NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day

September 19, 2024

The Dark Seahorse of Cepheus

Spanning light-years, this suggestive shape known as the Seahorse Nebula floats in silhouette against a rich, luminous background of stars. Seen toward the royal northern constellation of Cepheus, the dusty, dark nebula is part of a Milky Way molecular cloud some 1,200 light-years distant. It is also listed as Barnard 150 (B150), one of 182 dark markings of the sky cataloged in the early 20th century by astronomer E. E. Barnard. Packs of low mass stars are forming within, but their collapsing cores are only visible at long infrared wavelengths. Still, the colorful Milky Way stars of Cepheus add to this stunning galactic skyscape.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

NASA Shares Hidden Figures Congressional Gold Medal Remarks

Sep 18, 2024

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson released his remarks as prepared for Wednesday’s Hidden Figures Congressional Gold Medal ceremony in Washington.

The awards recognized the women who contributed to the space race, including the NASA mathematicians who helped land the first astronauts on the Moon under the agency’s Apollo Program.

“Good afternoon.

“The remarkable things that NASA achieves…and that America achieves…build on the pioneers who came before us.

“People like the women of Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo.

“People like Mary Jackson. Dr. Christine Darden. Dorothy Vaughan. Katherine Johnson.

“Thanks to all the Members of Congress who made today possible.

The late Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson, who we miss, and who led the effort in 2019 alongside Senator Chris Coons to bring these medals to life.

Thanks to the champions for the legislation, then-Senator Kamala Harris, Senators Lisa Murkowski and Shelley Moore Capito, and Congressman Frank Lucas.

“The women we honor today made it possible for Earthlings to lift beyond the bounds of Earth, and for generations of trailblazers to follow.

“We did not come this far only to come this far.

“We continue this legacy, as one member of the audience here with us does every single day – the remarkable Andrea Mosie.

“Andrea, who has worked at NASA for nearly 50 years, is the lead processor for the Apollo sample program.

She oversees the Moon rocks and lunar samples NASA brought back from Apollo, 842 pounds of celestial science!

These samples are national treasures. So is Andrea.

“The pioneers we honor today, these Hidden Figures – their courage and imagination brought us to the Moon.

And their lessons, their legacy, will send us back to the Moon… and then…imagine – just imagine – when we leave our footprints on the red sands of Mars.

“Thanks to these people who are part of our NASA family, we will continue to sail on the cosmic sea to far off cosmic shores.”

https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-shares-hidden-figures-congressional-gold-medal-remarks/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zIx0vEuRbs

Hubble Examines a Busy Galactic Center

Sep 18, 2024

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the spiral galaxy IC 4709 located around 240 million light-years away in the southern constellation Telescopium.

Hubble beautifully captures its faint halo and swirling disk filled with stars and dust bands.

The compact region at its core might be the most remarkable sight. It holds an active galactic nucleus (AGN).

If IC 4709’s core just held stars, it wouldn’t be nearly as bright. Instead, it hosts a gargantuan black hole, 65 million times more massive than our Sun.

A disk of gas spirals around and eventually into this black hole, crashing together and heating up as it spins.

It reaches such high temperatures that it emits vast quantities of electromagnetic radiation, from infrared to visible to ultraviolet light and X-rays.

A lane of dark dust, just visible at the center of the galaxy in the image above, obscures the AGN in IC 4709.

The dust lane blocks any visible light emission from the nucleus itself.

Hubble’s spectacular resolution, however, gives astronomers a detailed view of the interaction between the quite small AGN and its host galaxy.

This is essential to understanding supermassive black holes in galaxies much more distant than IC 4709, where resolving such fine details is not possible.

This image incorporates data from two Hubble surveys of nearby AGNs originally identified by NASA’s Swift telescope.

There are plans for Swift to collect new data on these galaxies. Swift houses three multiwavelength telescopes, collecting data in visible, ultraviolet, X-ray, and gamma-ray light.

Its X-ray component will allow SWIFT to directly see the X-rays from IC 4709’s AGN breaking through the obscuring dust. ESA’s Euclid telescope — currently surveying the dark universe in optical and infrared light — will also image IC 4709 and other local AGNs.

Their data, along with Hubble’s, provides astronomers with complementary views across the electromagnetic spectrum.

Such views are key to fully research and better understand black holes and their influence on their host galaxies.

https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/hubble-examines-a-busy-galactic-center/

How a Twitch streamer helped bring NASA to the livestreaming community

Sep 18, 2024, 11:55 AM PDT

The atmosphere of Halo’s arid planet Sanghelios or the science of Valorant’s Alpha Earth aren’t the only explorations of space you’ll find on Twitch.

The livestreaming platform is best known as a hub for games like League of Legends, Valorant, or Minecraft, but today, it’s also a place for people to learn: about science, space, and the planet we live on.

Science and technology have their very own category on Twitch, which hosts everything from NASA livestreaming a total solar eclipse to a group of enthusiasts monitoring seismic waves.

It’s also where you’ll find Twitch partner and space, science, and astrobiology communicator Moohoodles, who shares space news, like the first images from the Euclid space telescope or watching the Odyssey spacecraft land on the moon, and plays video games while chatting about science to her viewers.

Ahead of TwitchCon, Polygon emailed with Moohoodles (who asked Polygon to use her handle for privacy) about her long career on Twitch, science’s place on the platform, and building an engaged community.

cont.

https://www.polygon.com/twitch/452754/science-streamer-moohoodles-interview-nasa-twitchcon