Space

The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope dissected the Crab Nebula’s structure, aiding astronomers as they continue to evaluate leading theories about the supernova remnant’s origins. With the data collected by Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), a team of scientists were able to closely inspect some of the Crab Nebula’s major components.

For the first time ever, astronomers mapped the warm dust emission throughout this supernova remnant. Represented here as fluffy magenta material, the dust grains form a cage-like structure that is most apparent toward the lower left and upper right portions of the remnant. Filaments of dust are also threaded throughout the Crab’s interior and sometimes coincide with regions of doubly ionised sulphur (sulphur III), coloured in green. Yellow-white mottled filaments, which form large loop-like structures around the supernova remnant’s centre, represent areas where dust and doubly ionised sulphur overlap.

The dust’s cage-like structure helps constrain some, but not all of the ghostly synchrotron emission represented in blue. The emission resembles wisps of smoke, most notable toward the Crab’s centre. The thin blue ribbons follow the magnetic field lines created by the Crab’s pulsar heart — a rapidly rotating neutron star.

https://esawebb.org/images/weic2417a/

https://esawebb.org/images/weic2417b/

Canonical YouTube link

William Anders, a NASA astronaut who was part of the Apollo 8 crew who became the first three people to circle the moon, has died in a plane crash.

Evidently the joints on the flaps still need a little work into not letting gases through, but it seemed to still have enough actuation to keep the spacecraft stable until the engines took over for the landing burn.

A detailed discussion of the Shuttle program as well as some ethics in airspace.

https://esawebb.org/images/weic2413a/

[Image description: This image features the ZS7 galaxy system, showing a large field of hundreds of galaxies on the black background of space.]

https://esawebb.org/images/potm2404b/

[Image Description: A spherical collection of stars which fills the whole view. The cluster is dominated by a concentrated group of bright white stars at the centre, with several large yellow stars scattered throughout the image. Many of the stars have visible diffraction spikes. The background is black.]

https://esawebb.org/images/weic2411a/

[Image description: At the bottom of the image a small portion of the Horsehead Nebula is seen close-in, as a curved wall of thick, smoky gas and dust. Above the nebula various distant stars and galaxies can be seen up to the top of the image. One star is very bright and large, with six long diffraction spikes that cross the image. The background fades from a dark red colour above the nebula to black.]

MIRI image with more details in the nebula.

Seems similar to the one released in 2022. I've searched for 15 minutes to try to find a new download or purchase link, without any luck! All the news stories just have low-res previews.

The mission includes a quadcopter to explore different locations on the surface.

Shot with a Kodak PIXPRO AZ401 with a 24mm wide angle lens, 40x optical with 1/125 shutter speed, 80 ISO and -2.0 exposure value. Getting back into photography and I'm pretty stoked about this shot.

Edited title for less cringe. Still a good video, regardless.

Original youtube link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKmPJmaeP8A

*WHAT THE HELL IS THAT HUGE BODY OF TEXT