James Webb Space Telescope Mirror Reveal
James Webb Space Telescope Mirror Reveal
A rare view of the James Webb Space Telescope face-on, from the NASA Goddard cleanroom observation window.
A rare view of the James Webb Space Telescope face-on, from the NASA Goddard cleanroom observation window.
A rare view of the James Webb Space Telescope face-on, from the NASA Goddard cleanroom observation window.
A rare view of the James Webb Space Telescope face-on, from the NASA Goddard cleanroom observation window.
A rare view of the James Webb Space Telescope face-on, from the NASA Goddard cleanroom observation window.
A rare view of the James Webb Space Telescope face-on, from the NASA Goddard cleanroom observation window.
A rare view of the James Webb Space Telescope face-on, from the NASA Goddard cleanroom observation window. Credit: NASA/Goddard/Rebecca Roth
A rare view of the James Webb Space Telescope face-on, from the NASA Goddard cleanroom observation window.
A rare view of the James Webb Space Telescope face-on, from the NASA Goddard cleanroom observation window.
Webb Mirror Tilt Panorama, May 4, 2016 This image is a composite of nine wide-angle photos of the biggest clean room at NASA Goddard on May 4, 2016, when the uncovered flight primary mirror of the James Webb Space Telescope was tilted into a vertical position. Credit: NASA/Francis Reddy (Syneren Technologies) <b><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelines.html" rel="nofollow">NASA image use policy.</a></b> <b><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/home/index.html" rel="nofollow">NASA Goddard Space Flight Center</a></b> enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission. <b>Follow us on <a href="http://twitter.com/NASAGoddardPix" rel="nofollow">Twitter</a></b> <b>Like us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Greenbelt-MD/NASA-Goddard/395013845897?ref=tsd" rel="nofollow">Facebook</a></b> <b>Find us on <a href="http://instagrid.me/nasagoddard/?vm=grid" rel="nofollow">Instagram</a></b>
A rare view of the James Webb Space Telescope face-on, from the NASA Goddard cleanroom observation window.
The primary mirror of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope consisting of 18 hexagonal mirrors looks like a giant puzzle piece standing in the massive clean room of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Appropriately, combined with the rest of the observatory, the mirrors will help piece together puzzles scientists have been trying to solve throughout the cosmos. Webb's primary mirror will collect light for the observatory in the scientific quest to better understand our solar system and beyond. Using these mirrors and Webb's infrared vision scientists will peer back over 13.5 billion years to see the first stars and galaxies forming out of the darkness of the early universe. Unprecedented infrared sensitivity will help astronomers to compare the faintest, earliest galaxies to today's grand spirals and ellipticals, helping us to understand how galaxies assemble over billions of years. Webb will see behind cosmic dust clouds to see where stars and planetary systems are being born. It will also help reveal information about atmospheres of planets outside our solar system, and perhaps even find signs of the building blocks of life elsewhere in the universe. The Webb telescope was mounted upright after a "center of curvature" test conducted at Goddard. This initial center of curvature test ensures the integrity and accuracy, and test will be repeated later to verify those same properties after the structure undergoes launch environment testing. In the photo, two technicians stand before the giant primary mirror. For information on the Webb's Center of Curvature test, visit: <a href="http://go.nasa.gov/2fidD9S" rel="nofollow">go.nasa.gov/2fidD9S</a> Credit: NASA/Goddard/Chris Gunn <b><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelines.html" rel="nofollow">NASA image use policy.</a></b> <b><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/home/index.html" rel="nofollow">NASA Goddard Space Flight Center</a></b> enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission. <b>Follow us on <a href="http://twitter.com/NASAGoddardPix" rel="nofollow">Twitter</a></b> <b>Like us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Greenbelt-MD/NASA-Goddard/395013845897?ref=tsd" rel="nofollow">Facebook</a></b> <b>Find us on <a href="http://instagrid.me/nasagoddard/?vm=grid" rel="nofollow">Instagram</a></b>
The dusty face of the Eagle Nebula and its surroundings are revealed in this image based on data from NASA's Wide Field Survey Explorer (WISE). WISE detects infrared light, or a range of wavelengths longer than what the human eye can see. This large star forming region is about 5,700 light years away from Earth and is most famous for being home to the the "Pillars of Creation," a region famously imaged by NASA's Hubble and James Webb space telescopes. The WISE data reveals the entire structure of the nebula surrounding the pillars, which themselves can be seen as a faint yellow-green feature inside the white circle. While the WISE view of the "Pillars" is not as sharp as those taken by Webb and Hubble, the telescope's wide field of view allows us to explore the extended nebula around it. When viewed in visible light, the dust is dark and opaque. In these infrared wavelengths, the dust becomes more translucent, and emits infrared light, shown in green, yellow, and red in this image. The data used in this image came from WISE's primary mission which ran from 2009 to 2011. In 2013, NASA took the spacecraft out of hibernation and began using it to track and study near-Earth objects. The mission and the spacecraft were renamed NEOWISE. However, the data is still being used by astronomers to study objects and regions outside our solar system. Blue and cyan are used to represent infrared light at wavelengths of 3.4 and 4.6 microns, while green and red display longer wavelengths of 12 and 22 microns, respectively. Animation available at https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA25433
This image from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope reveals at least 17 concentric dust rings emanating from a pair of stars orbiting one another. Located just over 5,000 light-years from Earth, the system is known as Wolf-Rayet 140 because one of the stars is a Wolf-Rayet star. The other is an O-type star, one of the most massive star types known. Each ring was created when the two stars came close together and their stellar winds (streams of gas they blow into space) collided, compressing the gas and forming dust. A ring is produced once per orbit, every 7.93 years. A Wolf-Rayet star is an O-type star born with at least 25 times more mass than our Sun that is nearing the end of its life, when it will likely collapse directly to black hole, or explode as a supernova. These delays between periods of dust production create the unique ring pattern. Some Wolf-Rayet binaries in which the stars are close enough together and have circular orbits produce dust continuously, often forming a pinwheel pattern. WR 140's rings are also referred to as shells because they are not perfectly circular and are thicker and wider than they appear in the image. The rings appear brighter in some areas but are almost invisible in others, rather than forming a perfect "bullseye" pattern. That's because production of dust is variable as the stars get close to one another, and because Webb views the system at an angle and is not looking directly at the orbital plane of the stars. One of the densest regions of dust production creates the bright feature appearing at 2 o'clock. The image was taken by the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), now managed by the agency's Goddard Space Flight Center. MIRI was developed through a 50-50 partnership between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). The Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California led the effort for NASA, and a multinational consortium of European astronomical institutes contributed for ESA. Webb's science instruments detect infrared light, a range of wavelengths emitted by warm objects and invisible to the human eye. MIRI detects the longest infrared wavelengths, which means it can often see cooler objects – including these dust rings – than the other three Webb instruments can. The filters used to take this image were the F770W (7.7 micrometers, shown as blue), F1500W (15 micrometers, shown as green), and F2100W (21 micrometers, shown as red). The observations were done under Webb's early release observation (ERO) program number 1349. The most common element found in stars, hydrogen, can't form dust on its own. But Wolf-Rayet stars in their later stages have blown away all of their hydrogen, so they eject elements typically found deep in a star's interior, like carbon, which can form dust. Data from MIRI's Medium Resolution Spectrometer (MRS) shows that the dust made by WR 140 is likely made of a class of molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which are a type of organic carbon-rich compounds that are thought to enrich the carbon content throughout the Universe. Initial processing of the Webb WR 140 data included eight bright "spikes" of light emanating from the center of the image. These are not features of the system, but so-called artifacts of the telescope itself. They were removed from the image, in order to give viewers an unobscured view of the source object. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA25432
Thousands of galaxies flood this near-infrared image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723. High-resolution imaging from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope combined with a natural effect known as gravitational lensing made this finely detailed image possible. First, focus on the galaxies responsible for the lensing: the bright white elliptical galaxy at the center of the image and smaller white galaxies throughout the image. Bound together by gravity in a galaxy cluster, they are bending the light from galaxies that appear in the vast distances behind them. The combined mass of the galaxies and dark matter act as a cosmic telescope, creating magnified, contorted, and sometimes mirrored images of individual galaxies. Clear examples of mirroring are found in the prominent orange arcs to the left and right of the brightest cluster galaxy. These are lensed galaxies – each individual galaxy is shown twice in one arc. Webb’s image has fully revealed their bright cores, which are filled with stars, along with orange star clusters along their edges. Not all galaxies in this field are mirrored – some are stretched. Others appear scattered by interactions with other galaxies, leaving trails of stars behind them. Webb has refined the level of detail we can observe throughout this field. Very diffuse galaxies appear like collections of loosely bound dandelion seeds aloft in a breeze. Individual “pods” of star formation practically bloom within some of the most distant galaxies – the clearest, most detailed views of star clusters in the early universe so far. One galaxy speckled with star clusters appears near the bottom end of the bright central star’s vertical diffraction spike – just to the right of a long orange arc. The long, thin ladybug-like galaxy is flecked with pockets of star formation. Draw a line between its “wings” to roughly match up its star clusters, mirrored top to bottom. Because this galaxy is so magnified and its individual star clusters are so crisp, researchers will be able to study it in exquisite detail, which wasn’t previously possible for galaxies this distant. The galaxies in this scene that are farthest away – the tiniest galaxies that are located well behind the cluster – look nothing like the spiral and elliptical galaxies observed in the local universe. They are much clumpier and more irregular. Webb’s highly detailed image may help researchers measure the ages and masses of star clusters within these distant galaxies. This might lead to more accurate models of galaxies that existed at cosmic “spring,” when galaxies were sprouting tiny “buds” of new growth, actively interacting and merging, and had yet to develop into larger spirals. Ultimately, Webb’s upcoming observations will help astronomers better understand how galaxies form and grow in the early universe. NIRCam was built by a team at the University of Arizona and Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Technology Center. For a full array of Webb’s first images and spectra, including downloadable files, please visit: https://webbtelescope.org/news/first-images
NASA image release January 13, 2011 <b><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/5352962836">These images</a></b> by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope show off two dramatically different face-on views of the spiral galaxy M51, dubbed the Whirlpool Galaxy. <b><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/5352955200/">The image here,</a></b> taken in visible light, highlights the attributes of a typical spiral galaxy, including graceful, curving arms, pink star-forming regions, and brilliant blue strands of star clusters. <b>In the image above,</b> most of the starlight has been removed, revealing the Whirlpool's skeletal dust structure, as seen in near-infrared light. This new image is the sharpest view of the dense dust in M51. The narrow lanes of dust revealed by Hubble reflect the galaxy's moniker, the Whirlpool Galaxy, as if they were swirling toward the galaxy's core. To map the galaxy's dust structure, researchers collected the galaxy's starlight by combining images taken in visible and near-infrared light. The visible-light image captured only some of the light; the rest was obscured by dust. The near-infrared view, however, revealed more starlight because near-infrared light penetrates dust. The researchers then subtracted the total amount of starlight from both images to see the galaxy's dust structure. The red color in the near-infrared image traces the dust, which is punctuated by hundreds of tiny clumps of stars, each about 65 light-years wide. These stars have never been seen before. The star clusters cannot be seen in visible light because dense dust enshrouds them. The image reveals details as small as 35 light-years across. Astronomers expected to see large dust clouds, ranging from about 100 light-years to more than 300 light-years wide. Instead, most of the dust is tied up in smooth and diffuse dust lanes. An encounter with another galaxy may have prevented giant clouds from forming. Probing a galaxy's dust structure serves as an important diagnostic tool for astronomers, providing invaluable information on how the gas and dust collapse to form stars. Although Hubble is providing incisive views of the internal structure of galaxies such as M51, the planned James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is expected to produce even crisper images. Researchers constructed the image by combining visible-light exposures from Jan. 18 to 22, 2005, with the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), and near-infrared light pictures taken in December 2005 with the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS). The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., in Washington, D.C. <b><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/home/index.html" rel="nofollow">NASA Goddard Space Flight Center</a></b> enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission. <b>Follow us on <a href="http://twitter.com/NASA_GoddardPix" rel="nofollow">Twitter</a></b> <b>Join us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Greenbelt-MD/NASA-Goddard/395013845897?ref=tsd" rel="nofollow">Facebook</a></b> Credit: NASA, ESA, M. Regan and B. Whitmore (STScI), and R. Chandar (University of Toledo)
NASA image release January 13, 2011 <b><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/5352962836">These images</a></b> by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope show off two dramatically different face-on views of the spiral galaxy M51, dubbed the Whirlpool Galaxy. <b>The image above,</b> taken in visible light, highlights the attributes of a typical spiral galaxy, including graceful, curving arms, pink star-forming regions, and brilliant blue strands of star clusters. <b><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/5352344517">In the image here,</a></b> most of the starlight has been removed, revealing the Whirlpool's skeletal dust structure, as seen in near-infrared light. This new image is the sharpest view of the dense dust in M51. The narrow lanes of dust revealed by Hubble reflect the galaxy's moniker, the Whirlpool Galaxy, as if they were swirling toward the galaxy's core. To map the galaxy's dust structure, researchers collected the galaxy's starlight by combining images taken in visible and near-infrared light. The visible-light image captured only some of the light; the rest was obscured by dust. The near-infrared view, however, revealed more starlight because near-infrared light penetrates dust. The researchers then subtracted the total amount of starlight from both images to see the galaxy's dust structure. The red color in the near-infrared image traces the dust, which is punctuated by hundreds of tiny clumps of stars, each about 65 light-years wide. These stars have never been seen before. The star clusters cannot be seen in visible light because dense dust enshrouds them. The image reveals details as small as 35 light-years across. Astronomers expected to see large dust clouds, ranging from about 100 light-years to more than 300 light-years wide. Instead, most of the dust is tied up in smooth and diffuse dust lanes. An encounter with another galaxy may have prevented giant clouds from forming. Probing a galaxy's dust structure serves as an important diagnostic tool for astronomers, providing invaluable information on how the gas and dust collapse to form stars. Although Hubble is providing incisive views of the internal structure of galaxies such as M51, the planned James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is expected to produce even crisper images. Researchers constructed the image by combining visible-light exposures from Jan. 18 to 22, 2005, with the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), and near-infrared light pictures taken in December 2005 with the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS). Credit: NASA, ESA, S. Beckwith (STScI), and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., in Washington, D.C. <b><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/home/index.html" rel="nofollow">NASA Goddard Space Flight Center</a></b> enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission. <b>Follow us on <a href="http://twitter.com/NASA_GoddardPix" rel="nofollow">Twitter</a></b> <b>Join us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Greenbelt-MD/NASA-Goddard/395013845897?ref=tsd" rel="nofollow">Facebook</a></b>
Last week researchers from around the world gathered at the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome for the Science with the Hubble Space Telescope IV conference. The event celebrated the history of Hubble’s extraordinary achievements, and looked to the future at what might yet be achieved and how the James Webb Space Telescope will build on our knowledge of the Universe. As part of this celebration artist Tim Otto Roth revealed a new artwork, Heaven’s Carousel, inspired by Hubble’s work on the accelerating expansion of the Universe. This image shows audiences taking in the new astronomy-inspired art installation premiered in Rome at the Science with the Hubble Space Telescope IV conference. The installation, named Heaven’s Carousel, links together the fields of art, music and astronomy. Conceptualised and designed by German artist and composer Tim Otto Roth, the work is inspired by novel work on the accelerating expansion of the Universe by Nobel laureate Adam Riess (STScl), Greek cosmology and Renaissance astronomers. Read more here: <a href="http://www.spacetelescope.org/news/heic1407/" rel="nofollow">www.spacetelescope.org/news/heic1407/</a> Credit: NASA, ESA, and Pam Jeffries (STScI) <b><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelines.html" rel="nofollow">NASA image use policy.</a></b> <b><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/home/index.html" rel="nofollow">NASA Goddard Space Flight Center</a></b> enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission. <b>Follow us on <a href="http://twitter.com/NASAGoddardPix" rel="nofollow">Twitter</a></b> <b>Like us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Greenbelt-MD/NASA-Goddard/395013845897?ref=tsd" rel="nofollow">Facebook</a></b> <b>Find us on <a href="http://instagram.com/nasagoddard?vm=grid" rel="nofollow">Instagram</a></b>
NASA image release August 23, 2012 What looks like a giant golden spider weaving a web of cables and cords, is actually ground support equipment, including the Optical Telescope Simulator (OSIM), for the James Webb Space Telescope. OSIM's job is to generate a beam of light just like the one that the real telescope optics will feed into the actual flight instruments. Because the real flight instruments will be used to test the real flight telescope, their alignment and performance first have to be verified by using the OSIM. Engineers are thoroughly checking out OSIM now in preparation for using it to test the flight science instruments later. This photo was taken from inside a large thermal-vacuum chamber called the Space Environment Simulator (SES), at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Engineers have blanketed the structure of the OSIM with special insulating material to help control its temperature while it goes into the deep freeze testing that mimics the chill of space that Webb will ultimately experience in its operational orbit over 1 million miles from Earth. The golden-colored thermal blankets are made of aluminized kapton, a polymer film that remains stable over a wide range of temperatures. The structure that looks like a silver and black cube underneath the "spider" is a set of cold panels that surround OSIM's optics. During testing, OSIM's temperature will drop to 100 Kelvin (-280 F or -173 C) as liquid nitrogen flows through tubes welded to the chamber walls and through tubes along the silver panels surrounding OSIM's optics. These cold panels will keep the OSIM optics very cold, but the parts covered by the aluminized kapton blankets will stay warm. "Some blankets have silver facing out and gold facing in, or inverted, or silver on both sides, etc.," says Erin Wilson, a Goddard engineer. "Depending on which side of the blanket your hardware is looking at, the blankets can help it get colder or stay warmer, in an environmental test." Another reason for thermal blankets is to shield the cold OSIM optics from unwanted stray infrared light. When the OSIM is pointing its calibrated light beam at Webb's science instruments, engineers don't want any stray infrared light, such as "warm photons" from warm structures, leaking into the instruments' field of view. Too much of this stray light would raise the background too much for the instruments to "see" light from the OSIM—it would be like trying to photograph a lightning bug flying in front of car headlights. To get OSIM's optics cold, the inside of the chamber has to get cold, and to do that, all the air has to be pumped out to create a vacuum. Then liquid nitrogen has to be run though the plumbing along the inner walls of the chamber. Wilson notes that's why the blankets have to have vents in them: "That way, the air between all the layers can be evacuated as the chamber pressure drops, otherwise the blankets could pop," says Wilson. The most powerful space telescope ever built, Webb is the successor to NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Webb's four instruments will reveal how the universe evolved from the Big Bang to the formation of our solar system. Webb is a joint project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency. Credit: NASA/GSFC/Chris Gunn <b><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelines.html" rel="nofollow">NASA image use policy.</a></b> <b><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/home/index.html" rel="nofollow">NASA Goddard Space Flight Center</a></b> enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission. <b>Follow us on <a href="http://twitter.com/NASA_GoddardPix" rel="nofollow">Twitter</a></b> <b>Like us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Greenbelt-MD/NASA-Goddard/395013845897?ref=tsd" rel="nofollow">Facebook</a></b> <b>Find us on <a href="http://instagrid.me/nasagoddard/?vm=grid" rel="nofollow">Instagram</a></b>
Last week researchers from around the world gathered at the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome for the Science with the Hubble Space Telescope IV conference. The event celebrated the history of Hubble’s extraordinary achievements, and looked to the future at what might yet be achieved and how the James Webb Space Telescope will build on our knowledge of the Universe. As part of this celebration artist Tim Otto Roth revealed a new artwork, Heaven’s Carousel, inspired by Hubble’s work on the accelerating expansion of the Universe. This installation, named Heaven’s Carousel, links together the fields of art, music and astronomy. Conceptualised and designed by German artist and composer Tim Otto Roth, the work is inspired by novel work on the accelerating expansion of the Universe by Nobel laureate Adam Riess (STScl), Greek cosmology and Renaissance astronomers. Read more here: <a href="http://www.spacetelescope.org/news/heic1407/" rel="nofollow">www.spacetelescope.org/news/heic1407/</a> Credit: NASA, ESA, and Pam Jeffries (STScI) <b><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelines.html" rel="nofollow">NASA image use policy.</a></b> <b><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/home/index.html" rel="nofollow">NASA Goddard Space Flight Center</a></b> enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission. <b>Follow us on <a href="http://twitter.com/NASAGoddardPix" rel="nofollow">Twitter</a></b> <b>Like us on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Greenbelt-MD/NASA-Goddard/395013845897?ref=tsd" rel="nofollow">Facebook</a></b> <b>Find us on <a href="http://instagram.com/nasagoddard?vm=grid" rel="nofollow">Instagram</a></b>
What looks much like craggy mountains on a moonlit evening is actually the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula. Captured in infrared light by the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, this image reveals previously obscured areas of star birth. Called the Cosmic Cliffs, the region is actually the edge of a gigantic, gaseous cavity within NGC 3324, roughly 7,600 light-years away. The cavernous area has been carved from the nebula by the intense ultraviolet radiation and stellar winds from extremely massive, hot, young stars located in the center of the bubble, above the area shown in this image. The high-energy radiation from these stars is sculpting the nebula’s wall by slowly eroding it away. NIRCam – with its crisp resolution and unparalleled sensitivity – unveils hundreds of previously hidden stars, and even numerous background galaxies. Several prominent features in this image are described below. • The “steam” that appears to rise from the celestial “mountains” is actually hot, ionized gas and hot dust streaming away from the nebula due to intense, ultraviolet radiation. • Dramatic pillars rise above the glowing wall of gas, resisting the blistering ultraviolet radiation from the young stars. • Bubbles and cavities are being blown by the intense radiation and stellar winds of newborn stars. • Protostellar jets and outflows, which appear in gold, shoot from dust-enshrouded, nascent stars. • A “blow-out” erupts at the top-center of the ridge, spewing gas and dust into the interstellar medium. • An unusual “arch” appears, looking like a bent-over cylinder. This period of very early star formation is difficult to capture because, for an individual star, it lasts only about 50,000 to 100,000 years – but Webb’s extreme sensitivity and exquisite spatial resolution have chronicled this rare event. Located roughly 7,600 light-years away, NGC 3324 was first catalogued by James Dunlop in 1826. Visible from the Southern Hemisphere, it is located at the northwest corner of the Carina Nebula (NGC 3372), which resides in the constellation Carina. The Carina Nebula is home to the Keyhole Nebula and the active, unstable supergiant star called Eta Carinae. NIRCam was built by a team at the University of Arizona and Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Technology Center.