91É«ÇéƬ

space science

HY0AKX Little green alien and welcome sign welcomes visitors to a business in Roswell, New Mexico

Space

Why our location in the Milky Way is perfect for finding alien life

Our arm of the Milky Way is filled with older, metal-rich stars. New research suggests these might provide the best conditions for life to form on their planets

Features

https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2022/07/Stephan_s_Quintet_NIRCam_and_MIRI_imaging Stephan?s Quintet ? NIRCam and MIRI imaging An enormous mosaic of Stephan?s Quintet is the largest image to date from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, covering about one-fifth of the Moon?s diameter. It contains over 150 million pixels and is constructed from almost 1,000 separate image files. The visual grouping of five galaxies was captured by Webb?s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). With its powerful, infrared vision and extremely high spatial resolution, Webb shows never-before-seen details in this galaxy group. Sparkling clusters of millions of young stars and starburst regions of fresh star birth grace the image. Sweeping tails of gas, dust and stars are being pulled from several of the galaxies due to gravitational interactions. Most dramatically, Webb?s MIRI instrument captures huge shock waves as one of the galaxies, NGC 7318B, smashes through the cluster. These regions surrounding the central pair of galaxies are shown in the colours red and gold. This composite NIRCam-MIRI image uses two of the three MIRI filters to best show and differentiate the hot dust and structure within the galaxy. MIRI sees a distinct difference in colour between the dust in the galaxies versus the shock waves between the interacting galaxies. The image processing specialists at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore opted to highlight that difference by giving MIRI data the distinct yellow and orange colours, in contrast to the blue and white colours assigned to stars at NIRCam?s wavelengths.

Space

How big is the universe? The shape of space-time could tell us

Features

Are space and time illusions? The answer could lie in black holes

Physics

Are space and time illusions? The answer could lie in black holes

Features

The Serpens Nebula

Space

Stunning JWST image proves we were right about how young stars form

News

Titan as snapped by NASA's Cassini spacecraft showing the sun glinting off of the moon's north polar seas

Space

Saturn's moon Titan is experiencing coastal erosion from methane seas

News

Is an old NASA probe about to redraw the frontier of the solar system?

Space

Is an old NASA probe about to redraw the frontier of the solar system?

Features

Space

JWST spotted an incredible number of supernovae in the early universe

News

KD04GT Apple tart made in puff pastry with an apricot glaze

Chemistry

The science behind making perfect puff pastry

Regulars

Liquid crystals could improve quantum communication devices

Physics

Liquid crystals could improve quantum communication devices

News

HDB7EX STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION, Starship Enterprise, 1987-1994. Paramount/Courtesy:Everett Collection.

Space

We could detect a malfunctioning warp drive on an alien starship

Faster-than-light warp drives are theoretically possible to build, and if aliens are using them, we should be able to detect the gravitational waves produced when one goes wrong

News

Physics

What "naked" singularities are revealing about quantum space-time

Features

91É«ÇéƬ

Astronaut medical records reveal the health toll of space travel

News

Space

Starliner and Starship launches propel space industry into a new era

News

Physics

How to wrap your mind around the real multiverse

News

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