Carbon is essential for life as we know it, so naturally astronomers are seeking this element around other stars. A team using #NASAWebb found a protoplanetary disk with the largest number of unique carbon-bearing molecules ever detected: https://webbtelescope.pub/4c19uTY
The spiral galaxy at the top left of this image, nicknamed the “Comet Galaxy” shows what can happen when a galaxy falls into a cluster. The galaxy cluster stripped and pushed away the Comet Galaxy’s gas, creating its gaseous tail: https://bit.ly/3y9MJyJ#astronomy
Happy June! Together, the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes present a colorful view of the Orion Nebula’s dynamic star-forming environment in ultraviolet, infrared, and visible light. Credit: NASA, ESA, STscI. #astronomy
In 2019, Hubble observed spiral galaxy NGC 2276. Its lopsided state is due to the gravitational pull of a galaxy nearby, which is stretching NGC 2276’s spiral arms. It’s a good reminder that galaxies interact with their surroundings: https://bit.ly/4bFeuxp
This is no average star field. Most of the stars you see here, about 300,000 of them, are not in our Milky Way but our neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy. Hubble took this image so astronomers could study the stars’ ages and Andromeda’s merger history: https://bit.ly/3TVSIy9
Hundreds of thousands of stars are held together by their mutual gravitational attraction in globular cluster M80, one of the densest in our Milky Way galaxy. Older, bloated red giant stars stand out from the crowd, an example of our own sun’s future. Credit: Hubble, NASA/ESA
Not yet! NGC 4449 is many things—an irregular, dwarf, and starburst galaxy. It has likely “bobbed” and “twirled” with neighboring galaxies, and has enough gas to fuel another 1 billion years of star formation.
Galaxy M64—in this Hubble image—revealed a surprise: Gas in its outer regions is rotating in the opposite direction of the galaxy’s pinwheel arms. It’s likely the last evidence of a long-ago collision with a smaller galaxy that has been almost completely absorbed. Credit: NASA
The region seen here in this Hubble image, R136, is a grouping of stars in the turbulent star-forming region, 30 Doradus. The Large Magellanic Cloud, which houses 30 Doradus, is a member of the Local Group, which also includes the Milky Way: https://bit.ly/4cIzFQy
Archival data from #NASAWebb shows a trio of distant galaxies that are in the process of gathering cold gas when the universe was only a few hundred million years old. (1/5) 🧵
The James Webb Space Telescope recently uncovered a trio of galaxies that were actively forming when the universe was only 400 to 600 million years old. Large parts of the galaxies are covered in gas, which will go on to cool, clump, and form new stars: https://webbtelescope.pub/4bb5K2l#NASAWebb