The Carina Nebula, by ESA’s Herschel space observatory. The image shows the effects of massive star formation – powerful stellar winds and radiation have carved pillars and bubbles in dense clouds of gas and dust.
The image covers approximately 2.3 x 2.3 degrees of the Carina Nebula complex and was mapped using Herschel instruments PACS and SPIRE at wavelengths of 70, 160, and 250 microns, corresponding to the blue, green, and red channels, respectively. North is to the upper left and east is to the lower left.
CREDIT
ESA/PACS/SPIRE/Thomas Preibisch,
Universitäts-Sternwarte München, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany.
https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Search?SearchText=carina+nebula&result_type=images
The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope is showing off its capabilities closer to home with its first image of Neptune. Not only has Webb captured the clearest view of this peculiar planet’s rings in more than 30 years, but its cameras are also revealing the ice giant in a whole new light.
Most striking about Webb’s new image is the crisp view of the planet’s dynamic rings — some of which haven’t been seen at all, let alone with this clarity, since the Voyager 2 flyby in 1989. In addition to several bright narrow rings, the Webb images clearly show Neptune’s fainter dust bands. Webb’s extremely stable and precise image quality also permits these very faint rings to be detected so close to Neptune.
Neptune has fascinated and perplexed researchers since its discovery in 1846. Located 30 times farther from the Sun than Earth, Neptune orbits in one of the dimmest areas of our Solar System. At that extreme distance, the Sun is so small and faint that high noon on Neptune is similar to a dim twilight on Earth. NIRCam image annotated NIRCam image annotated
This planet is characterised as an ice giant due to the chemical make-up of its interior. Compared to the gas giants, Jupiter and Saturn, Neptune is much richer in elements heavier than hydrogen and helium. This is readily apparent in Neptune’s signature blue appearance in NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope images at visible wavelengths, caused by small amounts of gaseous methane.
Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) captures objects in the near-infrared range from 0.6 to 5 microns, so Neptune does not appear blue to Webb. In fact, the methane gas is so strongly absorbing that the planet is quite dark at Webb wavelengths except where high-altitude clouds are present. Such methane-ice clouds are prominent as bright streaks and spots, which reflect sunlight before it is absorbed by methane gas. Images from other observatories have recorded these rapidly-evolving cloud features over the years. Neptune wide-field (NIRCam image) Neptune wide-field (NIRCam image)
More subtly, a thin line of brightness circling the planet’s equator could be a visual signature of global atmospheric circulation that powers Neptune’s winds and storms. The atmosphere descends and warms at the equator, and thus glows at infrared wavelengths more than the surrounding, cooler gases.
Neptune’s 164-year orbit means its northern pole, at the top of this image, is just out of view for astronomers, but the Webb images hint at an intriguing brightness in that area. A previously-known vortex at the southern pole is evident in Webb’s view, but for the first time Webb has revealed a continuous band of clouds surrounding it.
Webb also captured seven of Neptune’s 14 known moons. Dominating this Webb portrait of Neptune is a very bright point of light sporting the signature diffraction spikes seen in many of Webb’s images; it’s not a star, but Neptune’s most unusual moon, Triton.
Covered in a frozen sheen of condensed nitrogen, Triton reflects an average of 70 percent of the sunlight that hits it. It far outshines Neptune because the planet’s atmosphere is darkened by methane absorption at Webb’s wavelengths. Triton orbits Neptune in a bizarre backward (retrograde) orbit, leading astronomers to speculate that this moon was actually a Kuiper Belt object that was gravitationally captured by Neptune. Additional Webb studies of both Triton and Neptune are planned in the coming year. About Webb
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world's premier space science observatory. Webb will solve mysteries in our Solar System, look beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probe the mysterious structures and origins of our Universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA and the Canadian Space Agency. The major contributions of ESA to the mission are: the NIRSpec instrument; the MIRI instrument optical bench assembly; the provision of the launch services; and personnel to support mission operations. In return for these contributions, European scientists will get a minimum share of 15% of the total observing time, like for the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.
In this version of Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) image of Neptune, the planet’s visible moons are labeled. Neptune has 14 known satellites, and seven of them are visible in this image.
Triton, the bright spot of light in the upper left of this image, far outshines Neptune because the planet’s atmosphere is darkened by methane absorption wavelengths captured by Webb. Triton reflects an average of 70 percent of the sunlight that hits it. Triton, which orbits Neptune in a backward orbit, is suspected to have originally been a Kuiper belt object that was gravitationally captured by Neptune.
CREDIT
NASA/ESA/CSA and STScI
https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2022/09/Neptune_NIRCam_image
I'll add this to my collection. Still under a dollar, as well.
Feel free to delete if it doesn't belong here.
I drove by a group of people in a small Texas town with protest signs. I never thought that would've happened, but I've been proven wrong. It'll be my turn in a bit.
You're right, but your not alone. There are thousands of us around the US protesting, boycotting, going to town halls, and getting involved in the government (https://www.fiftyfifty.one/). It's just hard to see since media corporations want to keep the status quo. It's not going to be easy to change our political system, but it's been done before. Just read our Declaration of Independence. We have to keep fighting or no on else will.
Edit
Here's part of the second paragraph of the declaration
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
June 14th
Props to Judge Whitehead
“This Court will not entertain the Government’s result-oriented rewriting of a judicial order that clearly says what it says,” Whitehead wrote Monday. “The Government is free, of course, to seek further clarification from the Ninth Circuit. But the Government is not free to disobey statutory and constitutional law — and the direct orders of this Court and the Ninth Circuit — while it seeks such clarification.”
A discussion to end the conflict, where the victim isn't present, will not favor the victim nor deserve any praise
Started out good, not great now, but doing my best to make it better for tomorrow
We don't. The subtle to obvious propaganda in public and social media gets us tangled with fighting each other rather than working together because the owners of the media, as well as the ads, want more money.
It's now official. In ten days, we'll have a convicted felon as president.
Edit
Anyone up for a massive protest?
I think this is absurd. Libraries are places of knowledge and curiosity. If people aren't thinking critically about what they read, the government shouldn't put the blame on libraries and librarians. They need to be more worried about educating the public by funding schools to teach students through critical thinking instead of memorization. Yes, that'll be harder to achieve, but the change will be transformative.
This was a hilarious read. Thanks for posting.
Not Constantinople
The image of the purse in the thumbnail/article is from 50–250 CE, found in Mook, Limburg, the Netherlands.
Here's the one the article is about
Václav Šálek, ČTK
Source