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Photography Science

Composite Images From NASA’s Most Powerful Telescopes Reveal Mind-Boggling Details of the Cosmos

Combining data from some of NASA’s most powerful instruments, four new composites highlight the enormity of the cosmos in unprecedented detail. Imagery from the Chandra Observatory and the James Webb and Hubble telescopes—plus infrared information from the Spitzer telescope’s final missions—mesh together to generate mesmerizing views of iconic nebulae and galaxies.

Messier 74, a spiral galaxy more than 30 million light-years from Earth, is sometimes called the Phantom Galaxy due to its relative dimness (despite hosting around 100 billion stars!). Webb captured its swirling network in infrared, spotlighting gas and dust, while Chandra provided X-ray data of high-energy stars. Returning a little closer to home, for the Pillars of Creation in Messier 16, a.k.a. the Eagle Nebula—about 7,000 light-years away—Webb contributed the dusty forms that shroud fledgling stars and Chandra included the glowing blue and red dots.

Explore in-depth analysis of the images, plus the individual sources, on the Chandra Observatory’s website, which also include a star cluster called NGC 34 and the “barred spiral” galaxy NGC 1672. (via PetaPixel)

 

Photography Science

A Staggering 3.32 Billion Celestial Objects Dot an Enormous New Image of the Milky Way

A massive new composite released earlier this year reveals a confounding number of stars in the Milky Way. An international collaboration gathered from multiple telescopes at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, the stunning work captures a staggering 3.32 billion celestial objects across 130 degrees of the night sky—for context, the NSF’s NOIRLab team, which is responsible for the 21,400-image composite, shares that this stretch “equates to 13,000 times the angular area of the full moon.”

Requiring about 260 hours of observation, this new release follows data shared in 2017, although its breadth is far greater and allows for a complete 360-degree panoramic view. The full image shown below highlights the Milky Way’s vibrant band containing most of the stellar objects, while the detailed crop above captures an extraordinarily concentrated area. Researchers said about the density in a statement:

While this profusion of stars and dust makes for beautiful images, it also makes the galactic plane challenging to observe. The dark tendrils of dust seen threading through this image absorb starlight and blot out fainter stars entirely, and the light from diffuse nebulae interferes with any attempts to measure the brightness of individual objects. Another challenge arises from the sheer number of stars, which can overlap in the image and make it difficult to disentangle individual stars from their neighbors.

In addition to the standalone images, astronomers also released an interactive version for those interested in exploring specific locations and details within the celestial expanse. (via Kottke)

 

Art

A Series of Meticulously Carved Panels Combine Layers of Color to Make Tugboat Printshop’s ‘River’ Woodcut

Woodland creatures peek out from behind tree trunks, and a stream of water rushes through a dense, forested landscape in Valerie Lueth’s latest woodcut for Tugboat Printshop (previously). “River” uses four intricately carved panels layered into a composition of overlapping, vivid color. Currently a work in progress and nearing completion, the detailed scene features intricate foliage and a smattering of stars throughout the sky and landscape.

To create the nocturnal setting, Lueth began by meticulously carving the surface of a “key block” using knives and gouging tools to create an overview of the entire composition. She then transferred the full scene to three additional panels in gray ink and filled in sections with marker to delineate which areas should be carved and where different pigments would be applied. Printed in succession, each block will provide a puzzle-like piece of the final print.

“River” is available for pre-order on the Tugboat Printshop website, and you can follow more updates on Instagram.

 

 

Photography Science

The ‘Pillars of Creation’ Glow in Remarkable Detail in a Groundbreaking Image from NASA’s James Webb Telescope

In a small region within the vast Eagle Nebula—a 6,500 light-year journey from our solar system in the constellation Serpens—the iconic “Pillars of Creation” appear in a ghostly formation. Made of cool hydrogen gas and dust, these incubators for new stars are dense celestial structures that have survived longer than their surroundings. Ultraviolet light from incredibly hot newborn stars gradually erodes the surrounding space and illuminates the ethereal surfaces of the pillars and the streams of gas they emit.

Since July, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has released numerous photographs of the cosmos in unprecedented detail. To process this image, scientists combined captures taken with the telescope’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), which brought different elements into focus. Near-infrared light emphasizes the stars, including thousands of newly-formed orange spheres that hover around the columns. The saturated hues around the interstellar formations are visible thanks to the mid-infrared contribution, which highlights the diffused orange dust around the top, deep indigo of the densest regions, and bright neutral color of the pillars. Lava-red spots on the upper parts of the spires contain young, embedded stars that will continue to form for millions of years.

See the full 47.59-megapixel photograph on the James Webb website. (via PetaPixel)

 

Photography Science

NASA’s James Webb Telescope Captures an Astounding Photo of the Gaseous Pillars of Creation

Back in 1995, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope documented the now iconic Pillars of Creation, a photo of a celestial area known for its staggering number of star formations. That initial image offered an illuminating glimpse of the interstellar stone-like columns made of gas and dust, although a composite recently released from the James Webb Space Telescope uses near-infrared light to highlight the region in even more detail.

This new 122-megapixel photo features a deep-blue expanse studded with light, and the pillars themselves appear less opaque than in the earlier shot. When cropped, the new image shows the Eagle Nebula, located 6,500 light-years away. The bright red fiery orbs apparent from this view are new stars, which are formed “when knots with sufficient mass form within the pillars of gas and dust… begin to collapse under their own gravity (and) slowly heat up.”

 

Some of the incandescent bodies still in the early stages of life also produce undulating, lava-like ejections, which NASA describes:

Young stars periodically shoot out supersonic jets that collide with clouds of material, like these thick pillars. This sometimes also results in bow shocks, which can form wavy patterns like a boat does as it moves through water. The crimson glow comes from the energetic hydrogen molecules that result from jets and shocks. This is evident in the second and third pillars from the top–the NIRCam image is practically pulsing with their activity. These young stars are estimated to be only a few hundred thousand years old.

Researchers say the new photo will allow more accurate counts of new formations and their development.

 

Photography

Brilliant Star Trails Sweep Above a Fierce Tangle of Lightning in a Striking Photo

Back in June, Marc Sellés Llimós photographed multiple instances of illumination in a single nighttime sky. From the village of Manlleu, Osona, where he lives and works, Sellés Llimós captured a fierce thunderstorm as it raged on the other side of the Serra de Bellmunt mountain in Carcassonne, France. The 380-image composite shows a brilliant tangle of lightning below sweeping star trails, produced with a slow, six-minute exposure. According to NASA, which featured the work as one of its astronomy photos of the day, the trails reflect the Earth’s daily rotation around its axis, and the extent of their curvatures represents the distance from the north pole.

Head to Instagram to purchase a print and to see an archive of Sellés Llimós’s photos.  (via Peta Pixel)