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NASA Science

Dust in the Stellar Wind: A Cosmological Primer - NASA Science

The handsome Horsehead Nebula, rearing up against glowing red gas, is sculpted from dust.

Article of the Day!

“Dust in the Stellar Wind: A Cosmological Primer” by Pat Brennan

We're Open Tonight!

The observatory will be open tonight, Sept. 27, 7:30 - 9:00 pm! We expect mostly clear skies, and to see Saturn, the Moon, the Ring Nebula, globular cluster M13, the Andromeda Galaxy, the Double Cluster, and the binary star systems Albireo and Mizar.

Here's a a nice picture of the Double Cluster in the constellation Perseus (we didn't take this picture, but it's similar to what you'd see through our telescopes - you won't see a lot of those dim background stars, though). [Image Credit and Copyright: Greg Polanski | Source: Astronomy Picture of the Day].

Wonderous strange! This unusual arrangement in the sky was one of only 100 known polar-ring galaxies when it was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1999. Officially known to astronomers as NGC 4650A, the polar-rings may be the result of two galaxies colliding. Gas from the smaller galaxy would have been stripped off and captured by the larger galaxy, forming a new ring of dust, gas, and stars, which orbit the inner galaxy almost at right angles to the old disk. In addition to learning about galaxy interaction, astronomers use polar-ring galaxies like this to study dark matter, which does not emit light or interact with normal matter (except through gravity), making it difficult to understand. Both the old, rotating disk and the dark matter surrounding this galaxy pull on its polar ring. The alignment of the ring along the pole of the inner disk's rotation allows scientists to probe this combination of tugs and thus the distribution of dark matter. Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI. ALT TEXT: Two galaxies appear to intersect at right angles. Vertically there is a bright column of dust and stars, and horizontally there is a smaller hazy yellow band, brighter at its center, with no discernable stars. In the space around and behind the intersecting forms are smaller stars and distant galaxies colored yellow and red.

This animation portrays the creation of the cat’s tail in the southwest portion of Beta Pic’s secondary debris disk, estimated to span 10 billion miles. Read today's #AAS243 release to learn more: http://webbtelescope.pub/3RXt9Nx

“What in the world is that?” That’s a natural reaction when you first see this Hubble Space Telescope image of LL Pegasi. The extremely dim spiral pattern is real, and its regularity suggests a periodic origin for the nebula’s shape.

The spiral is thought to arise because LL Pegasi is a binary system, with a star that is losing material and a companion star orbiting it. The companion’s gravitational influence helps sculpt the nebula. The spacing between layers in the spiral reflects the 800-year orbital period of the binary.

Credit: ESA/NASA & R. Sahai.

ALT TEXT: At center left, a faint spiral structure with wide bands has a dark, dusty center. To its right, a bright white star displays four prominent diffraction spikes. A handful of smaller, more distant background galaxies are also scatted throughout the image.

Comet Nishimura Credit: Peter Kennett

Sharpening Our View of Climate Change with the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem Satellite

As our planet warms, Earth’s ocean and atmosphere are changing.

Climate change has a lot of impact on the ocean, from sea level rise to marine heat waves to a loss of biodiversity. Meanwhile, greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide continue to warm our atmosphere.

NASA’s upcoming satellite, PACE, is soon to be on the case!

Set to launch on Feb. 6, 2024, the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission will help us better understand the complex systems driving the global changes that come with a warming climate.

Earth’s ocean is becoming greener due to climate change. PACE will see the ocean in more hues than ever before.

While a single phytoplankton typically can’t be seen with the naked eye, communities of trillions of phytoplankton, called blooms, can be seen from space. Blooms often take on a greenish tinge due to the pigments that phytoplankton (similar to plants on land) use to make energy through photosynthesis.

In a 2023 study, scientists found that portions of the ocean had turned greener because there were more chlorophyll-carrying phytoplankton. PACE has a hyperspectral sensor, the Ocean Color Instrument (OCI), that will be able to discern subtle shifts in hue. This will allow scientists to monitor changes in phytoplankton communities and ocean health overall due to climate change.

Phytoplankton play a key role in helping the ocean absorb carbon from the atmosphere. PACE will identify different phytoplankton species from space.

With PACE, scientists will be able to tell what phytoplankton communities are present – from space! Before, this could only be done by analyzing a sample of seawater.

Telling “who’s who” in a phytoplankton bloom is key because different phytoplankton play vastly different roles in aquatic ecosystems. They can fuel the food chain and draw down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to photosynthesize. Some phytoplankton populations capture carbon as they die and sink to the deep ocean; others release the gas back into the atmosphere as they decay near the surface.

Studying these teeny tiny critters from space will help scientists learn how and where phytoplankton are affected by climate change, and how changes in these communities may affect other creatures and ocean ecosystems.

Climate models are one of our most powerful tools to understand how Earth is changing. PACE data will improve the data these models rely on.

The PACE mission will offer important insights on airborne particles of sea salt, smoke, human-made pollutants, and dust – collectively called aerosols – by observing how they interact with light.

With two instruments called polarimeters, SPEXone and HARP2, PACE will allow scientists to measure the size, composition, and abundance of these microscopic particles in our atmosphere. This information is crucial to figuring out how climate and air quality are changing.

PACE data will help scientists answer key climate questions, like how aerosols affect cloud formation or how ice clouds and liquid clouds differ.

It will also enable scientists to examine one of the trickiest components of climate change to model: how clouds and aerosols interact. Once PACE is operational, scientists can replace the estimates currently used to fill data gaps in climate models with measurements from the new satellite.

With a view of the whole planet every two days, PACE will track both microscopic organisms in the ocean and microscopic particles in the atmosphere. PACE’s unique view will help us learn more about the ways climate change is impacting our planet’s ocean and atmosphere.

Stay up to date on the NASA PACE blog, and make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of sPACE!

2023 October 23

Moon Io from Spacecraft Juno Image Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, SwRI, MSSS; Processing & Copyright: Ted Stryk & Fernando García Navarro

Explanation: There goes another one! Volcanoes on Jupiter’s moon Io keep erupting. To investigate, NASA’s robotic Juno spacecraft has begun a series of visits to this very strange moon. Io is about the size of Earth’s moon, but because of gravitational flexing by Jupiter and other moons, Io’s interior gets heated and its surface has become covered with volcanoes. The featured image is from last week’s flyby, passing within 12,000 kilometers above the dangerously active world. The surface of Io is covered with sulfur and frozen sulfur dioxide, making it appear yellow, orange and brown. As hoped, Juno flew by just as a volcano was erupting – with its faint plume visible near the top of the featured image. Studying Io’s volcanoes and plumes helps humanity better understand how Jupiter’s complex system of moons, rings, and auroras interact. Juno is scheduled to make two flybys of Io during the coming months that are almost 10 times closer: one in December and another in February 2024.

∞ Source: apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap231023.html