ESA Hubble and Webb Space Telescopes

Do you recognise this photo of the glittering open cluster Westerlund 1? ✨ You can find it alongside all our other ESA/Webb Pictures of the Month here: https://ow.ly/YaSv50V7vEY #WebbSeesFarther 📷 ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb), M. G. Guarcello (INAF-OAPA) and the EWOCS team

🆕 The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has turned to the barred spiral galaxy NGC 2283, which lies 45 million light-years away in the constellation Canis Major 🐕⭐ 🔴 Our Picture of the Month is seen through the eyes of Webb’s #NIRCam and #MIRI instruments, which gazed at NGC 2283 for just 10 minutes to collect the data! It used four near-infrared filters, revealing sparkling stars and glowing clouds of gas. 🔴 The image was collected for a programme which aims to understand the connections between stars, gas, and dust in nearby star-forming galaxies. NGC 2283 is just one of the 55 galaxies in the local Universe observed for the programme! 🔴 All 55 galaxies are close enough for individual star clusters and gas clouds to be visible. These can be seen lining NGC 2283’s spiral arms – the knots of gas illuminated by young stars are signs of active star formation 🌟 Read more about it here: https://ow.ly/beUv50V7vw8 #WebbSeesFarther 📷 ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Leroy

Astronomers have used the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to study dozens of satellite galaxies orbiting the Andromeda galaxy. The dwarf galaxies seem to be confined to a plane, all orbiting in the same direction 💫 Read more: https://ow.ly/mWi350V7v9N 📷 NASA, ESA, A. Savino (UC Berkeley), J. DePasquale (STScI), A. Fujii DSS2

Each year of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s mission has been celebrated by a breathtaking anniversary image: nebulae, galaxies, star clusters, and more 🌌 Now, to mark 35 years since its launch, a commemorative calendar has been released featuring a selection of these images! Read more: https://ow.ly/pJHh50V4cU7 📷 ESA/Hubble

Our ESA/Hubble Picture of the Week lifts the veil on a supernova remnant 💥🪦 🔴 The Veil Nebula is the remnant of a massive star that exploded about 10,000 years ago. It is situated about 2400 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. 🔴 This image highlights emissions from hydrogen, sulphur, and oxygen atoms. It shows just a small fraction of the Veil Nebula – if you could see the entire nebula without a telescope, it would be as wide as six full Moons! 🔴 Although this image captures the Veil Nebula at just one moment in time, combining it with observations from 1994 will help researchers understand how it has evolved over decades! Read more: https://ow.ly/SG6w50V4cwC 📷 ESA/Hubble & NASA, R. Sankrit

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has been at work for how long? 😱 To celebrate 35 years since Hubble’s launch, a commemorative calendar has been released 📆 featuring images from past anniversaries between 1998 (Saturn) and 2024 (the Little Dumbbell Nebula) Read more: https://ow.ly/xVhC50V153J 📷 ESA/Hubble

Our ESA/Hubble Picture of the Week features a spiral hiding an imposter 🥸 🔴 UGC 5460, which lies 60 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major 🐻⭐ is notable for having hosted two recent supernovae: SN 2015as and SN 2011ht. 🔴 SN 2015as was a core-collapse supernova: an explosion that happens when a massive star runs out of fuel and collapses under its own gravity. SN 2011ht might have also been a core-collapse supernova, but it could have been an imposter called a luminous blue variable… 🔴 These are rare stars that experience eruptions so large they can mimic supernovae. But luminous blue variables emerge unscathed – so if the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope can find a stellar survivor at the scene, the explosion’s identity may be revealed at last! Read more: https://ow.ly/nNUn50V09Af 📷 ESA/Hubble & NASA, W. Jacobson-Galán, A. Filippenko, J. Mauerhan

This April will mark 35 years since the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope was sent into orbit! 🎉 ESA/Hubble is celebrating the milestone with a commemorative calendar for 2025 that takes us through highlights of Hubble’s work, from a vivid view of Saturn 🪐 to the hazy Lagoon Nebula 🌊 Read more: https://ow.ly/Vgta50UWyvz 📷 ESA/Hubble

Our ESA/Hubble Picture of the Week features a swirling cloudscape! ☁️ 🔴 It captures a dusty scene near the Tarantula Nebula 🕷️ in the Large Magellanic Cloud. The nebula is the most productive star-forming region in the nearby Universe, home to the most massive stars known. 🔴 The Tarantula Nebula’s colourful gas clouds are crossed by wispy tendrils and dark clumps of dust – unlike ordinary household dust, this dust tends to be made of carbon or of molecules called silicates which contain silicon and oxygen. 🔴 Dust plays many important roles in the Universe, helping planets form, stars condense, and even making new molecules in interstellar space! Read more: https://ow.ly/fy3050UVFbq 📷 ESA/Hubble & NASA, C. Murray

This is HH30, an edge-on protoplanetary disc in the Taurus Molecular Cloud Thanks to its early discovery, it is considered the prototypical edge-on disc and a unique laboratory for studying the drifting and settling of dust. This image combines observations from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, and the Atacama large MIllimeter/submillimeter Array – revealing HH30’s distinct nested structures! #WebbSeesFarther 📷 ESA/Webb, NASA, CSA, Tazaki et al., N. Bartmann (ESA/Webb) 🎶 Stellardrone - Twilight