Spiral Galaxy M106 Composite Image

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NGC 4258, also known as M106, is a galaxy about 23 million light-years away and is home of a giant black hole. This galactic fireworks display is taking place in M106, a spiral galaxy like our own Milky Way. This galaxy is famous, however, for something that our galaxy doesn't have – two extra spiral arms that glow in X-ray, optical and radio light. These features, or anomalous arms, are not aligned with the plane of the galaxy, but instead intersect with it.

The anomalous arms are seen in this new composite image, where X-rays from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory are blue, radio data from the NSF's Karl Jansky Very Large Array are purple, optical data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope are yellow and infrared data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope are red.

A new study made with Spitzer shows that shock waves, similar to the sonic booms from supersonic planes, are heating large amounts of gas – equivalent to about 10 million suns. What is generating these shock waves? Researchers think that the supermassive black hole at the center of NGC 4258 is producing powerful jets of high-energy particles. These jets strike the disk of the galaxy and generate shock waves. These shock waves, in turn, heat the gas – composed mainly of hydrogen molecules – to thousands of degrees. The Chandra X-ray image reveals huge bubbles of hot gas above and below the plane of the galaxy. These bubbles indicate that much of the gas that was originally in the disk of the galaxy has been heated and ejected into the outer regions by the jets from the black hole.

The ejection of gas from the disk by the jets has important implications for the fate of this galaxy. Researchers estimate that all of the remaining gas will be ejected within the next 300 million years – very soon on cosmic time scales – unless it is somehow replenished. Because most of the gas in the disk has already been ejected, less gas is available for new stars to form. Indeed, the researchers used Spitzer data to estimate that stars are forming in the central regions of NGC 4258, at a rate which is about ten times less than in the Milky Way galaxy.

The European Space Agency's Herschel Space Observatory was used to confirm the estimate from Spitzer data of the low star formation rate in the central regions of NGC 4258. Herschel was also used to make an independent estimate of how much gas remains in the center of the galaxy. After allowing for the large boost in infrared emission caused by the shocks, the researchers found that the gas mass is ten times smaller than had been previously estimated. Because NGC 4258 is relatively close to Earth, astronomers can study how this black hole is affecting its galaxy in great detail.

Image Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Caltech/P.Ogle et al; Optical: NASA/STScI; IR: NASA/JPL-Caltech; Radio: NSF/NRAO/VLA

Image enhancement: Jean-Baptiste Faure

The Eagle Nebula as seen by Herschel and XMM-Newton

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In 1995, a now famous picture from the Hubble Space Telescope featured Pillars of Creation, star forming columns of cold gas and dust light-years long inside M16, the Eagle Nebula. This remarkable false-color composite image revisits the nearby stellar nursery with image data from the orbiting Herschel Space Observatory and XMM-Newton telescopes. Herschel's far infrared detectors record the emission from the region's cold dust directly, including the famous pillars and other structures near the center of the scene. Toward the other extreme of the electromagnetic spectrum, XMM-Newton's X-ray vision reveals the massive, hot stars of the nebula's embedded star cluster. Hidden from Hubble's view at optical wavelengths, the massive stars have a profound effect, sculpting and transforming the natal gas and dust structures with their energetic winds and radiation. In fact, the massive stars are short lived and astronomers have found evidence in the image data pointing to the remnant of a supernova explosion with an apparent age of 6,000 years. If true, the expanding shock waves would have destroyed the visible structures, including the famous pillars. But because the Eagle Nebula is some 6,500 light-years distant, their destruction won't be witnessed for hundreds of years.
The full resolution image weighs 1.52 MB, so please be (a little) patient when downloading!
Credit: Far-infrared: ESA/Herschel/PACS/SPIRE/Hill, Motte, HOBYS Key Programme Consortium;
X-ray: ESA/XMM-Newton/EPIC/XMM-Newton-SOC/Boulanger
Image enhancement: Jean-Baptiste Faure

The Planck Telescope sees Tendrils of Cold Dust!

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Planck's ability to measure the temperature of the coldest dust particles will provide a better understanding of the physical processes at play in the spaces between stars, and in regions of star formation. This image covers a portion of the sky about 50 degrees in total extent. It is a three-color combination constructed from Planck's two highest frequency channels (557 and 857 Gigahertz, corresponding to wavelengths of 540 and 350 micrometers), and an image obtained at 100 micrometers with the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS). This combination effectively traces the dust: reddish tones correspond to temperatures as cold as 12 degrees above absolute zero, and whitish tones to significantly warmer ones (on order a few tens of degrees) in regions where massive stars are currently forming. Overall, the image shows local dust structures within 500 light-years of the sun. This Planck image was obtained during the first Planck all-sky survey, which began in mid-August 2009. By mid-March 2010, more than 98 percent of the sky had been observed. The second sky scan is underway, but, because of the way Planck surveys the sky, the first scan won't be 100 percent complete until late-May 2010.
Planck is a European Space Agency mission, with significant participation from NASA. NASA's Planck Project Office is based at JPL. JPL contributed mission-enabling technology for both of Planck's science instruments. European, Canadian, U.S. and NASA Planck scientists will work together to analyze the Planck data.
Credit: ESA and the HFI Consortium, IRAS

SOHO image of the Sun with a handle-shaped Prominence!

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Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (EIT) image of a huge, handle-shaped prominence taken on Sept. 14,1999 in the 304 angstrom wavelength. Prominences are huge clouds of relatively cool dense plasma suspended in the Sun's hot, thin corona. At times, they can erupt, escaping the Sun's atmosphere. Emission in this spectral line shows the upper chromosphere at a temperature of about 60,000 degrees K. Every feature in the image traces magnetic field structure. The hottest areas appear almost white, while the darker red areas indicate cooler temperatures.
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Credit: ESA/NASA/SOHO

NASA's SDO captures X7 Class Flare in extreme UV light

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An x-class flare began at 3:48 AM EDT on August 9, 2011 and peaked at 4:05 AM. The flare burst from sun spot region AR11263, before it rotated out of view. The image here was captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) in extreme ultraviolet light at 131 Angstroms. This image is from the beginning of the event just before the satellite sensors were overwhelmed by energetic particles.
Credit: NASA/SDO/AIA

NASA's SDO spots three Active Regions on the Sun!

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All the way to the right is AR 1260 (looks like a group of Islands). In the middle is AR 1261, which is about the size of Earth. And coming across the eastern limb is another, not yet names, active region coming around.
Credit: NASA/Goddard/SDO

Giant Solar Prominences captured by NASA's SDO!

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These solar prominences - captured on March 30, 2010 by NASA's SDO - are large arches of dense gas that are attached to the Sun at the photosphere (where the light we receive on Earth originates from), and extend out into the corona (the Sun's atmosphere). They appear to be very bright when viewed against the backdrop of space, but when seen on the disk of the Sun they appear dark and are known as filaments. This difference occurs because they are much cooler than the Sun’s surface, but when compared to the rest of space they are very, very hot.
Credit: NASA/Goddard/SDO AIA Team

Sun's Spiraling Magnetic Loops observed in Extreme UV by SDO

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Cascades of spiraling magnetic loops observed in extreme ultraviolet light by SDO danced and twisted above an active region on the Sun (Apr. 3-5, 2011). These loops are charged particles spinning along the magnetic field lines, and thus visually revealing them. The bright active region was fairly strong and the activity persistent, though not explosive. At one point darker plasma can be seen being pulled back and forth across the region's center.
Credit: NASA/SDO (Solar Dynamics Observatory)

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) sees Spring Eclipse!

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What happened while SDO exited the eclipse on March 29? The edge of the Earth is the ragged line across the southern hemisphere of the Sun. Where is the sharp line seen in the HMI movie from the FirstLight gallery or the edge of the moon in a lunar transit? The answer is a combination of atmospheric absorption and color tables. The sharp line in HMI is in the visible spectrum and emphasizes the thinness of the troposphere that we live in. Light at the EUV wavelengths of AIA is completely absorbed much higher in the Earth's atmosphere (at an altitude of about 300 km at the limb). Even small amounts of atmosphere remove the light from the picture. Then the image is processed into an image we can see by changing to a log intensity and scaling to a color table. The log intensity makes the bright bits and dim bits visible in the same image but over-emphasizes the dim background. Even a little absorption is enough to cause a dim region to drop to below the minimum intensity allowed in the color table, hence the irregular border that traces out the dimmer regions seen in the following uneclipsed image.
Credit: NASA/SDO (Solar Dynamics Observatory)

James Webb Space Telescope completes cryogenic mirror test

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On this picture, six James Webb Space Telescope beryllium mirror segments complete a series of cryogenic tests at the X-ray & Cryogenic Facility at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The facility at Marshall is the world's largest X-ray telescope test facility and a unique site for cryogenic, clean-room optical testing. During cryogenic testing, the mirrors are subjected to temperatures dipping to -415 degrees Fahrenheit, permitting engineers to measure in extreme detail how the shape of each mirror changes as it cools.
The Webb telescope has a total of 18 mirrors. Each of the 18 mirror segments will be cryogenically tested twice in the Marshall Center's X-ray & Cryogenic Facility to ensure that the mirror will maintain its shape in a space environment - once with bare polished beryllium and then again after a thin coating of gold is applied. The cryogenic test gauges how each mirror changes temperature and shape over a range of operational temperatures in space. This helps predict how well the telescope will image infrared sources.
The mirrors are designed to stay cold to allow scientists to observe the infrared light they reflect using a telescope and instruments optimized to detect this light. Warm objects give off infrared light, or heat. If the Webb telescope mirror is too warm, the faint infrared light from distant galaxies may be lost in the infrared glow of the mirror itself. Thus, the Webb telescope's mirrors need to operate in a deep cold or cryogenic state, at around -379 degree Fahrenheit.
Northrop Grumman is the prime contractor for the Webb telescope, leading a design and development team under contract to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
The James Webb Space Telescope is NASA's next-generation premier space observatory, exploring deep space phenomena from the formation of distant galaxies to the behavior and interrelationships of nearby planets and stars. The Webb telescope will give scientists clues about the formation of the universe and the evolution of our own solar system, from the first light after the Big Bang to the formation of star systems capable of supporting life on planets like Earth.
The full resolution image weighs 9.4 MB, so please be patient when downloading!
Credit: NASA/MSFC/David Higginbotham/Emmett Given

ATLAST: beyond Hubble and the James Webb Space Telescope!

The Advanced Technology Large Aperture Space Telescope (ATLAST) is a NASA strategic mission concept study for the next generation of Ultraviolet-Visible-Infrared (UVOIR) space observatory. ATLAST will have a primary mirror diameter in the 8-meter to 16-meter range that will allow scientists to perform some of the most challenging observations to answer some of the most compelling astrophysical questions.
The greatest leaps in our understanding of the universe typically follow the introduction of radically new observational capabilities that bring previously unobserved phenomena into view. Some, such as the unambiguous detection of life on an Earth-like planet orbiting another star, will be profound yet conceivable. Others are entirely beyond our imagination. All forever change our view of our place in the universe.

ATLAST is envisioned as a flagship mission of the 2025 - 2035 period, designed to address one of the most compelling questions of our time. Is there life elsewhere in our Galaxy? It will accomplish this by detecting "biosignatures" (such as molecular oxygen, ozone, water, and methane) in the spectra of terrestrial exoplanets.
But ATLAST is more than just a "life-finder". ATLAST will have the performance required to reveal the underlying physics that drives star formation and to trace the complex interactions between dark matter, galaxies, and the intergalactic medium. Because of the large leap in observing capabilities that ATLAST will provide, we cannot fully anticipate the diversity or direction of the investigations that will dominate its use - just as the creators of HST did not foresee its pioneering roles in characterizing the atmospheres of Jupiter-mass exoplanets or measuring the acceleration of cosmic expansion using distant supernovae.
ATLAST will have the versatility to far outlast the scientific vision of current-day astronomers.
NASA has identified two different telescope architectures, but with similar optical designs, that span the range in viable technologies. The architectures are a telescope with a monolithic primary mirror and two variations of a telescope with a large segmented primary mirror.

Artist's concepts of two ATLAST designs. Top: 8-meter monolithic mirror telescope (credit: MSFC Advanced Concepts Office). Left: 16-meter segmented mirror telescope.
The concepts invoke heritage from HST and JWST design, but also take significant departures from these designs to minimize complexity, mass, or both. ATLAST will have an angular resolution that is 5 - 10 times better than the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and a sensitivity limit that is up to 2000 times better than the Hubble Space Telescope (HST).
Two of the concepts, the 8-meter monolithic mirror telescope and the 16.8-meter segmented mirror telescope, span the range of UVOIR observatories that are enabled by NASA's proposed Ares V launch vehicle, which is part of Project Constellation. The 8-meter ATLAST offers the inherent advantages of a monolithic aperture telescope in terms of high-contrast imaging and superb wavefront control. The 16-meter ATLAST represents a pathway to truly large apertures in space and uses the largest extrapolation of a JWST-like chord-fold primary mirror packaging. However, the ATLAST mission is not solely dependent on Ares V. The third concept, a 9.2-meter segmented telescope, is compatible with an Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) and also adopts JWST design heritage. The ATLAST technology development plan is supported with funding from NASA's Astrophysics Strategic Mission Concept Study program, the Goddard Space Flight Center, the Marshall Space Flight Center, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Caltech) and related programs at Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems and Ball Aerospace and Technology Corp.
In both designs, ATLAST will be able to be serviced, much like the HST has been. Using either a robotic ferry (the currently proposed method), or an astronaut crew flying in an Orion spacecraft (which will allow NASA to gain experience for future manned Solar System missions), instruments such as cameras would be replaced and returned to Earth for analysis and future upgrades. Like the HST and proposed JWST, ATLAST would be powered by solar panels.

ATLAST would either be launched from the Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39A by an Ares V rocket or, if the 9.2-meter design is adopted, from NASA facilities capable of launching EELVs. Much like the proposed Orion/Altair flights to the Moon, the Ares V will place ATLAST and the Earth Departure Stage (EDS) into a "parking" orbit, while engineers check out the systems of both the EDS and the ATLAST. Once cleared, the EDS will fire again and ATLAST will then begin a three-month journey to the Sun-Earth L₂ Point, entering a so-called "halo orbit" around the point once it is reached. While en route to the Sun-Earth L₂ Point, the segmented versions of the telescope would deploy their optics.
Servicing missions, launched every 5 to 7 years, would allow astronomers to upgrade the ATLAS Telescope with new instruments and technologies. Like the HST, ATLAST should have a 20-year lifespan.
Credit: Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems and NASA/STScI

The Chandra X-ray Observatory (CXO)

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At Launch Pad 39-B, the Chandra X-ray Observatory sits inside the payload bay of Space Shuttle Columbia, waiting for the doors to close.

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The Chandra X-ray Observatory in honor of Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, was launched and deployed by the Space Shuttle Columbia on July 23, 1999. The combination of high resolution, large collecting area, and sensitivity to higher energy X-rays will make it possible for Chandra to study extremely faint sources, sometimes strongly absorbed, in crowded fields. Chandra was boosted into an elliptical high-earth orbit that allows long-duration uninterrupted exposures of celestial objects.

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This photo shows the Chandra X-Ray Observatory (CXO), formerly Advanced X-Ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF), High Resolution Mirror Assembly (HRMA) being removed from the test structure in the X-Ray Calibration Facility (XRCF) at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). The AXAF was renamed CXO in 1999. The CXO is the most sophisticated and the world's most powerful x-ray telescope ever built. It observes x-rays from high-energy regions of the universe, such as hot gas in the remnants of exploded stars. The HRMA, the heart of the telescope system, is contained in the cylindrical "telescope" portion of the observatory. Since high-energy x-rays would penetrate a normal mirror, special cylindrical mirrors were created. The two sets of four nested mirrors resemble tubes within tubes. Incoming x-rays graze off the highly polished mirror surface and are furneled to the instrument section for detection and study. MSFC's XRCF is the world's largest, most advanced laboratory for simulating x-ray emissions from distant celestial objects. It produces a space-like environment in which components related to x-ray telescope imaging are tested and the quality of their performances in space is predicted. TRW, Inc. was the prime contractor for the development of the CXO and NASA's MSFC was responsible for its project management. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls science and flight operations of the CXO for NASA from Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Credit: NASA