chandra mission requested two additional people on the flight team, resulting in a 1% increase in cost in 2022. The decision may not be a reflection of Chandra per say, but rather an indication of the budgetary constraints on NASA. The space agency received $24.875 billion for its budget this year, about half a billion less than its 2023 budget and some $2.31 billion short of what it was hoping to spend on its various programs in 2024. Chandra and Hubble are the only two remaining Great Observatories, NASA’s four large telescopes launched between 1990 and 2003, marking a golden age of cosmic discovery (the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, launched in 1991, and the Spitzer Space Telescope, launched in 2003, are the others). Hubble launched on April 24, 1990, and has since revolutionized our view of the universe, capturing images of merging galaxies and nebulae teeming with baby stars as far as 13.4 billion
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Why we need to save NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory (Space Telescope) NewScientist article: https://lnkd.in/ePcU6k2F After 25 years in orbit, the Chandra X-ray Observatory is under threat. We need to protect this monument to human ingenuity, argues Chanda Prescod-Weinstein On 23 July 1999, just months before I started university, NASA’s space shuttle Columbia launched with precious cargo on board. Not only was it carrying the first crew to be led by a woman, Eileen Collins, but its primary goal was to launch a new flagship space telescope, the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Chandra was the heaviest payload that NASA’s space shuttles ever carried, and it turned out to be one of the last two completed missions by Columbia before it tragically exploded after launch on 1 February 2003. Chandra was the first, and so far only, NASA mission named for a person of colour, the late theoretical astrophysicist and Nobel laureate Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, known to his friends and family as Chandra. Chandrasekhar, whose family name means “moon crown”, made many significant contributions to astrophysics. His most important was figuring out the Chandrasekhar limit, the maximum mass a white dwarf stellar remnant can be before it collapses and forms a black hole. It is appropriate to name an X-ray telescope mission after a scientist who spent his life thinking about the physics of black holes, because X-ray telescopes play a key role in black hole research. X-rays are high-energy light waves. This means they are produced in extremely energetic environments like the regions around black holes, where the strong gravitational pull due to space-time’s extreme distortion causes particles to accelerate to very high speeds. In other words, we see a whole other universe when we look at it through the lens of X-ray astronomy rather than the visible wavelengths of more traditional telescopes. Importantly, X-ray astronomy can’t be done from Earth’s surface because our atmosphere blocks X-rays. That is good for human health, but not so great for astronomers. Thus, Chandra serves as a reminder of how important it is to keep low Earth orbit free of debris: we need to be able to safely launch space telescopes that do work we simply can’t manage from the ground. Continue Reading this article: https://lnkd.in/ePcU6k2F
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NASA Budget Threatens Fate of Veteran X-Ray Telescope, Alarming Astronomers It mightiness beryllium the extremity of the roadworthy for 2 of NASA’s astir iconic telescopes arsenic the abstraction bureau looks to trim the backing for the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, overmuch to the dismay of scientists who trust heavy connected the cosmic observations of the missions. The Fujifilm X100VI is the Most Fun I’ve Had With a Camera successful Years Shortly aft the fate of its 2024 fund was sealed, NASA released its budget proposal for 2025, requesting $1.58 cardinal for its astrophysics division. Despite the 3% summation from what the abstraction bureau received this twelvemonth to walk connected astrophysics research, it represents a tiny simplification successful the magnitude spent connected Hubble and a large downgrade for Chandra’s budget. The projected fund for Hubble Space Telescope successful 2025 is $88.9 million, a flimsy alteration from $98.3 cardinal successful 2024, portion the Chandra X-Ray Observatory would driblet from $68.3 cardinal successful 2023 to $41.1 cardinal successful 2025 and a further simplification to $26.6 cardinal the pursuing year. “The simplification to Chandra volition commencement orderly ngo drawdown to minimal operations,” the fund papers read. In its fund request, NASA argues that the Chandra spacecraft “has been degrading implicit its ngo beingness to the grade that respective systems necessitate progressive absorption to support temperatures wrong acceptable ranges for spacecraft operations. This makes scheduling and the station processing of information much complex, expanding ngo absorption costs beyond what NASA tin presently afford.” Patrick Slane, manager of the Chandra X-ray Center, responded successful a statement, arguing that, portion temperatures of the spacecraft person been increasing, the squad has “developed thermal models and processes to negociate this concern and person done truthful with astonishing success—experiencing small oregon nary alteration successful observing efficiency, which acold exceeds the archetypal requirements for the mission.” In the statement, Slane besides expressed disorder implicit NASA’s assertion of expanding costs, recalling that determination was lone 1 lawsuit successful which the Chandra ngo requested 2 further radical connected the formation team, resulting successful a 1% summation successful outgo successful 2022. The determination whitethorn not beryllium a reflection of Chandra per say, but alternatively an denotation of the budgetary constraints connected NASA. The abstraction bureau received $24.875 cardinal for its fund this year, astir fractional a cardinal little than its 2023 fund and immoderate $2.31 cardinal abbreviated of what it was hoping to walk con...
NASA Budget Threatens Fate of Veteran X-Ray Telescope, Alarming Astronomers It mightiness beryllium the extremity of the roadworthy for 2 of NASA’s astir iconic telescopes arsenic the abstraction bureau looks to trim the backing for the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, overmuch to the dismay of scientists who trust heavy connected the cosmic observati...
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NASA’s BurstCube, a shoebox-sized satellite designed to study the universe’s most powerful explosions, is on its way to the International Space Station. The spacecraft travels aboard SpaceX’s 30th Commercial Resupply Services mission, which lifted off at 4:55 p.m. EDT on Thursday, March 21, from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. After arriving at the station, BurstCube will be unpacked and later released into orbit, where it will detect, locate, and study short gamma-ray bursts – brief flashes of high-energy light. “BurstCube may be small, but in addition to investigating these extreme events, it’s testing new technology and providing important experience for early career astronomers and aerospace engineers,” said Jeremy Perkins, BurstCube’s principal investigator at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Short gamma-ray bursts usually occur after the collisions of neutron stars, the superdense remnants of massive stars that exploded in supernovae. The neutron stars can also emit gravitational waves, ripples in the fabric of space-time, as they spiral together. Astronomers are interested in studying gamma-ray bursts using both light and gravitational waves because each can teach them about different aspects of the event. This approach is part of a new way of understanding the cosmos called multimessenger astronomy. The collisions that create short gamma-ray bursts also produce heavy elements like gold and iodine, an essential ingredient for life as we know it. Currently, the only joint observation of gravitational waves and light from the same event – called GW170817 – was in 2017. It was a watershed moment in multimessenger astronomy, and the scientific community has been hoping and preparing for additional concurrent discoveries since. “BurstCube’s detectors are angled to allow us to detect and localize events over a wide area of the sky,” said Israel Martinez, research scientist and BurstCube team member at the University of Maryland, College Park and Goddard. “Our current gamma-ray missions can only see about 70% of the sky at any moment because Earth blocks their view. Increasing our coverage with satellites like BurstCube improves the odds we’ll catch more bursts coincident with gravitational wave detections.” BurstCube’s main instrument detects gamma rays with energies ranging from 50,000 to 1 million electron volts. (For comparison, visible light ranges between 2 and 3 electron volts.) #NASA #BurstCube #CubeSat The BurstCube satellite sits in its flight configuration in this photo taken in the Goddard CubeSat Lab in 2023. (NASA)
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Zooming to The Serpens Nebula | James Webb Space Telescope FriendsofNASA.org: This zoom-in video shows the relative location of the Serpens Nebula in the sky. It begins with a ground-based photo by the late astrophotographer Akira Fujii, then transitions into a plate from the Digitized Sky Survey. Next, an image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope appears, and finally the video arrives at the image of Serpens from the NASA/European Space Agency/Canadian Space Agency James Webb Space Telescope. For the first time, a phenomenon astronomers have long hoped to image directly has been captured by James Webb Space Telescope’s Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam). In this image of the Serpens Nebula, the discovery lies in the northern area of this young, nearby star-forming region. Astronomers have found an intriguing group of protostellar outflows, formed when jets of gas spewing from newborn stars collide with nearby gas and dust at high speeds. Typically these objects have a variety of orientations within one region. Here, however, they are all slanted in the same direction, to the same degree, like sleet pouring down during a storm. The discovery of these aligned objects, made possible only by Webb’s exquisite spatial resolution and sensitivity at near-infrared wavelengths, is providing information about the fundamentals of how stars are born. The Serpens Nebula, located 1,300 light-years from Earth, is home to a particularly dense cluster of newly forming stars (about 100,000 years old), where a number will eventually grow to the mass of our Sun. Webb’s image of this nebula revealed a grouping of aligned protostellar outflows (seen in the top left). The jets are identified by bright clumpy streaks that appear red. These are shock waves caused when the jet hits the surrounding gas and dust. Throughout this image filaments and wisps of distinct hues represent reflected starlight from still-forming protostars within the cloud. There is dust in front of that reflection and it appears here in an orange, diffuse shade. Video Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, A. Pagan (STScI) Acknowledgement: Akira Fujii, Digitized Sky Survey, Spitzer Space Telescope Duration: 33 seconds Release Date: June 20, 2024 Dan Goldin Patrick CUVELIER Hartmut Schöne Olga Dragunova Jimmy Balimis #NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Nebulae #Nebula #SerpensNebula #Stars #Jets #ProtostellarOutflows #Serpens #Constellation #Universe #JamesWebb #SpaceTelescope #JWST #Infrared #UnfoldTheUniverse #ESA #CSA #GSFC #STSc #UnitedStates #STEM #Education #HD #Video
Zooming to The Serpens Nebula | James Webb Space Telescope FriendsofNASA.org: This zoom-in video shows the relative location of the Serpens Nebula in
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Chief Editor, Executive Director & Founder of Friends of NASA | Independent Analyst & Digital Media Specialist
Zooming to The Serpens Nebula | James Webb Space Telescope FriendsofNASA.org: This zoom-in video shows the relative location of the Serpens Nebula in the sky. It begins with a ground-based photo by the late astrophotographer Akira Fujii, then transitions into a plate from the Digitized Sky Survey. Next, an image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope appears, and finally the video arrives at the image of Serpens from the NASA/European Space Agency/Canadian Space Agency James Webb Space Telescope. For the first time, a phenomenon astronomers have long hoped to image directly has been captured by James Webb Space Telescope’s Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam). In this image of the Serpens Nebula, the discovery lies in the northern area of this young, nearby star-forming region. Astronomers have found an intriguing group of protostellar outflows, formed when jets of gas spewing from newborn stars collide with nearby gas and dust at high speeds. Typically these objects have a variety of orientations within one region. Here, however, they are all slanted in the same direction, to the same degree, like sleet pouring down during a storm. The discovery of these aligned objects, made possible only by Webb’s exquisite spatial resolution and sensitivity at near-infrared wavelengths, is providing information about the fundamentals of how stars are born. The Serpens Nebula, located 1,300 light-years from Earth, is home to a particularly dense cluster of newly forming stars (about 100,000 years old), where a number will eventually grow to the mass of our Sun. Webb’s image of this nebula revealed a grouping of aligned protostellar outflows (seen in the top left). The jets are identified by bright clumpy streaks that appear red. These are shock waves caused when the jet hits the surrounding gas and dust. Throughout this image filaments and wisps of distinct hues represent reflected starlight from still-forming protostars within the cloud. There is dust in front of that reflection and it appears here in an orange, diffuse shade. Video Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, A. Pagan (STScI) Acknowledgement: Akira Fujii, Digitized Sky Survey, Spitzer Space Telescope Duration: 33 seconds Release Date: June 20, 2024 Uldouz K. William Santelli Marcus Beaufort Pere Mir Mitra Nikpay Diane M. Rousseau LHD, Ph.D Şeyda Erdem Claudette Walker #NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Nebulae #Nebula #SerpensNebula #Stars #Jets #ProtostellarOutflows #Serpens #Constellation #Universe #JamesWebb #SpaceTelescope #JWST #Infrared #UnfoldTheUniverse #ESA #CSA #GSFC #STSc #UnitedStates #STEM #Education #HD #Video
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Chief Editor, Executive Director & Founder of Friends of NASA | Independent Analyst & Digital Media Specialist
NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope: Hardware Highlights Spring 2024 FriendsofNASA.org | Full article: https://lnkd.in/gFvpdBTU Every day, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope moves closer to completion. This video highlights examples of the important hardware milestones from part of this journey. Components and systems are built separately, tested, and then integrated with larger parts of the spacecraft to carefully build the full telescope. Roman’s foundation is the primary structure, or spacecraft bus. It houses electronics and support systems. Like the chassis of a car, everything is built up from this aluminum hexagon. This video, covering the spring of 2024, opens with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center’s integration and testing complex. The flight versions of the Solar Array Sun Shield panels are unpacked in Goddard’s largest clean room and placed into special racks to safely hold them. Multiple copies of hardware often exist, most for testing purposes; flight hardware is the version that will actually fly in space on the final spacecraft. The Wide Field Instrument is Roman’s primary one and it will capture enormous images of distant objects. Assembled by BAE Systems in Colorado, it undergoes environmental testing at their facilities, proving that it can function in space, before traveling to Goddard for integration with the rest of the spacecraft. The Coronagraph Instrument, a technology demonstration that will be able to directly image planets outside our solar system, was developed and built at JPL in California. After comprehensive testing there, JPL carefully transported the Coronagraph across the country to Goddard, where a team of JPL and Goddard engineers carefully unpacked it and performed a thorough inspection as well as continued testing. To learn more about all these systems and where they fit into Roman, visit: https://lnkd.in/gKW3CUGE Launching no later than May 2027, Roman is NASA’s next flagship astrophysics mission. An infrared survey telescope with the same resolution as Hubble but at least 100 times the field of view, Roman is being built and tested at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Partners from around the globe are contributing to this effort. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Producer: Scott Wiessinger (KBR Wyle Services, LLC) Videographers: Sophia Roberts (Advocates in Manpower Management, Inc.) Scott Wiessinger (KBR Wyle Services, LLC) Public affairs officer: Claire Andreoli (NASA/GSFC) Editor: Scott Wiessinger (KBR Wyle Services, LLC) Duration: 1 minute, 29 seconds Release Date: July 31, 2024 NASA Goddard Space Flight Center NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Space Telescope Science Institute #NASA #Space #Astronomy #Science #Women #Leaders #Pioneers #NancyGraceRoman #Astronomer #History #RomanSpaceTelescope #Exoplanets #Planets #SolarSystem #MilkyWayGalaxy #Stars #Cosmos #Universe #SpaceTelescope #JPL #GSFC #STScI #STEM #Education #HD #Video
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NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope: Hardware Highlights Spring 2024 FriendsofNASA.org | Full article: https://lnkd.in/gFvpdBTU Every day, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope moves closer to completion. This video highlights examples of the important hardware milestones from part of this journey. Components and systems are built separately, tested, and then integrated with larger parts of the spacecraft to carefully build the full telescope. Roman’s foundation is the primary structure, or spacecraft bus. It houses electronics and support systems. Like the chassis of a car, everything is built up from this aluminum hexagon. This video, covering the spring of 2024, opens with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center’s integration and testing complex. The flight versions of the Solar Array Sun Shield panels are unpacked in Goddard’s largest clean room and placed into special racks to safely hold them. Multiple copies of hardware often exist, most for testing purposes; flight hardware is the version that will actually fly in space on the final spacecraft. The Wide Field Instrument is Roman’s primary one and it will capture enormous images of distant objects. Assembled by BAE Systems in Colorado, it undergoes environmental testing at their facilities, proving that it can function in space, before traveling to Goddard for integration with the rest of the spacecraft. The Coronagraph Instrument, a technology demonstration that will be able to directly image planets outside our solar system, was developed and built at JPL in California. After comprehensive testing there, JPL carefully transported the Coronagraph across the country to Goddard, where a team of JPL and Goddard engineers carefully unpacked it and performed a thorough inspection as well as continued testing. To learn more about all these systems and where they fit into Roman, visit: https://lnkd.in/gKW3CUGE Launching no later than May 2027, Roman is NASA’s next flagship astrophysics mission. An infrared survey telescope with the same resolution as Hubble but at least 100 times the field of view, Roman is being built and tested at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Partners from around the globe are contributing to this effort. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Producer: Scott Wiessinger (KBR Wyle Services, LLC) Videographers: Sophia Roberts (Advocates in Manpower Management, Inc.) Scott Wiessinger (KBR Wyle Services, LLC) Public affairs officer: Claire Andreoli (NASA/GSFC) Editor: Scott Wiessinger (KBR Wyle Services, LLC) Duration: 1 minute, 29 seconds Release Date: July 31, 2024 NASA Goddard Space Flight Center NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Space Telescope Science Institute #NASA #Space #Astronomy #Science #Women #Leaders #Pioneers #NancyGraceRoman #Astronomer #History #RomanSpaceTelescope #Exoplanets #Planets #SolarSystem #MilkyWayGalaxy #Stars #Cosmos #Universe #SpaceTelescope #JPL #GSFC #STScI #STEM #Education #HD #Video
NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope: Hardware Highlights Spring 2024
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Chief Editor, Executive Director & Founder of Friends of NASA | Independent Analyst & Digital Media Specialist
25 Images to Celebrate 25th Anniversary of NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory FriendsofNASA.org: To celebrate the 25th anniversary of its launch, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory is releasing 25 never-before-seen views of a wide range of cosmic objects. These images, showing data from Chandra, demonstrate how X-ray astronomy explores all corners of the Universe. By combining X-rays from Chandra with other space-based observatories and telescopes on the ground, astronomers can tackle the biggest questions and investigate long-standing mysteries across the cosmos. On July 23, 1999, the Space Shuttle Columbia launched into orbit carrying Chandra. It was then the heaviest payload ever carried by the Shuttle. With Commander Eileen Collins at the helm, the astronauts aboard Columbia successfully deployed Chandra into its highly-elliptical orbit that takes it nearly one-third of the distance to the Moon. X-rays are an especially penetrating type of light that reveals extremely hot objects and very energetic physical processes. Many fascinating regions in space glow strongly in X-rays such as the debris from exploded stars and material swirling around black holes. Stars, galaxies, and even planets also give off X-rays that can be studied with Chandra. The new set of images is a sample of almost 25,000 observations Chandra has taken during its quarter century in space. In 1976, Riccardo Giacconi and Harvey Tananbaum first proposed to NASA the mission that would one day become Chandra. Eventually, Chandra was selected to become one of NASA’s “Great Observatories,” along with the Hubble Space Telescope, Compton Gamma Ray Observatory and Spitzer Space Telescope, each looking at distinct types of light. Today, astronomers continue to use Chandra data in conjunction with other powerful telescopes, including the James Webb Space Telescope and the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE). Chandra science has led to over 700 Ph.Ds and has supported a diverse talent pool of more than 3,500 undergraduate and graduate students, about 1,700 postdocs and over 5,000 unique Principal Investigators throughout the U.S. and worldwide. Demand for the telescope has consistently been extremely high throughout the entire mission with only about 20% of the requested observing time able to be approved. Despite being in space for a quarter century, Chandra is operating remarkably well and is still making discoveries. Scientists are looking forward to using this exceptional telescope for years to come. Video Credit: NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory Duration: 3 minutes Release Date: July 22, 2024 #NASA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Stars #Supernovae #Planets #Nebulae #Galaxies #GalaxyClusters #Cosmos #Universe #NASAChandra #XrayObservatory #SpaceTelescopes #JPL #Caltech #CXC #UnitedStates #STEM #Education #HD #Video
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Webb Discovers Dusty Cat’s Tail in Nearby Beta Pictoris Planetary System FriendsofNASA.org | View full image & article: https://lnkd.in/dds7zJCP Beta Pictoris, a young planetary system located just 63 light-years away, continues to intrigue scientists even after decades of in-depth study. It possesses the first dust disc imaged around another star—a disc of debris produced by collisions between asteroids, comets, and planetesimals. Observations from the NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope revealed a second debris disc in this system [1], inclined with respect to the first. Now, a team of astronomers using the NASA/European Space Agency/Canadian Space Agency James Webb Space Telescope to image the Beta Pictoris (Beta Pic) system has discovered a new, previously unseen structure. The Webb telescope uses a coronagraph—an instrument designed to block out the direct light from a star so that surrounding objects which would otherwise be hidden in the star's glare can be observed. The team, led by Isabel Rebollido of the Astrobiology Center in Spain, and now an European Space Agency Research Fellow, used Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) to investigate the composition of Beta Pic’s previously detected main and secondary debris discs. The results exceeded their expectations, revealing a sharply inclined branch of dust, shaped like a cat’s tail, that extends from the southwest portion of the secondary debris disc. “Beta Pictoris is the debris disc that has it all: It has a really bright, close star that we can study very well,” said Rebollido. “While there have been previous observations from the ground in this wavelength range, they did not have the sensitivity and the spatial resolution that we now have with Webb, so they didn’t detect this feature.” A Star’s Portrait Improved with Webb Even with Webb, peering at Beta Pic in the right wavelength range—in this case, the mid-infrared—was crucial to detect the cat’s tail, as it only appeared in the MIRI data. Webb’s mid-infrared data also revealed differences in temperature between Beta Pic’s two discs, which likely is due to differences in composition. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, C. Stark and K. Lawson (NASA GSFC), J. Kammerer (ESO), and M. Perrin (STScI). Release Date: Jan. 10, 2024 ESA Hubble and Webb Space Telescopes European Space Agency - ESA NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Canadian Space Agency | Agence spatiale canadienne Space Telescope Science Institute American Astronomical Society (AAS) National Science Teaching Association U.S. Department of Education National Space Society #NASA #ESA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Stars #Star #BetaPictoris #PlanetarySystem #Dust #Debris #Pictoris #Constellation #JamesWebb #SpaceTelescope #JWST #Cosmos #Universe #UnfoldTheUniverse #Europe #CSA #Canada #GSFC #STScI #UnitedStates #STEM #Education
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NASA's tiny BurstCube mission launches to study cosmic blasts. BurstCube, shown in this artist's concept, will orbit Earth as it hunts for short gamma-ray bursts. NASA's BurstCube, a shoebox-sized satellite designed to study the universe's most powerful explosions, is on its way to the International Space Station. The spacecraft travels aboard SpaceX's 30th Commercial Resupply Services mission, which lifted off at 4:55 p.m. EDT on Thursday March 21 from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.After arriving at the station BurstCube will be unpacked and later released into orbit, where it will detect locate and study short gamma-ray bursts—brief flashes of high-energy light. "BurstCube may be small, but in addition to investigating these extreme events, it's testing new technology and providing important experience for early career astronomers and aerospace engineers," Short gamma-ray bursts usually occur after the collisions of neutron stars, the superdense remnants of massive stars that exploded in supernovae. The neutron stars can also emit gravitational waves, ripples in the fabric of space-time, as they spiral together. Astronomers are interested in studying gamma-ray bursts using both light and gravitational waves because each can teach them about different aspects of the event. This approach is part of a new way of understanding the cosmos called multimessenger astronomy. The collisions that create short gamma-ray bursts also produce heavy elements like gold and iodine, an essential ingredient for life as we know it. Currently, the only joint observation of gravitational waves and light from the same event—called GW170817—was in 2017. It was a watershed moment in multimessenger astronomy, and the scientific community has been hoping and preparing for additional concurrent discoveries since. "BurstCube's detectors are angled to allow us to detect and localize events over a wide area of the sky," "Our current gamma-ray missions can only see about 70% of the sky at any moment because Earth blocks their view. Increasing our coverage with satellites like BurstCube improves the odds we'll catch more bursts coincident with gravitational wave detections." BurstCube's main instrument detects gamma rays with energies ranging from 50,000 to 1 million electron volts. (For comparison, visible light ranges between 2 and 3 electron volts.) When a gamma ray enters one of BurstCube's four detectors, it encounters a cesium iodide layer called a scintillator, which converts it into visible light. The light then enters another layer, an array of 116 silicon photomultipliers, that converts it into a pulse of electrons, which is what BurstCube measures. For each gamma ray, the team sees one pulse in the instrument readout that provides the precise arrival time and energy. The angled detectors inform the team of the general direction of the event. #BurstCube #gammarays #cosmicblast #supernovae #neutronstars #exploded
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