Hubble

He has achieved it by combining James Webb and Hubble

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There are images that do not need context to impose themselves. Saturn is one of them. It is enough to see it to understand why it continues to be one of the great protagonists of the solar system: for its shape, for its rings and for that mixture of apparent simplicity and complexity that it hides. The same thing happens to many of us, we stop at any new photograph as if it were the first. And that is somewhat logical, because we do not always have the opportunity to observe it with a such a rich comparison between visible and infrared light nor to get closer, even through an image, to what really happens in its atmosphere. On this occasion, what NASA has shown It is not simply a new photograph, but a different way of observing the same planet. In a single comparative image (Click to download the image in high definition), the agency has put together an observation from Hubble taken on August 22, 2024 and another from James Webb captured on November 29 of the same year, 14 weeks apart. The result is a double view that seeks not so much to impress as to explain how what we see changes when we observe at different wavelengths. What are we really seeing in this image? If we stop at the image, the difference is obvious from the first moment. On the left, the James Webb shows a Saturn with darker, more contrasting tones, where the rings shine brightly because they are made of highly reflective water ice. On the right, Hubble offers a view much closer to how we would perceive it with the naked eye, with soft colors and more subtle bands. According to NASA, both telescopes are observing sunlight reflected by the clouds and mists of the planetbut each one does so in different ranges, which radically changes the information they provide. On the left, the image of Saturn captured by the James Webb Space Telescope; On the right, the one obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope: two views that reveal its active atmosphere, its moons and its bright rings Beyond the visual contrast, this comparison allows us to peek into what happens inside Saturn’s atmosphere. The agency explains that by combining both observations, scientists can study the planet at different altitudes, from the deepest clouds to the highest and most diffuse regions. In the Webb image, for example, a long-lasting jet stream known as a “ribbon wave” appears and also a persistent remnant of the great spring storm of 2010 to 2012. Hubble, for its part, provides continuity in monitoring the bands and the general evolution of the planet. At this point, it is worth clarifying something important: we are not looking at two photographs that reproduce Saturn in the same way. The difference is in how the light is collected and interpreted. Hubble works in the visible spectrum, the same one our eyes perceive, which is why its image is more familiar. James Webb, in this case, observes in the infrared, a radiation invisible to us which allows detecting clouds and compounds at different depths in the atmosphere. In order to display this data, scientists translate these signals into visible colors, and from there come the unnatural tones that appear in your image. If we move all this to a closer scene, the most reliable reference would be the Hubble image. That is the closest thing to how we would perceive Saturn, with soft tones, not very marked bands and bright but natural rings. But the interesting thing is not to choose between one or the other, but to understand what each look contributes. Webb’s allows us to go beyond the visible and detect processes that would otherwise remain hidden. And it is precisely in that combination where this image gains all its meaning. Images | POT In Xataka | Artemis II will take NASA to the Moon half a century later. He will do it with the help of the University of Seville

A planet has just disappeared. NASA’s Hubble telescope has captured a violent cosmic event that changes everything

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Investigating the universe beyond the Solar System we know sometimes brings up more questions than answers. The search for exoplanets has left findings so different from what we know as fascinating. Thus, more than a decade ago the Kepler space telescope identified the Kepler-16ba planet with “two suns” along Star Wars Tatooine and the James Webb telescope stumbled upon a world of boiling lava that paradoxically it’s colder what the theory says. In the process of investigating the universe you can witness the disappearance of a planet, as NASA’s Hubble has monitored, to discover that there was nothing like a planet: they were in front of a violent cosmic phenomenon. First they detected a bright point of light and assumed that it was a planet covered in dust where the brightness of its star was reflected. Then the object disappeared and a different bright source appeared nearby. Finally, this international research team realized that they were not seeing planets at all: the light came from incandescent debris generated by violent collisions, as they later published in Science. A planetesimal collision that changes everything In their observations in time, they captured two different and very powerful impacts that generated large amounts of dust in the same planetary system, which constitutes a magnificent opportunity to understand how planets are formed and what type of materials they are made of. Their main hypothesis: they have glimpsed not one, but two extremely rare events: one (two) planetesimal collisionthat is, a collision between small rocky objects similar to asteroids. Northwestern University astrophysicist Jason Wang explains that it is the first time they have seen a planetesimal collision outside the solar system and that its study is “key to understanding how planets form and can also provide information about the structure of asteroids, something important for planetary defense programs such as the DART test.” Paul Kalas, an astronomer at the University of California at Berkeley and lead author, insists on the exceptionality of the event: “It is not present in any of our previous Hubble images, which means that we have just witnessed a violent collision between two massive objects and a huge cloud of debris, something that has no parallel in our current solar system.” By NASA, ESA, P. Kalas, J. Graham, E. Chiang, E. Kite (University of California, Berkeley), M. Clampin (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center), M. Fitzgerald (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), and K. Stapelfeldt and J. Krist (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory) These collisions occurred in the planetary system surrounding the star Fomalhautwhich is larger than the Sun, is surrounded by an extensive and dense set of dusty debris belts and located about 25 light years from Earth, in the constellation Pisces Austrinus. That dust belt is so large that it is a real candy for research. Planet it seems, cloud of dust it is In 2008 they detected Fomalhaut b, a bright object of unknown nature that some researchers thought was a planet and others believed it was an expanding cloud of dust from a collision. Back in 2023, a new Hubble observation gave an unexpected twist to everything: the original light source was no longer there and another bright object had appeared in a slightly different area. As explains Wang, first They assumed it was Fomalhaut b, but they got a surprise: “We assumed the bright light was Fomalhaut b because it was the known source of the system. But by carefully comparing the new images with the old ones, we realized that it couldn’t be the same source. It was exciting, but also perplexing” So they had to change perspective and nomenclature: the original object was renamed Fomalhaut cs1 and its disappearance supports the idea that it was a cloud of dust that was slowly dispersing after a collision. They called the second bright source Fomalhaut cs2 and its behavior reinforces the conclusion that neither of the two objects was a planet: everything indicates that they are clouds of debris created when large planetesimals collide with each other. Investigating Fomalhaut cs2 they concluded that it looked very similar to the beginnings of cs1 from two decades ago, both in brightness and location. So the team already estimates the frequency of collisions in this guy in the system: every 100,000 years or even less. After all, in 20 years they have already seen two. Kalas explains that “if you took a movie of the last 3,000 years and sped it up so that each year lasted a fraction of a second, imagine how many flashes you would see. The Fomalhaut planetary system would be full of these crashes.” Fomalhaut cs1 no longer exists, but the research team wants to continue monitoring the system and has its eyes on cs2, which could hide more valuable information about how collisions develop in young planetary systems. Of course, in addition to the old Hubble, they will use the near-infrared camera of the James Webb Space Telescope since the NIRCam can capture detailed information about color, so they can determine the size and composition of dust grainsfor example if they contain water or ice. The confirmation of these collisions put a warning on the table for hunters of planets outside the Solar System: the gLarge clouds of dust can very well imitate the appearance of an exoplanetto by reflecting light from its star, which can lead to error using the reflected light detection system. Kalas sums it up: “What we learned from studying cs1 is that a large dust cloud can masquerade as a planet for many years.” As new observatories point to the sky to obtain direct images of Earth-like planets, differentiating between real planets and temporary dust clouds seems providential. In Xataka | Poland and Spain are the European countries that have increased their contribution to space the most. For very different reasons In Xataka | China reveals its cards for 2030: it will go in search of an “Earth 2.0” on its own Cover | Javier Miranda By ESA, NASA, and L. … Read more

The Hubble has just taken the best picture of the interstellar comet. Makes it clear that we were totally wrong about its size

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When astronomers announced the finding of an third interstellar object In the solar system, the first thing that caught attention was its size. There was talk of a core of up to 20 kilometers in diameter, colossal dimensions that fed all kinds of hypotheses, including that it was an extraterrestrial ship. Now, the most clear image of the kite, obtained by the old Hubble space telescope, has reduced expectations. It is much smaller than it seemed. The detailed new image of 3i/Atlas, Published by NASA Hubble teamhas allowed astronomers to limit the size of the comet with much greater precision. According to an analysis presented to The Astrophysical Journal Lettersthe icy nucleus of this object of another star system has a maximum diameter of 5.6 kilometers, but it could be much smaller, just about 320 meters. This new estimate is between four and 60 times smaller than the initial figures. The reason for the initial confusion is that, even for the Hubble, the code core is invisible. What we see is a brilliant “comma”, a dust and gas -shaped gas envelope that is expelled from the nucleus as the first observations from the earth could not distinguish the small nucleus of the huge halo of dust that surrounds it. It is getting rid of on the one hand. The image of the Hubble space telescope not only corrects the size of the kite, but also reveals important details of its behavior, such as an asymmetric dust ejection. The kite expels most of the material from the side that looks towards the sun, forming a kind of bright fan. This is a typical behavior in the comets of our own solar system: the heat of the sun causes the surface ice (pass from gas solid to gas) with more force on the daytime side of the nucleus. In addition, a very weak dust tail is distinguished in the direction opposite to the sun, formed when solar radiation pressure pushes the finest particles. This structure confirms that 3I/Atlas behaves as A classic cometand not as an anomalous object. According to the study, the kite loses between six and 60 kilograms of dust per second, a rate that, although it seems high, is consistent with that of other comets observed at a distance to the similar sun. Goodbye to speculation. This drastic readjustment in the size and behavior of the comet has important implications. A smaller core, similar to that of the other known interstellar comet, 2i/Borisovit fits much better in the cosmological models than one of 20 kilometers, which helps to explain that we have not yet seen more than three objects of other solar systems in our neighborhood. As for its shape, the brilliant cloud of gas and dust makes it impossible to detect if 3i/Atlas has an elongated shape as 1i/’oumuamuathe first known interstellar object. What we do know is that this traveler, which moves at the incredible speed of 209,000 km/h, will continue to be a priority objective for more modern telescopes, such as James Webb. Each new observation helps us better understand these fascinating cosmic tourists and, as it has been clear, to correct some precipitated hypotheses. In Xataka | NASA ignores Harvard’s study on an alleged extraterrestrial ship: “It is an interstellar kite”

An older comet that the sun has invaded the solar system. The old and reliable Hubble telescope already has photos

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The veteran space telescope Hubble, With 35 years of service behind themcontinues to demonstrate that it is in full form. His last feat has been to capture the first clear image of 3i/Atlas, an interstellar kite that not only comes from outside our solar system, but seems to be older than the sun itself. The interstellar object number three. 3i/Atlas is the third celestial body beyond the solar system that astronomers have detected on our neighborhood, after the mysterious Asteroid 1i/’Oumuamua In 2017 and the Gigantic Comet 2i/Borisov In 2019. The images, taken on July 21 by NASA’s space telescope, offer a detailed first view of the new member of the club. The first alert was given by an astrophysic student nicknamed Astrafoxen In his bluesky profile: “There are many cosmic rays around, but the comet’s comma looks fantastic and bulky.” And indeed, even without processing, the images let a diffuse and active atmosphere intuit around the code core. An unexpected composition. Scientists have already begun to reveal the secrets of the comet. A Preliminary study Based on previous images, he revealed that 3i/Atlas is an active interstellar kite that contains abundant water. However, its cloud of dust looks more like that of type D asteroids: rocks full of silicates with organic molecules, carbon and water ice inside. The composition of the comet’s comma seems to be adjusted 70% to Tagish Lake Meteoritewith the remaining 30% in water ice grains. An older cosmic fossil than the sun. Everything indicates that 3i/Atlas comes from a region of the Milky Way much older than ours. With an estimated age of 7,000 million years, compared to the 4.6 billion years of the solar system, this kite is a time capsule of an era before ours, which especially excites astronomers. First detected on July 1, 2025 by the Atlas poll, the comet has become the priority objective of observatories around the world. One of those who will join the hunt is the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, which with The world’s largest digital camera promises to find many of these invaders. Images | Hubble (NASA), Gemini Observatory In Xataka | This is not normal photos of the cosmos: prepare your hard drive to save these hubble wonders

Webb and Hubble telescopes watched Jupiter’s auroras at the same time. For some reason, they did not see the same

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The Great red spot, Polar cyclones, Cloud bands. Jupiter is known for its colossal dimensions and eternal storms. But their auroras are not far behind, and only now We are seeing them in detail Thanks to the power of the James Webb space telescope. A Christmas gift. Newly published with a study of Nature Communicationsthe images were captured on December 25, 2023 with the Nircam Chamber of the Webb Telescope. The most immediate conclusion is that the jovian auroras are of another level. Hundreds of times brighter and more energy than those of the Earth, not only feed, as on our planet, of the particles loaded with the solar wind, but also of the volcanic material expelled by the active moon ío. Hyperactive. The team that led the observations took a surprise when analyzing the data. They hoped to see slow and gradual changes in the auroras, but instead they found “the entire bullendo region and exploding of light”, a hyperactive show that “varied in a matter of seconds.” “What a Christmas gift was that, he left me hallucinated!” Confesses the researcher Jonathan Nichols of the University of Leicester, the United Kingdom. A mystery. To round the study, the team coordinated Webb’s observations in infrared with Simultaneous observations of the Hubble Space Telescope in the ultraviolet spectrum. And here was the puzzle: the brightest lights observed by the Webb in Jupiter’s atmosphere did not have a counterpart in the Hubble images. The webb focused on trihydrogen cation emissions (H3+), a molecule that shines intensely in infrared when high -energy electrons impact molecular hydrogen. But to produce the combination of brightness observed by both telescopes, a huge amount of very low energy particles would be needed by hitting Jupiter’s atmosphere, something that until now was considered practically impossible. What follows. The team plans to study this difference between webb and Hubble data, and explore its implications for Jupiter’s environment. Webb’s next observations will be compared with NASA Juno probe data to try to unravel the origin of the broadcast. The findings will be used to guide the Juice Mission of ESA, who travels now to Jupiter. Seven of their instruments, including their two cameras, will dedicate themselves to study the Jovian auroras when the probe reaches their destination. Its nearby measurements will help astronomers better understand the interaction between the magnetic field and the planet’s atmosphere, in addition to the moon ío. Images | NASA, ESA, CSA In Xataka | These real images were unthinkable before the Webb Telescope: they are planets orbiting other stars to 130 light years

Hubble investigates whether a star has “pretended” his own death

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The Hubble has given us a new image. It is an image with history behind, even if it is not a story that can be appreciated at first glance. A story of false appearances. Image of the week. The last “week of the week”Of Hubble Space Telescope shows the UGC 5460 galaxya galaxy in which a few years ago we detected what we believed were two supernovae. However, one of the outbreak could have been the result of a very different phenomenon: a blue luminous variable. SN 2011ht and SN 2015as. A few years ago, the UGC 5460 galaxy He witnessed two great events to those that astronomers called SN 2011ht and SN 2015as. Their names refer to the fact that they were classified as Supernovas (SN) and the year in which they were discovered (2011 and 2015) SN 2015as was listed as a Core collapse supernovaa type II supernova that occurs when the nucleus of a massive star (stars more massive than our sun) is left without “fuel” for fusion. This means that the nucleus ends up implicating because of its own severity, after which there is a kind of rebound effect. The result: a “cataclysmic explosion”, as explained by Hubble. That is what happened with SN 2015as And it could also be what happened with SN 2011ht. But astronomers have another open hypothesis to explain this last outbreak. Appearances can fool. A hypothesis with its own name: blue luminous variable (LBV), a “impostor” star capable of making astronomers fall into the mistake of confusing it with a supernova. The blue luminous variables are stars that occasionally generate eruptions of such magnitude that can be confused with supernovae. However, these outbreaks do not occur at the end of the life of these stars. Rather they seem to represent points and apart in the life of This type of stars. LBVs are huge and unstable stars. They are also relatively Uncomowhich implies that what we know about them is not much. While we know that the eruptions of the LBV do not represent the final explosion in the life of these star objects, astronomers They believe that they are an indication that the star is in the last stages of her life. A kind of final track, more than a lethal collapse. Observing UGC 5460 to search for clues. That is why SN 2011ht is a unique opportunity for the instruments of the veteran Hubble to direction their attention to UGC 5460. The image, in which four wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum are combined will allow astronomers to learn more details about supernovae such as SN 2015as and, perhaps, help us solve the unknown about the nature of the outbreak observed four years before. And we may be able to unmask (for now alleged) “impostor.” In Xataka | NASA is developing a Hubble super telescope capable of observing exoplanets. And only two rockets can launch it Image | Este/Hubble & Nasa, W. Jacobson-Galán, A. Filippenko, J. Mauerhan

launch a super hubble dedicated to looking for extraterrestrial life

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Last summer, NASA opened a new office at the Goddard Space Flight Center dedicated exclusively to design the most ambitious telescope in history. The habitable Worlds Observatory. With an investment of 17.5 million dollars only to explore the necessary technologies to materialize it, the HWO is described as a super hubblea new generation space telescope designed to look for extraterrestrial life on other planets. And we are not talking about planets of the Solar System. This observatory of habitable worlds will be dedicated to looking for biofirms on extra -land planets similar to the earth, the exoplanets that are discovered at a habitable distance of its star. A huge space telescope. If there is a clear thing is that The HWO will have imposing dimensions. NASA is considering mirrors that could measure between 4 and 15 meters in diameter. A savage compared to 2.4 meters of Hubble and 6.5 meters from James Webb. A greater magnitude would increase its ability to capture light and details of the exoplanets, but it would also complicate their deployment, taking into account that, like the webb, it will be located 1.5 million kilometers from the earth, in the second point of equilibrium Lagrange gravitational. Starship, heats you. Bringing such a large telescope to L2 will necessarily require any of the most powerful rockets in the world. Taking into account the SLS cancellation rumorsThere are two options left: New Glenn: The new Blue Origin rocket has a 7 -meter wide cofa, much larger than the standard of 5.4. I could launch the HWO if NASA opted for a compact version of the telescope Starship: The highest and most powerful rocket in the world has a 9 -meter load bay. By the time the HWO is ready, Spacex will have the completely operational ship, even with the ability to refuel in orbit to compensate for the enormous use of propellants in takeoff If the HWO ends up being larger than the James Webb space telescope (which was launched folded in the European rocket Ariane 5), Then Starship will be virtually the best option for deployment. What can we expect from HWO. Among the instruments planned for the telescope, there will be a very high sensitivity coronographer. It will allow to block the light of the stars to focus on the planets that orbit them. In addition, it will integrate high -resolution cameras, an advanced spectroscope and a fourth instrument yet to be defined. Unlike the Webb, which focuses on infrared, the HWO will operate on the visible spectrum and cover some ultraviolet and infrared bands, hence it is seen as the spiritual successor of the Hubble telescope. When will it be ready. According to the most optimistic calculations, around 2034. But taking into account that manufacturing its mirrors will require a precision at the scale of itchometers, we can expect a slow and complex process that perhaps approaches the release date to 2040. However, the lessons learned from James Webb (which cost 10,000 million dollars and launched after numerous delays) could help reduce cost overruns and postponements of this type of scientific missions. The HWO is not, in fact, a project that just put on the table. It arises from the convergence of previous initiatives such as Habex and Luvoir, and drinks from years of experience in previous missions. Image | NASA-GODDARD In Xataka | NASA has such a simple explanation that it scares about our inability to find extraterrestrial signs

A new estimate of the Hubble constant delves into the problem

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The “Hubble voltage”It is one of the greatest enigmas of contemporary cosmology. It refers to the fact that the increasingly precise measurements of the speed at which the universe disagrees expands. And not We have a lot of idea of why. Faster Now a new study has led Hubble tension to a new maximum. The work indicates that the observed acceleration of the universe is greater than what today’s physical models could explain. Theory and practice. There are two forms of measure the expansion of the universe. The first is based on the cosmic microwave background (CMB), a remaining radiation of the process that we know as big Bang. By measuring fluctuations in this background, it is obtained An estimate of the expansion speed of about 67 kilometers per second by Megaparsec (km/s/mpc), an expansion speed according to what the generally accepted cosmological models estimate. On the other hand, observations of the nearest universe tell another story. The cefaids are stars whose brightness is inversely related to the frequency with which they press. This allowed astronomers to create a “cosmic ladder” calibrating step to step the measurements of distances to increasingly distant objects in the cosmos. The problem is that this other measure estimates a significantly higher expansion speed: about 74 km/s/mpc. From tension to the crisis. The new study has deepened this discrepancy. The new measure based on the “cosmic ladder” has estimated an expansion rate even greater than the average of the previous measurements: about 76.5 km/s/mpc. This has led the team to point out that “The tension has become a crisis.” The step that was missing. The team responsible for the study created its own “cosmic ladder” from the DESI collaboration data (Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument). This instrument monitor about 100,000 distant galaxies thanks to 5,000 robots with fiber optic sensors that monitor space. The team responsible for the study had to “anchor” these data to our immediate vicinity, that is, put the first step of the “cosmic ladder” with which to measure the changes observed by DESI in its follow -up of these galaxies. To do this, he resorted to the cluster of the comma, one of the galactic clusters closest to the Milky Way. Supernovas To measure the distance to this cluster, the team turned to the light curves of 12 IA type supernovae located within your own Cluster. This type of supernovas shines in a very predictable way, so its apparent brightness gives us a good measure of its real distance. The details of the process can be consulted In an article Posted in the magazine The Astrophysical Journal Letters. The search continues. These types of intrigues generate great interest in the scientific community since it is through cracks in ancient models that are usually opened by the discovery of new theories. “It’s exciting,” explain those responsible for the study. But the truth is that, for now, we have few clues that allow us to solve this issue, either through substantial changes in contemporary models, either through changes in the paradigm. In Xataka | Refuting Einstein is one of the great challenges of physics. Nor changing from scale we achieve it Image | NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Team (STSCI/Aura)D. Carter (Liverpool John Moores University) and Coma HST ACS Treasury Team.

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