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China launches Chang'e 6 sample-return mission to moon's far side (video)
Abortion Restrictions Are Spreading, even though Science Shows They’re Harmful
“We should not make it harder for people to access abortion,” says a researcher who has studied the impacts on people who seek the procedure and are denied
2 colossal solar flares explode from the sun and Earth is in the firing line (video)
How to Move the World’s Largest Camera from a California Lab to an Andes Mountaintop
A multimillion-dollar digital camera could revolutionize astronomy. But first it needs to climb a mountain halfway around the globe
Why Are We Still Superstitious?
Superstitions linger into the modern era, in part, because they may be holdovers from a time when they provided a measure of protection from predators and other mortal dangers
Flies undertake epic migrations that may be vital for pollination
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Meet the team behind EarthCARE
As we approach the launch of ESA’s EarthCARE mission, we caught up with some of the scientists, engineers and experts behind the mission.
With the climate crisis increasingly tightening its grip, ESA’s Earth Cloud Aerosol and Radiation Explorer mission (EarthCARE) will shed new light on the complex interactions between clouds, aerosols and radiation in Earth’s atmosphere.
EarthCARE is the largest and most complex Earth Explorer mission. It comes at a critical time in the development of kilometre-scale resolution, global climate models and will provide an important contribution to an improved understanding of cloud convection and its role in Earth’s radiation budget.
EarthCARE is an ESA mission, but it has been developed as a cooperation between ESA and JAXA, the Japanese Space Agency.
This video features interviews with: Pavlos Kollias from Stony Brook University – McGill University, Thorsten Fehr, EarthCARE Mission Scientist at ESA, Robin Hogan, Senior Scientist at ECMWF, Dirk Bernaerts, EarthCARE Project Manager at ESA, Kotska Wallace, Mission and Optical Payload Manager at ESA, Tomomi Nio, EarthCARE Mission Manager at JAXA, Eiichi Tomita, EarthCARE/CPR Project Manager at JAXA, Ulla Wandinger, Senior Scientist at Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research and Bjoern Frommknecht, EarthCARE Mission Manager at ESA.
Follow the EarthCARE launch campaign blog for more updates.
Access the related broadcast quality footage: animations / interviews / satellite stock footage
See What Gives Sourdough Its Distinctive Taste and Smell
You can thank yeast and bacteria cultivated over generations for the distinctive taste and smell of the oldest leavened bread in history
Week in images: 29 April - 03 May 2024
Week in images: 29 April - 03 May 2024
Discover our week through the lens
Solar eclipse 2024: Live updates
Hubble Hunts Visible Light Sources of X-Rays
2 min read
Hubble Hunts Visible Light Sources of X-Rays This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the dwarf galaxy IC 776. ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. Sun
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the dwarf galaxy IC 776. This swirling collection of new and old stars is located in the constellation Virgo, in the Virgo galaxy cluster, 100 million light-years from Earth. Although IC 776 is a dwarf galaxy, it’s also classified as a SAB-type or ‘weakly barred’ spiral. This highly detailed Hubble view demonstrates that complexity. IC 776 has a ragged, disturbed disc that appears to spiral around the core with arcs of star-forming regions.
The image is from an observation program dedicated to the study of dwarf galaxies in the Virgo cluster that is searching for the visible light emissions from sources of X-rays in these galaxies. X-rays are often emitted by accretion discs, where material that is drawn into a compact object by gravity crashes together and forms a hot, glowing disc. The compact object can be a white dwarf or neutron star in a binary pair that is stealing material from its companion star, or it can be the supermassive black hole at the heart of a galaxy devouring material around it. Dwarf galaxies like IC 776, traveling through the Virgo cluster, experience pressure from intergalactic gas that is similar to the pressure you feel from air hitting your face when you ride a bicycle. This intergalactic gas pressure can both stimulate star formation and feed the central black hole in a galaxy. As more material swirls down toward the black hole, it creates an energetic accretion disc, hot enough to emit X-rays.
While Hubble is not able to see X-rays, it can coordinate with X-ray telescopes such as NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory, revealing the sources of this radiation in high resolution using visible light. Dwarf galaxies are very important to our understanding of cosmology and the evolution of galaxies. As with many areas of astronomy, the ability to examine these galaxies across the electromagnetic spectrum is critical to their study.
Text Credit: European Space Agency (ESA)
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Media Contact:
Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov
Since its 1990 launch, the Hubble Space Telescope has changed our fundamental understanding of the universe.
Galaxies
Chandra Spacecraft and Instruments
Chandra Spacecraft and Instruments The Chandra telescope system consists of four pairs of mirrors and their support structure. X-ray telescopes must be…
Goddard Space Flight Center
Boeing drone dressed as 'Star Wars' X-wing lands at Smithsonian Air and Space Museum
The Unequal Burden of Early Dementia on Black Americans and How We Can Change It
Black Americans face higher hurdles in diagnosis and treatment of frontotemporal dementia, the most common form of dementia for people under 60