Astronaut Tweets

Sagittarius dwarf irregular galaxy (sagDIG) © Hubble

The Ghosts of Gamma Cas ©

NASA’s Webb, Hubble Combine to Create Most Colorful View of Universe by James Webb Space Telescope

2024 February 2

NGC 1893 and the Tadpoles of IC 410 Image Credit & Copyright: Sander de Jong

Explanation: This cosmic view shows off an otherwise faint emission nebula IC 410, captured under clear Netherlands skies with telescope and narrowband filters. Above and right of center you can spot two remarkable inhabitants of the interstellar pond of gas and dust, known as the tadpoles of IC 410. Partly obscured by foreground dust, the nebula itself surrounds NGC 1893, a young galactic cluster of stars. Formed in the interstellar cloud a mere 4 million years ago, the intensely hot, bright cluster stars energize the glowing gas. Globules composed of denser cooler gas and dust, the tadpoles are around 10 light-years long and are likely sites of ongoing star formation. Sculpted by stellar winds and radiation their heads are outlined by bright ridges of ionized gas while their tails trail away from the cluster’s central young stars. IC 410 and embedded NGC 1893 lie some 10,000 light-years away, toward the nebula-rich constellation Auriga.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap240202.html

The glittering globular cluster Terzan 12 — a vast, tightly bound collection of stars — fills the frame of this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. This star-studded stellar census comes from a string of observations that aim to systematically explore globular clusters located towards the centre of our galaxy, such as this one in the constellation Sagittarius. The locations of these globular clusters — deep in the Milky Way galaxy — mean that they are shrouded in gas and dust, which can block or alter the wavelengths of starlight emanating from the clusters.

Here, astronomers were able to sidestep the effect of gas and dust by comparing the new observations made with the razor-sharp vision of Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys and Wide-Field Camera 3 with pre-existing images. Their observations should shed light on the relation between age and composition in the Milky Way’s innermost globular clusters.

[Image Description: The frame is completely filled with bright stars, ranging from tiny dots to large, shining stars with prominent spikes. In the lower-right the stars come together in the core of the star cluster, making the brightest and densest area of the image. The background varies from darker and warmer in colour, to brighter and paler where there are more stars.]Credit:

ESA/Hubble & NASA, R. Cohen (Rutgers University)

www.spacetelescope.org

Glittering globular cluster Terzan 12

Glittering globular cluster Terzan 12

Apollo 16 rollout attracts a crowd at the Vehicle Assembly Building, 9 February 1972.

A beginner’s star-book, an easy guide to the stars and to the astronomical uses of the opera-glass, the field-glass and the telescope, 1912

Lunar halo

@picabuzz

Messier 45: The Pleiades

Nick Fritz on Instagram