Astronomy - Blog Posts

NASA Photographers Share Their #NASAMoonSnap

We’re getting ready to launch Artemis I, the first test flight of the rocket and spacecraft that will take future astronauts to the Moon! As we prepare for the lunar voyage of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft launching as early as Aug. 29, 2022, we would like you to share your excitement with us. Share all types of Moon-inspired content with us with the hashtag #NASAMoonSnap, and we will choose some entries to share on our social media platforms and during the launch broadcast. Get creative! We’re looking for Moon paintings, Moon poetry, Moon pottery, Moon latte foam art — the sky is not the limit.

Since we have the full Moon coming up on Aug. 11, we wanted to share our handy dandy Moon photography guide and inspire you with some of our NASA imagery experts’ stories on capturing the Moon.

"The first rollout of the SLS rocket with the Orion spacecraft aboard was a really exciting moment to capture. I was photographing at Kennedy Space Center in an area where many of the employees that had worked on different parts of the SLS were watching. It was so great to hear some of their stories and see their pride in helping to build this amazing rocket and spacecraft. Once the mobile launcher with SLS passed the crowds to head toward the launchpad, people began to line up in their cars to leave. I decided to stick around and try to get a closer image of the Moon with SLS. It was fairly dark by the time I made this image, so there isn’t any detail in the moon, but it’s still moving to see them next to one another and know that SLS will be closer to the Moon than Earth very soon, and will one day enable humans to land on the lunar surface again!" — Aubrey Gemignani, NASA contract Photo Archivist/Photographer, NASA Headquarters

“I set up this shot when I saw the Moon was lined up perfectly with the X-1E in front of the main entrance to Armstrong Flight Research Center one morning last year. What captured my eye about this scene was that it showcased the past and the future of NASA in one image. The X-1 was a key piece of early NACA/NASA history, and it is pointing to the Moon showing us where we are going next with Artemis. I still remember walking around on my first day at NASA and seeing all the places where history was made. I was in awe as I walked these hallowed grounds. I know that there is still a great deal of history to be written here as we strive to go higher, further and faster and I’m glad that I get to be here to document it.” — Joshua Fisher, Photographer, NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center

“While out capturing images of the Moon, the memories of my first day as a photographer for NASA came flooding back. One of my first memories is going to the exhibits department and getting to hold an actual Moon rock sample. That day changed my perception of the Moon forever. That moment made the Moon more than just something in the sky. It became tangible and real, and my part in all of this became clear. The honor and privilege I feel everyday is overwhelming.” — Jef Janis, Still Imaging Specialist, NASA’s Glenn Research Center

“When I can, I like my Moon photos to have a sense of place. The trick is finding a shooting position and a landmark that will fit in with the Moon’s very stringent plans for rising. I went out to shoot the Sturgeon Moon, which was also a rare blue moon, last August. As I was shooting the moonrise from the riverbank in downtown New Orleans, I was lucky to have one of the city’s iconic riverboats turn a bend and head upriver to pass beneath the Moon. Happily the river was low and I was able to scramble down the high bank to reduce the vertical distance between the quickly rising moon and the slowly passing riverboat.” — Michael DeMocker, Photographer, NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility

“I was excited to try to capture a waning crescent Moon at dawn, even though it was late February, 20 degrees Fahrenheit and 6:30 in the morning…Nonetheless, I decided to photograph on-site at Lewis Field, and ended up using my telephoto lens to really zoom in on the Moon. In a race against the sunrise and the Moon disappearing, I was able to capture a cool shot of the Moon with a couple planes making an appearance as well (The Cleveland Hopkins Airport is right next door). Although is it me, or does one of the planes look like a rocket taking off…?” — Jordan Salkin, Scientific Imaging Specialist, NASA’s Glenn Research Center

“I have worked at NASA’s Glenn Research Center since 1990 and have enjoyed every second doing what I do to support NASA’s mission. On my first day back to work onsite after 22 months of telework I saw this beautiful sunrise with the snow, the Moon, and the hangar. It felt good to be at work seeing the landscape I was so used to seeing. I had to take these pictures to share with my colleagues. ” — Jeffrey F. Abbott, Media Support Specialist, NASA’s Glenn Research Center 

“In creating this Moon image, I almost felt pressured to find the ‘perfect location.’ The more that I thought about that prospect, the more I was drawn to using only natural elements, in my own environment. I wanted to find an image in my own backyard. This image was captured just as the Sun dropped below the horizon. I had a very short window of time when these colors would be possible. Two minutes earlier or later would have produced a totally different image. The almost abstract lines of a Maple tree in the earliest stages of budding seemed to be in concert with the waxing crescent Moon, both preparing for full bloom. Nature on display in its simplicity.” — Marvin Smith, Still Imaging Specialist Lead, NASA’s Glenn Research Center

“The lighthouse in Lorain, Ohio, has been photographed by amateur and professional photographers for decades, but I have never photographed it before. When I calculated that the path of the Moon was going to go over and past the lighthouse with a reflection over the water, I decided to give it a try. I encountered four other photographers on the same pier with me that early morning. They were huddled in the middle of the pier and I was at the end. I think I got the best photo.” — Quentin Schwinn, Scientific Photographer, NASA’s Glenn Research Center

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Meet Our Superhero Space Telescopes!

While the first exoplanets—planets beyond our solar system—were discovered using ground-based telescopes, the view was blurry at best. Clouds, moisture, and jittering air molecules all got in the way, limiting what we could learn about these distant worlds.

A superhero team of space telescopes has been working tirelessly to discover exoplanets and unveil their secrets. Now, a new superhero has joined the team—the James Webb Space Telescope. What will it find? Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

To capture finer details—detecting atmospheres on small, rocky planets like Earth, for instance, to seek potential signs of habitability—astronomers knew they needed what we might call “superhero” space telescopes, each with its own special power to explore our universe. Over the past few decades, a team of now-legendary space telescopes answered the call: Hubble, Chandra, Spitzer, Kepler, and TESS.

Much like scientists, space telescopes don't work alone. Hubble observes in visible light—with some special features (superpowers?)—Chandra has X-ray vision, and TESS discovers planets by looking for tiny dips in the brightness of stars.

Kepler and Spitzer are now retired, but we're still making discoveries in the space telescopes' data. Legends! All were used to tell us more about exoplanets. Spitzer saw beyond visible light into the infrared and was able to make exoplanet weather maps! Kepler discovered more than 3,000 exoplanets.

Three space telescopes studied one fascinating planet and told us different things. Hubble found that the atmosphere of HD 189733 b is a deep blue. Spitzer estimated its temperature at 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit (935 degrees Celsius). Chandra, measuring the planet’s transit using X-rays from its star, showed that the gas giant’s atmosphere is distended by evaporation.

Adding the James Webb Space Telescope to the superhero team will make our science stronger. Its infrared views in increased ranges will make the previously unseen visible.

Soon, Webb will usher in a new era in understanding exoplanets. What will Webb discover when it studies HD 189733 b? We can’t wait to find out! Super, indeed.

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Travel to Exotic Destinations in our Galaxy!

The planets beyond our solar system – exoplanets – are so far away, often trillions of miles, that we don’t have the technology to truly see them. Even the best photos show the planets as little more than bright dots. We’ve confirmed more than 5,000 exoplanets, but we think there are billions. Space telescopes like Hubble aren’t able to take photos of these far-off worlds, but by studying them in different wavelengths of light (colors), we’ve learned enough about conditions on these planets that we can illustrate them.

We know, thanks to the now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope, that there is a thick atmosphere on a planet called 55 Cancri e about 40 light-years away. And Hubble found silicate vapor in the atmosphere of this rocky world. We also know it’s scorching-close to its Sun-like star, so … lava. Lots and lots of lava. This planet is just one of the many that the James Webb Space Telescope will soon study, telling us even more about the lava world!

You can take a guided tour of this planet (and others) and see 360-degree simulations at our new Exoplanet Travel Bureau.

Travel to the most exotic destinations in our galaxy, including:

Kepler-16b, a planet with two suns.

Then there’s PSO J318.5-22, a world with no sun that wanders the galaxy alone. The nightlife would never end on a planet without a star.

TRAPPIST-1e, which will also be studied by the Webb Space Telescope, is one of seven Earth-sized planets orbiting a star about 40 light-years from Earth. It’s close enough that, if you were standing on this exoplanet, you could see our Sun as a star in the Leo constellation! You can also see it on the poster below: look for a yellow star to the right of the top person’s eye.

We haven’t found life beyond Earth (yet) but we’re looking. Meanwhile, we can imagine the possibility of red grass and other plants on Kepler-186f, a planet orbiting a red dwarf star.

We can also imagine what it might be like to skydive on a super-Earth about seven times more massive than our home planet. You would fall about 35% faster on a super-Earth like HD 40307g, making for a thrilling ride!

Any traveler is going to want to pick up souvenirs, and we have you covered. You can find free downloads of all the posters here and others! What are you waiting for? Come explore with us!

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Image credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

See the Universe in a New Way with the Webb Space Telescope's First Images

Are you ready to see unprecedented, detailed views of the universe from the James Webb Space Telescope, the largest and most powerful space observatory ever made? Scroll down to see the first full-color images and data from Webb. Unfold the universe with us. ✨

Carina Nebula

This landscape of “mountains” and “valleys” speckled with glittering stars, called the Cosmic Cliffs, is the edge of the star-birthing Carina Nebula. Usually, the early phases of star formation are difficult to capture, but Webb can peer through cosmic dust—thanks to its extreme sensitivity, spatial resolution, and imaging capability. Protostellar jets clearly shoot out from some of these young stars in this new image.

Southern Ring Nebula

The Southern Ring Nebula is a planetary nebula: it’s an expanding cloud of gas and dust surrounding a dying star. In this new image, the nebula’s second, dimmer star is brought into full view, as well as the gas and dust it’s throwing out around it. (The brighter star is in its own stage of stellar evolution and will probably eject its own planetary nebula in the future.) These kinds of details will help us better understand how stars evolve and transform their environments. Finally, you might notice points of light in the background. Those aren’t stars—they’re distant galaxies.

Stephan’s Quintet

Stephan’s Quintet, a visual grouping of five galaxies near each other, was discovered in 1877 and is best known for being prominently featured in the holiday classic, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” This new image brings the galaxy group from the silver screen to your screen in an enormous mosaic that is Webb’s largest image to date. The mosaic covers about one-fifth of the Moon’s diameter; it contains over 150 million pixels and is constructed from almost 1,000 separate image files. Never-before-seen details are on display: sparkling clusters of millions of young stars, fresh star births, sweeping tails of gas, dust and stars, and huge shock waves paint a dramatic picture of galactic interactions.

WASP-96 b

WASP-96 b is a giant, mostly gas planet outside our solar system, discovered in 2014. Webb’s Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) measured light from the WASP-96 system as the planet moved across the star. The light curve confirmed previous observations, but the transmission spectrum revealed new properties of the planet: an unambiguous signature of water, indications of haze, and evidence of clouds in the atmosphere. This discovery marks a giant leap forward in the quest to find potentially habitable planets beyond Earth.

Webb's First Deep Field

This image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723, known as Webb’s First Deep Field, looks 4.6 billion years into the past. Looking at infrared wavelengths beyond Hubble’s deepest fields, Webb’s sharp near-infrared view reveals thousands of galaxies—including the faintest objects ever observed in the infrared—in the most detailed view of the early universe to date. We can now see tiny, faint structures we’ve never seen before, like star clusters and diffuse features and soon, we’ll begin to learn more about the galaxies’ masses, ages, histories, and compositions.

These images and data are just the beginning of what the observatory will find. It will study every phase in the history of our Universe, ranging from the first luminous glows after the Big Bang, to the formation of solar systems capable of supporting life on planets like Earth, to the evolution of our own Solar System.

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Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

You Are Made of Stardust

Though the billions of people on Earth may come from different areas, we share a common heritage: we are all made of stardust! From the carbon in our DNA to the calcium in our bones, nearly all of the elements in our bodies were forged in the fiery hearts and death throes of stars.

The building blocks for humans, and even our planet, wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for stars. If we could rewind the universe back almost to the very beginning, we would just see a sea of hydrogen, helium, and a tiny bit of lithium.

The first generation of stars formed from this material. There’s so much heat and pressure in a star’s core that they can fuse atoms together, forming new elements. Our DNA is made up of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and phosphorus. All those elements (except hydrogen, which has existed since shortly after the big bang) are made by stars and released into the cosmos when the stars die.

Each star comes with a limited fuel supply. When a medium-mass star runs out of fuel, it will swell up and shrug off its outer layers. Only a small, hot core called a white dwarf is left behind. The star’s cast-off debris includes elements like carbon and nitrogen. It expands out into the cosmos, possibly destined to be recycled into later generations of stars and planets. New life may be born from the ashes of stars.

Massive stars are doomed to a more violent fate. For most of their lives, stars are balanced between the outward pressure created by nuclear fusion and the inward pull of gravity. When a massive star runs out of fuel and its nuclear processes die down, it completely throws the star out of balance. The result? An explosion!

Supernova explosions create such intense conditions that even more elements can form. The oxygen we breathe and essential minerals like magnesium and potassium are flung into space by these supernovas.

Supernovas can also occur another way in binary, or double-star, systems. When a white dwarf steals material from its companion, it can throw everything off balance too and lead to another kind of cataclysmic supernova. Our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will study these stellar explosions to figure out what’s speeding up the universe’s expansion. 

This kind of explosion creates calcium – the mineral we need most in our bodies – and trace minerals that we only need a little of, like zinc and manganese. It also produces iron, which is found in our blood and also makes up the bulk of our planet’s mass!

A supernova will either leave behind a black hole or a neutron star – the superdense core of an exploded star. When two neutron stars collide, it showers the cosmos in elements like silver, gold, iodine, uranium, and plutonium.

Some elements only come from stars indirectly. Cosmic rays are nuclei (the central parts of atoms) that have been boosted to high speed by the most energetic events in the universe. When they collide with atoms, the impact can break them apart, forming simpler elements. That’s how we get boron and beryllium – from breaking star-made atoms into smaller ones.

Half a dozen other elements are created by radioactive decay. Some elements are radioactive, which means their nuclei are unstable. They naturally break down to form simpler elements by emitting radiation and particles. That’s how we get elements like radium. The rest are made by humans in labs by slamming atoms of lighter elements together at super high speeds to form heavier ones. We can fuse together elements made by stars to create exotic, short-lived elements like seaborgium and einsteinium.

From some of the most cataclysmic events in the cosmos comes all of the beauty we see here on Earth. Life, and even our planet, wouldn’t have formed without them! But we still have lots of questions about these stellar factories. 

In 2006, our Stardust spacecraft returned to Earth containing tiny particles of interstellar dust that originated in distant stars, light-years away – the first star dust to ever be collected from space and returned for study. You can help us identify and study the composition of these tiny, elusive particles through our Stardust@Home Citizen Science project.

Our upcoming Roman Space Telescope will help us learn more about how elements were created and distributed throughout galaxies, all while exploring many other cosmic questions. Learn more about the exciting science this mission will investigate on Twitter and Facebook.

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A Space Starburst

Welcome to one of the most active galaxies in our cosmic neighborhood: NGC 1569. This starburst galaxy creates stars at a rate 100 times faster than in our own galaxy, the Milky Way – and it’s been doing so for the past 100 million years.

NGC 1569 is about 11 million light-years away in the constellation Camelopardalis. Find out more about this sparkling galaxy here.

For the past few weeks, our Hubble Space Telescope explored #GalaxiesGalore! You can find more galaxy content and spectacular new images on Hubble’s Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Credit: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), and A. Aloisi (STScI/ESA)

Prepare to be mesmerized… 😵‍💫

Feast your eyes on the magnificent galaxy M51, also known as the Whirlpool Galaxy! This hypnotic spiral galaxy was captured in visible light with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys. Living up to its nickname, the Whirlpool Galaxy has the traits of a typical spiral galaxy, like beautifully curving arms, pink star-forming regions, and brilliant blue strands of star clusters.

The Whirlpool Galaxy is located about 31 million light-years away in the constellation Canes Venatici.

Discover more about the Whirlpool Galaxy here.

Right now, the Hubble Space Telescope is exploring #GalaxiesGalore! Find more galaxy content and spectacular new images by following along on Hubble’s Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Credit: NASA, ESA, S. Beckwith (STScI), and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

Meet NGC 2841

Location: In the constellation Ursa Major

Type: Flocculent spiral galaxy

Discovered by: William Herschel

NGC 2841 is a beautiful example of a flocculent spiral galaxy – a type with discontinuous, featherlike, and patchy arms. A bright cusp of starlight distinguishes the galaxy's center from the dust lanes that outline the group of almost white middle-aged stars. The far younger blue stars trace the spiral arms.

Find out more information about NGC 2841 here.

Right now, the Hubble Space Telescope is exploring #GalaxiesGalore! Find more galaxy content and spectacular new images by following along on Hubble’s Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration; Acknowledgment: M. Crockett and S. Kaviraj (Oxford University, UK), R. O'Connell (University of Virginia), B. Whitmore (STScI), and the WFC3 Scientific Oversight Committee

Our Weird and Wonderful Galaxy of Black Holes

Black holes are hard to find. Like, really hard to find. They are objects with such strong gravity that light can’t escape them, so we have to rely on clues from their surroundings to find them.

When a star weighing more than 20 times the Sun runs out of fuel, it collapses into a black hole. Scientists estimate that there are tens of millions of these black holes dotted around the Milky Way, but so far we’ve only identified a few dozen. Most of those are found with a star, each circling around the other. Another name for this kind of pair is a binary system.That’s because under the right circumstances material from the star can interact with the black hole, revealing its presence. 

The visualization above shows several of these binary systems found in our Milky Way and its neighboring galaxy. with their relative sizes and orbits to scale. The video even shows each system tilted the way we see it here from our vantage point on Earth. Of course, as our scientists gather more data about these black holes, our understanding of them may change.   

If the star and black hole orbit close enough, the black hole can pull material off of its stellar companion! As the material swirls toward the black hole, it forms a flat ring called an accretion disk. The disk gets very hot and can flare, causing bright bursts of light.

V404 Cygni, depicted above, is a binary system where a star slightly smaller than the Sun orbits a black hole 10 times its mass in just 6.5 days. The black hole distorts the shape of the star and pulls material from its surface. In 2015, V404 Cygni came out of a 25-year slumber, erupting in X-rays that were initially detected by our Swift satellite. In fact, V404 Cygni erupts every couple of decades, perhaps driven by a build-up of material in the outer parts of the accretion disk that eventually rush in. 

In other cases, the black hole’s companion is a giant star with a strong stellar wind. This is like our Sun’s solar wind, but even more powerful. As material rushes out from the companion star, some of it is captured by the black hole’s gravity, forming an accretion disk.

A famous example of a black hole powered by the wind of its companion is Cygnus X-1. In fact, it was the first object to be widely accepted as a black hole! Recent observations estimate that the black hole’s mass could be as much as 20 times that of our Sun. And its stellar companion is no slouch, either. It weighs in at about 40 times the Sun.

We know our galaxy is peppered with black holes of many sizes with an array of stellar partners, but we've only found a small fraction of them so far. Scientists will keep studying the skies to add to our black hole menagerie.

Curious to learn more about black holes? Follow NASA Universe on Twitter and Facebook to keep up with the latest from our scientists and telescopes.

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It's the International Day of Human Space Flight!

In this image, NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, Expedition 32 flight engineer, appears to touch the bright Sun during the mission's third spacewalk outside the International Space Station. Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Aki Hoshide is visible in the reflection of Williams' helmet visor.

Today, April 12, is the International Day of Human Space Flight—marking Yuri Gagarin's first flight in 1961, and the first space shuttle launch in 1981.

As we honor global collaboration in exploration, we're moving forward to the Moon & Mars under the Artemis Accords.

Sign up to send your name around the Moon aboard Artemis I at go.nasa.gov/wearegoing.

A View into the Past

Our Hubble Space Telescope just found the farthest individual star ever seen to date!

Nicknamed “Earendel” (“morning star” in Old English), this star existed within the first billion years after the universe’s birth in the big bang. Earendel is so far away from Earth that its light has taken 12.9 billion years to reach us, far eclipsing the previous single-star record holder whose light took 9 billion years to reach us.

Though Earendel is at least 50 times the mass of our Sun and millions of times as bright, we’d normally be unable to see it from Earth. However, the mass of a huge galaxy cluster between us and Earendel has created a powerful natural magnifying glass. Astronomers expect that the star will be highly magnified for years.

Earendel will be observed by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Webb's high sensitivity to infrared light is needed to learn more about this star, because its light is stretched to longer infrared wavelengths due to the universe's expansion.

Visual 'Autocorrect' for NASA Space Telescope

Telescopes located both on the ground and in space continue to dazzle us with incredible images of the universe. We owe these sharp vistas to a series of brilliant astronomers, including Andrea Ghez – an astrophysicist and professor at UCLA – and the “Mother of Hubble,” Nancy Grace Roman.

Did you know that stars don’t actually twinkle? They only look like they do because their light has to travel through our turbulent atmosphere to reach our eyes. As the atmosphere shifts and swirls around, the light from distant stars is slightly refracted, or bent, in different directions. Sometimes it’s directed right at us, but sometimes it’s directed a bit to the side.

It's like someone’s shining a flashlight toward you but moving it around slightly. Sometimes the beam is pointed right at you and appears very bright, and sometimes it's pointed a bit to either side of you and it appears dimmer. The amount of light isn't really changing, but it looks like it is.

This effect creates a problem for ground-based telescopes. Instead of seeing sharp images, astronomers get fuzzy pictures. Special tech known as adaptive optics helps resolve pictures of space so astronomers can see things more clearly. It’s even useful for telescopes that are in space, above Earth’s atmosphere, because tiny imperfections in their optics can blur images, too.

In 2020, Andrea Ghez was awarded a share of the Nobel Prize in Physics for devising an experiment that proved there’s a supermassive black hole embedded in the heart of our galaxy – something Hubble has shown is true of almost every galaxy in the universe! She used the W. M. Keck Observatory’s adaptive optics to track stars orbiting the unseen black hole.

A woman named Nancy Grace Roman, who was NASA’s first chief astronomer, paved the way for telescopes that study the universe from space. An upcoming observatory named in her honor, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, will use a special kind of adaptive optics in its Coronagraph Instrument, which is a technology demonstration designed to block the glare from host stars and reveal dimmer orbiting planets.

Roman’s Coronagraph Instrument will come equipped with deformable mirrors that will serve as a form of visual "autocorrect" by measuring and subtracting starlight in real time. The mirrors will bend and flex to help counteract effects like temperature changes, which can slightly alter the shape of the optics.

Other telescopes have taken pictures of enormous, young, bright planets orbiting far away from their host stars because they’re usually the easiest ones to see. Taking tech that’s worked well on ground-based telescopes to space will help Roman photograph dimmer, older, colder planets than any other observatory has been able to so far. The mission could even snap the first real photograph of a planet like Jupiter orbiting a Sun-like star!

Find out more about the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on Twitter and Facebook, and learn about the person from which the mission draws its name.

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Photographing Planets with the Roman Space Telescope

Nearly 100 years ago, astronomer Bernard Lyot invented the coronagraph – a device that made it possible to recreate a total solar eclipse by blocking the Sun’s light. That helped scientists study the Sun’s corona, which is the outermost part of our star’s atmosphere that’s usually hidden by bright light from its surface.

Our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, now under construction, will test out a much more advanced version of the same thing. Roman’s Coronagraph Instrument will use special masks to block the glare from host stars but allow the light from dimmer, orbiting planets to filter through. It will also have self-flexing mirrors that will measure and subtract starlight automatically.

This glare-blocking prowess is important because planets can be billions of times dimmer than their host stars! Roman’s high-tech shades will help us take pictures of planets we wouldn’t be able to photograph using any other current telescopes.

Other observatories mainly use this planet-hunting method, called direct imaging, from the ground to photograph huge, bright planets called “super-Jupiters” in infrared light. These worlds can be dozens of times more massive than Jupiter, and they’re so young that they glow brightly thanks to heat left over from their formation. That glow makes them detectable in infrared light.

Roman will take advanced planet-imaging tech to space to get even higher-quality pictures. And while it’s known for being an infrared telescope, Roman will actually photograph planets in visible light, like our eyes can see. That means it will be able to see smaller, older, colder worlds orbiting close to their host stars. Roman could even snap the first-ever image of a planet like Jupiter orbiting a star like our Sun.

Astronomers would ultimately like to take pictures of planets like Earth as part of the search for potentially habitable worlds. Roman’s direct imaging efforts will move us a giant leap in that direction!

And direct imaging is just one component of Roman’s planet-hunting plans. The mission will also use a light-bending method called microlensing to find other worlds, including rogue planets that wander the galaxy untethered to any stars. Scientists also expect Roman to discover 100,000 planets as they cross in front of their host stars!

Find out more about the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope on Twitter and Facebook, and about the person from which the mission draws its name.

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Roman’s Family Portrait of Millions of Galaxies

About 15 years ago, our Hubble Space Telescope captured this ultra-deep field image of space, revealing thousands of galaxies tucked away in a seemingly empty spot in the sky.

Now, imagine this view of the cosmos – and all the mysteries in it – at a scale 300 times larger than Hubble's.

Our upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Telescope could capture just that.

Roman recently released this gorgeous simulated image that gives us a preview of what the telescope could see. Each tiny speck represents a galaxy filled with billions of stars. And it’s more than just a pretty picture – scientists could learn a lot from an observation like this!

Since Roman can see much more of the sky at a time, it could create an ultra-deep field image that’s far larger than Hubble’s. So instead of revealing thousands of galaxies, Roman would see millions!

Roman’s ability to look far out into space with such an expansive view would help us better understand what the universe was like when it was young. For example, scientists could study a lot of cosmic transitions, like how galaxies switch from star-making factories to a quieter stage when star formation is complete and how the universe went from being mainly opaque to the brilliant starscape we see today.

And these are just a few of the mysteries Roman could help us solve!

Set to launch in the mid-2020s, our Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, is designed to unravel the secrets of dark energy and dark matter, search for and image exoplanets, and explore many topics in infrared astrophysics. You can learn about some of the other science Roman will do here.

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Happy New Year From NASA! The year 2021 was one for the books, so what will 2022 bring? No matter what, remember: You are made of star stuff. Sparkly, glorious star stuff.

What's this image? Click here. Credit: ESA/Hubble and NASA, A. Sarajedini Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

Ever wanted to look back in time? This week, we’re launching a kind of time machine – a telescope so powerful it will help us see back some of the first stars and galaxies made after the Big Bang.

The James Webb Space Telescope is the largest and most advanced telescope we’ve ever put in space. With revolutionary technology, it will study 13.5 billion years of cosmic history and help humanity understand our place in the stars.

Tomorrow, Dec. 25, at 7:20 a.m. ET (12:20 UTC), the Webb Telescope is set to launch from French Guiana, beginning a 29-day journey to a spot a million miles away.

How to Watch:

In English:

Dec. 25

Live coverage starts at 6:00 a.m. ET/11:00 UTC

Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Twitch

In Spanish:

Dec. 25

Live coverage starts at 6:30 a.m. ET/11:30 UTC

Facebook, YouTube, Twitter

Once Webb launches, the journey has only just begun. The telescope will begin a 2-week-long process of unfolding itself in space before settling in to explore the universe in ways we’ve never seen before.

Follow along on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram and with #UnfoldTheUniverse.

Our Parker Solar Probe Just Touched the Sun!

For the first time in history, a spacecraft has touched the Sun. Our Parker Solar Probe flew right through the Sun’s atmosphere, the corona. (That’s the part of the Sun that we can see during a total solar eclipse.)

This marks one great step for Parker Solar Probe and one giant leap for solar science! Landing on the Moon helped scientists better understand how it was formed. Now, touching the Sun will help scientists understand our star and how it influences worlds across the solar system.

Unlike Earth, the Sun doesn’t have a solid surface (it’s a giant ball of seething, boiling gases). But the Sun does have a superheated atmosphere. Heat and pressure push solar material away from the Sun. Eventually, some of that material escapes the pull of the Sun’s gravity and magnetism and becomes the solar wind, which gusts through the entire solar system.

But where exactly does the Sun’s atmosphere end and the solar wind begin? We’ve never known for sure. Until now!

In April 2021, Parker Solar Probe swooped near the Sun. It passed through a massive plume of solar material in the corona. This was like flying into the eye of a hurricane. That flow of solar stuff — usually a powerful stream of particles — hit the brakes and went into slow-motion.

For the first time, Parker Solar Probe found itself in a place where the Sun’s magnetism and gravity were strong enough to stop solar material from escaping. That told scientists Parker Solar Probe had passed the boundary: On one side, space filled with solar wind, on the other, the Sun’s atmosphere.

Parker Solar Probe’s proximity to the Sun has led to another big discovery: the origin of switchbacks, zig-zag-shaped magnetic kinks in the solar wind.

These bizarre shapes were first observed in the 1990s. Then, in 2019, Parker Solar Probe revealed they were much more common than scientists first realized. But they still had questions, like where the switchbacks come from and how the Sun makes them.

Recently, Parker Solar Probe dug up two important clues. First, switchbacks tend to have lots of helium, which scientists know comes from the solar surface. And they come in patches.

Those patches lined up just right with magnetic funnels that appear on the Sun’s surface. Matching these clues up like puzzle pieces, scientists realized switchbacks must come from near the surface of the Sun.

Figuring out where switchbacks come from and how they form will help scientists understand how the Sun produces the solar wind. And that could clue us into one of the Sun’s biggest mysteries: why the Sun’s atmosphere is much, much hotter than the surface below.

Parker Solar Probe will fly closer and closer to the Sun. Who knows what else we’ll discover?

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That’s a wrap! Thank you for all the wonderful questions. James Webb Space Telescope Planetary Scientist Dr. Naomi Rowe-Gurney answered questions about the science goals, capabilities, and her hopes for the world's most powerful telescope.

Check out her full Answer Time for more: Career | Science Goals | Capabilities

We hope you enjoyed today and learned something new about the Webb mission! Don’t miss the historic launch of this first-of-its kind space observatory. Tune in to NASA TV HERE on Dec. 22 starting at 7:20 a.m. EST (12:20 UTC).

If today’s Answer Time got you excited, explore all the ways you can engage with the mission before launch! Join our #UnfoldTheUniverse art challenge, our virtual social event with international space agencies, and countdown to liftoff with us. Check out all the ways to participate HERE.

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Questions coming up from….

@teamadamsperret: Congrats on your PhD!! When people ask what you do, what's your reply?

@Anonymous: How does it feel, working in NASA?

@moonlighy: How did you find your love for this job?

@redbullanddepression: what the prettiest star in the sky in your opinion? also, you are a great role model as a queer woman who is attending university next year to major in aerospace engineering!!!

Hi.dr.naomi.i have 2 questions.

1.Can this JAMES WEB T.S able to see Mercury, Venus and certain stars that are close to the sun either. I.

2.Why is the James Webb t.s.mirror yellow?

Any specific reason for this

Will it take pictures of Pluto?

When will we start seeing images from the James Webb telescope??

What would be the ideal discovery to make with the Webb Telescope? Or what would you love to find with it?

Does Webb have resolution to look more closely at nearby objects, like Mars or even Earth? Or just far things?

Hello. I'm curious what new feature the james webb brings to the table, like its ability to detect in infrared, that you are most excited about? What are you most interested to look into with this new telescope?

How exactly will it work? And whats the goal of the project?

Do you have any protections against asteroids?

Concerning the new telescope -out of curiosity- what is the maximum distance it can view planets, galaxies, objects, anything up to -in terms of common/metric measurement, and/or years (if applicable) etc.? -Rose

What does “chemical fingerprints” mean? What chemicals indicate possible life on other planets?

Will the James Webb Telescope also be able to spot out signs of life on habitable worlds?