Category Archives: Hubble Telescope

Katharine Hayhoe, a renowned Texas Tech climate change researcher and mother of a 13-year-old son, Gavin, is certain of this: a mother's love can fuel the charge to care for the planet and stop climate change.

"The most important thing to us, as mothers, is the future of our kids, and climate change affects that future," she tells PEOPLE in this week's issue. "It affects the air our kids breathe and the food they eat."

In January, Hayhoe, who is joining the Nature Conservancy as chief scientist, and seven other scientist-moms launched Science Moms (sciencemoms.com), a nonprofit dedicated to providing global warming facts and simple, quick action steps to help save the planet, including a reading list of books for kids, and ways to talk to your family about climate change.

"I think it's so important to have moms talking to moms because we understand there is no time to waste with things that don't really make a difference," she says. "We have to cut to the chase."

For more on Earth Day, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday, or subscribe here.

LEXEY SWALL/The New York Times/Redux Katharine Hayhoe

"The number one thing any of us can do," she adds, "is use our voices to advocate for change. It's not too late to avoid the worst impacts if we act now."

Hayhoe is also an evangelical Christian (her husband is a pastor) and an Earth-loving believer.

"I am a climate scientist because I am a Christian," she says. "If you take the Bible seriously, in Genesis it says God gave humans responsibility over every living thing on this planet. It talks about God's love and care for the tiniest and most minute aspects of nature."

RELATED: What Is Earth Day and Why Do We Celebrate?

Growing up in Ontario, Canada, the daughter of a science teacher dad, Hayhoe loved learning how the universe works. She was set on becoming an astrophysicist "I just think it's incredible we can build the Hubble telescope to study the far reaches of the universe, that just blows me away," she says until taking a college class in climate science, and learning the dire effects of the warming of the earth.

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That "really changed the whole trajectory of my life," she says. "I mean, if the whole temperature of the planet was warming by two or three or four degrees, but that was the only thing that was happening, so what?"

RELATED VIDEO: Easy Things You Should Do to Help the Planet, from Filling Your Fridge to Raking Your Leaves

"But it is messing with our weather, creating what I call global weirding. We see that hurricanes are getting bigger and stronger, wildfires are burning more area, floods are getting much more devastating, the sea level's rising," she says. "And this affects literally our food, it affects our water, it affects the safety of our homes."

Hayhoe's advocacy includes authoring books; her latest, Saving Us: A Climate Scientist's Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World, is out in September.

"To care about climate change we often feel like we have to be a certain type of person, like an environmentalist or a tree hugger," she says. "But the reality is, every single one of us already has all the reasons we need to care."

Originally posted here:
Scientist Rallies Fellow Moms to Save the Planet: The 'Most Important Thing' Is Our Kids' Future - Yahoo Entertainment

NASA Hubble Space telescope is always sharing new and exciting images of our beautiful universe. NASA Hubble official Instagram page recently shared a breathtaking view of hills and valleys in the star-forming region NGC 3324, roughly 7,200 light-years away.

SEE ALSO: Watch: NASA Hubble Shares A Twinkling Video Of A Faraway Galaxy GN-z11!

The caption for the image states Travel over cosmic hills and valleys in this breathtaking #HubbleClassic view of the star-forming region NGC 3324, roughly 7,200 light-years away. Each dark tower of dust and gas you see actually spans light-years in height!

Ever since its posting, the image has received over 29,000 likes, 98,000 views, and 100 comments. NASA states that NGC 3324 is located at the northwest corner of the Carina Nebula (NGC 3372), home of the Keyhole Nebula and the active, outbursting star Eta Carinae. The entire Carina Nebula complex is located at a distance of roughly 7,200 light-years and lies in the constellation Carina.

SEE ALSO: NASA Hubble Telescope Captures A Beautiful Evil Eye Galaxy In The Sky!

The video shows a "landscape" image from the cosmos of a star-forming region with "hills and valleys" of gas and dust displayed in intricate detail. NASA describes that the image has been set amid a backdrop of soft, glowing blue light are wispy tendrils of gas and dark trunks of dust that are light-years in height.

SEE ALSO: NASA Puts Hubble Space Telescope Into Safe Mode Due To A Mysterious Software Bug!

The image also shows a three-dimensional-looking Hubble image where you can clearly see the edge of the giant gaseous cavity within the star-forming region called NGC 3324. The glowing nebula has been carved out by intense ultraviolet radiation and stellar winds from several hot, young stars.

Image used is for representation purpose only

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NASA Hubble Shares Breathtaking View Of Star-Forming Region NGC 3324 Located 7,200 Light Years Away! - Mashable India

Image credits: Chandra Deep Field South/YouTube.

The sound of music, the sound of oceans and the wind, the sound of birds, humans, traffic we know these well enough. But what does the universe sound like? The logical part of you would immediately react, it sounds like nothing! because space is a vacuum and no sound can travel through there. While technically correct, modern technology can make the most improbable be possible. Using the process of data sonification, NASA is turning dry, lifeless data from black holes, galaxies, and stars into soulful music. NASA has turned three very diverse cosmic pictures into sounds. The data obtained by NASAs Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes was used for this beautiful project. Those used to seeing these beautiful images obtained by NASA and their various array of telescopes can now have multiple sensory involvements by listening to the data as well.

The first of these sonic data images is of the region which NASA astronomers identify as Chandra Deep Field South. This is the deepest image ever taken in X-rays, representing over seven million seconds of Chandra observing time, NASA wrote on their website. The colourful dots on the screen are actually black holes or galaxies. Some are supermassive black holes at the centres of galaxies. Each colour is denoted with a note reds are low tones, purples are higher. White light is just white noise. Using various frequencies, the full range of the region as observed by Chandra X-Rays can be understood. When it is played, the image is scanned upward and is helpful in distinguishing positions of the various sources from left to right.

Experience it yourself here.

Another way to do data sonification is in a radar form, like NASA did for Cats Eye Nebula. Its a Sun-like giant star thats run out of helium to burn and blowing off huge clouds of gas and dust. The data is from Chandra X-Ray and the visible data is from Hubble Telescope.Lights toward the edge has higher pitch and bright light is louder. The X-ray data has a harsher sound whereas the visible light data sounds are smoother. NASA also sonified data of Messier 51 (M51) galaxy with data from Spitzer, Hubble, GALEX, and Chandra.

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What Do Black Holes Sound Like? NASA's Chandra Telescope Has Sonified Sounds of the Universe - News18

NASA revealed recently that scientists have found evidence with the help of NASA Hubble Space telescope that a planet orbiting a distant star may have lost its atmosphere and gained a second one through volcanic activity.

"It's super exciting because we believe the atmosphere that we see now was regenerated, so it could be a secondary atmosphere," said study co-author Raissa Estrela of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.

"We first thought that these highly irradiated planets could be pretty boring because we believed that they lost their atmospheres. But we looked at existing observations of this planet with Hubble and said, 'Oh no, there is an atmosphere there.'"

SEE ALSO: NASA Hubble Telescope Captures A Beautiful Evil Eye Galaxy In The Sky!

NASA states that the planet GJ 1132 b is hypothesized to have begun as a gaseous world with a thick hydrogen blanket of atmosphere. Starting out at several times the diameter of Earth, this so-called "sub-Neptune" is believed to have quickly lost its primordial hydrogen and helium atmosphere because of the intense radiation of the hot, young star it orbits.

Astronomers were really surprised to find that Hubble observed an atmosphere which, according to their theory, is a "secondary atmosphere". Scientists used a combination of direct observational evidence and inference with the help of computer modeling and found out that the atmosphere comprises molecular hydrogen, hydrogen cyanide, methane and also contains an aerosol haze. Moreover, modeling suggests the aerosol haze is based on photochemically produced hydrocarbons thats similar to smog on Earth.

The team of scientists working on this new discovery will publish their findings in an upcoming issue of The Astronomical Journal.

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NASA Hubble Space Telescope Reveals A Distant Planet May Be On Its Second Atmosphere - Mashable India

Using NASAs Hubble telescope, astronomers have observed an exoplanet that may have had two completely separate atmospheres in its lifetime. The exoplanet (that is, a planet outside our solar system), currently has an atmosphere gassed into existence from volcanoes and a roiling surface. But astronomers think some of that same atmosphere had a previous life; long before it was sucked into the planets mantle in the first place.

CNN reported on the discovery, which NASA recently announced. The astronomers say they used Hubble to observe the planet indirectly, detecting its atmospheric fingerprints thanks to the way they distort the light coming from its parent star.

The planetwhich has the ever-showy moniker, GJ 1132 borbits inside a star system 41 light-years away. And basically sounds like Mustafar from Star Wars.

Thanks to the gravitational pull from its parent star, as well as a nearby planet, GJ 1132 b is constantly subjected to tidal forces. That is, the gravitational pulls of both its parent star and the nearby planet are simultaneously tugging on GJ 1132, causing its crust to crack, its mantle to churn, and all of the subsequent volcanic activity. Which includes the outgassing of hydrogen, hydrogen cyanide, methane, and an aerosol haze.

NASA Goddard

In the planets past, however, the hydrogen from that toxic mix had another life as a blanket around GJ 1132. Using computer modeling, the astronomers think its likely GJ 1132 was once a sub-Neptune planet; that is a planet with a smaller radius than Neptune, but a larger mass. During this period of its life, it had an atmosphere of hydrogen and helium. But, thanks to the heat from its parent star, the helium blew off into space. The hydrogen, on the other hand, likely made its way into the planets magma mantle.

NASA says this is the first time astronomers have detected a secondary atmosphere on a planet outside of our solar system. Although well have to wait for the upcoming launch of the James Webb Telescope to observe GJ1132 directly. Using Webbs infrared vision, the astronomers think theyll even be able to see down to the planets surface. Which probably looks like an endless landscape of volcanoes and lava rivers. I.e. a great place to have a lightsaber duel.

NASA Goddard

Feature image: NASA, ESA, and R. Hurt (IPAC/Caltech)

Excerpt from:
Hubble Eyes Planet Thats Had Multiple Atmospheres - Nerdist

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is "on its last legs" after scientists discovered faulty gear while carrying out checks following a computer glitch.

Scientists uncovered a safety door that had failed to close and a camera had been taken offline after the IT error saw Hubble enter "safe mode" on Sunday.

The space telescope, which has helped find black holes and determine the age of the universe since going into Earth's orbit in 1990, returned to operational mode in the early hours of Friday.

Space expert Neel Patel has said the glitch showed the historic telescope was on its "last legs".

He wrote in MIT Technology Review: "Sundays announcement does once again remind us that Hubble is old! It's three decades of service are more than anyone expected, and the telescope is on its last legs from here. How much longer does the observatory really have, and what happens when its finally gone?"

Space Telescope Science Institutes director Kenneth Sembach has predicted the Hubble could keep going until 2025.

Last April he wrote: "Being realistic, I think Hubbles got a good five years left. And were operating the observatory in a way meant to keep it scientifically productive out to 2025. Does this mean well get to 2025? No, something could go wrong tomorrow. This is the space business, after all. But, then again, maybe we could get to 2030."

A statement for the US space agency said: "Hubble entered safe mode on Sunday, March 7, shortly after 4 a.m. EST, following detection of a software error within the spacecrafts main computer.

"The mission operations team at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center identified the software error in an enhancement recently uploaded to the spacecraft to help compensate for fluctuations from one of its gyroscopes.

"The team will update the software enhancement so the fix can be uploaded to the spacecraft in the future. In the meantime, the enhancement will be prohibited from being used.

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"In entering safe mode on Sunday, however, the team discovered that the aperture door located at the top of the telescope failed to automatically close."

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NASA's Hubble telescope 'on its last legs' as faulty gear found in IT glitch - Daily Star

An atmosphere is what makes life on Earths surface possible, regulating our climate and sheltering us from damaging cosmic rays. But although telescopes have counted a growing number of rocky planets, scientists had thought most of their atmospheres long lost.

However, a new study by University of Chicago and Stanford University researchers suggests a mechanism whereby these planets could not only develop atmospheres full of water vapor, but keep them for long stretches. Published March 15 in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, the research expands our picture of planetary formation and could help direct the search for habitable worlds in other star systems.

Our model is saying that these hot, rocky exoplanets should have a water-dominated atmosphere at some stage, and for some planets, it may be quite a long time, said Asst. Prof. Edwin Kite, an expert in how planetary atmospheres evolve over time.

As telescopes document more and more exoplanets, scientists are trying to figure out what they might look like. Generally, telescopes can tell you about an exoplanets physical size, its proximity to its star and if youre lucky, how much mass it has. To go much further, scientists have to extrapolate based on what we know about Earth and the other planets in our own solar system. But the most abundant planets dont seem to be similar to the ones we see around us.

What we already knew from the Kepler mission is that planets a little smaller than Neptune are really abundant, which was a surprise because there are none in our solar system, Kite said. We dont know for sure what they are made of, but theres strong evidence they are magma balls cloaked in a hydrogen atmosphere.

Theres also a healthy number of smaller rocky planets that are similar, but without the hydrogen cloaks. So scientists surmised that many planets probably start out like those larger planets that have atmospheres made out of hydrogen, but lose their atmospheres when the nearby star ignites and blows away the hydrogen.

But lots of details remain to be filled out in those models. Kite and co-author Laura Schaefer of Stanford University began to explore some of the potential consequences of having a planet covered in oceans of melted rock.

Liquid magma is actually quite runny, Kite said, so it also turns over vigorously, just like oceans on Earth do. Theres a good chance these magma oceans are sucking hydrogen out of the atmosphere and reacting to form water. Some of that water escapes to the atmosphere, but much more gets slurped up into the magma.

Then, after the nearby star strips away the hydrogen atmosphere, the water gets pulled out into the atmosphere instead in the form of water vapor. Eventually, the planet is left with a water-dominated atmosphere.

This stage could persist on some planets for billions of years, Kite said.

There are several ways to test this hypothesis. The James Webb Space Telescope, the powerful successor to the Hubble Telescope, is scheduled to launch later this year; it will be able to conduct measurements of the composition of an exoplanets atmosphere. If it detects planets with water in their atmospheres, that would be one signal.

Another way to test is to look for indirect signs of atmospheres. Most of these planets are tidally locked; unlike Earth, they dont spin as they move around their sun, so one side is always hot and the other cold.

A pair of UChicago alumni have suggested a way to use this phenomenon to check for an atmosphere. Scientists Laura Kreidberg, PhD16, and Daniel Koll, PhD16now at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy and MIT, respectivelypointed out that an atmosphere would moderate the temperature for the planet, so there wouldnt be a sharp difference between the day sides and night sides. If a telescope can measure how strongly the day side glows, it should be able to tell whether theres an atmosphere redistributing heat.

Citation: Water on hot rocky exoplanets. Kite and Schaefer, Astrophysical Journal Letters, March 11, 2021.

Funding: NASA.

Continued here:
There might be many planets with water-rich atmospheres - UChicago News

Every day the news is rich with death or, at the least, deadly downers. But this week, we dramatically touched down on Mars, with a rhino-sized buggy, to drive about in search of life.

Does the NASA mission all but pay for itself by cheerfully asking one of the big questions: are we alone?

If were not and theres a yet-to-be discovered microbe clinging on to pitiful existence deep down in the distant red dirt then apart from the geez factor, whats in it for the rest of us back on Earth?

In recent years, most of the heavy lifting in exploring the universe has been done by new generation telescopes gathering beautiful, mystifying images from stars and planets a few hundred lights years away.

The Hubble Telescope alone has made discoveries so unusual as to overturn the expectations and understanding of cosmologists. When NASA talked about the Hubble seeing the ghost light from dead galaxies, astronomy seemed wrapped up in mysticism.

Just last week, new data from the Hubble led to the first measurement of the extent of a collection of black holes in a core-collapsed globular cluster.

And think of all those thousands of exoplanets 4352 confirmed so far orbiting faraway stars. Touted so often as potential homes for when humankind has irreversibly ruined itself, and yet hopefully developed interstellar transportation that can get us to a nurturing elsewhere.

So many of those planets are almost, but never quite right, for sustaining life and, after a while, too many for regular folk to take an interest in.

In short, Earthlings are overdue a meaningful space adventure not too far from home. Something vaguely human that might give us the feels and answers a simple question.

Glen Nagle is public outreach manager at the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex, part of NASAs Deep Space Network.

Mr Nagle told The New Daily there were a range of reasons for going in search of alien life. One is that its certainly a fundamental question we ask ourselves as human beings: are we alone?

It began, he said, around our ancestral fires, looking at the skies, conjuring up ideas of gods to keep us company and fill up the mystery of what else is out there.

Plus, for NASA and other space agencies, theres a side benefit to asking that question: Its an easy one for people to understand.

Not just for mums and dads, but for politicians who put up the money.

That might sound cynical but its true in a way, Mr Nagle said. You could talk about all the great science thats being done on the mission: the materials science, the atmospheric studies.

But really, they (the politicians) , are asking the same question youre asking: whats in it for us?

And answering that fundamental question is important because it touches on philosophy, theology, our overall place in the universe.

CAT scans, scratch-resistant glasses, LEDS, landmine removal technology camera phones and the damn internet are just some examples of technology that were developed by NASA and used first in space exploration. Wireless headsets, memory foam, better quality artificial limbs and freeze-dried food also. See more here.

As Glen Nagle puts it: The real benefitis the technology created to find that life.

One of the breakthrough gadgets being carried by the Perseverance rover is PIXL (Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry) an instrument that looks at the very fine scale structure of rocks and soil.

Developed by an Australian scientist, Dr Abigail Allwood, formerly of the University of Queensland Technology (UQT), now at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab, PIXL is a tool the size of a tissue box, doing the work of a big laboratory.

Technology like that has uses on earth, said Mr Nagle. When were looking for bio-hazards in soil or looking for diseases in our plants, instead of needing a big lab,you have a small instrument that can do the work on the end of a robot arm.

Go Aussies. See more here about UQTs involvement on the mission.

The history of space exploration has been dogged by one big question: couldnt all that money be spent on much needed social infrastructure or medical research closer to home.

The Apollo moon landings were as contentious as much as they were celebrated. One of the most famous critiques was given by the Black poet Gil Scott Heron in Whitey On The Moon:

I cant pay no doctor bill.(but Whiteys on the moon)Ten years from now Ill be payin still.(while Whiteys on the moon)

How many poorer Americans might feel similarly today about the Perseverance rover project, conceived in 2012 and costing US2.4 billion? Glen Nagle said Americans spend that amount on feeding their pets every 10 days.

The total cost of the project cost each American the price of a cup of coffee.

Sounds about right. But once you start talking about money, questions of meaning and the big picture feel a little tainted.

Perhaps the space mission to remember is Apollo 8, when man first orbited the moon and photographed for the first time an Earthrise: our planet coming over the lunar horizon. The image is credited with starting the environment movement.

This was at the end of 1968, a terrible year: the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, race riots, protests against the Vietnam War which was going nowhere.

Of all the letters of congratulations received by the Apollo 8 astronauts, the one that mattered most was one that read: You saved 1968.

Which suggests that sometimes, what these missions give us Earthlings, is a little boost, a little hope.

Read more:
The search for life on Mars: Whats in it for Earthlings? - The New Daily

The Hubble Ultra Deep Field (in its eXtreme version) is the deepest view of the universe yet obtained and will be, until JADES takes over. It stretches approximately 13 billion light-years and includes approximately 10,000 galaxies. It took 11.3 days for the Hubble Space Telescope to collect these ancient photons. Try downloading the largest version and zoom in on different sections. Were seeing these galaxies as they were billions of years ago. How might they look today? Image via NASA/ ESA/ S. Beckwith (STSci)/ HUDF team.

Astronomers announced a new deeper-than-ever sky survey this month (January 15, 2021), to be conducted with the James Webb Space Telescope, the Hubble telescopes successor, scheduled for launch in October of this year. The new survey is abbreviated JADES, which is short for James Webb Space Telescope Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey. The survey will be like the Hubble Deep Fields, but deeper still. Its main goal is to see far away in space and thus far back into the very young universe and image it just at the end of the so-called Cosmic Dark Ages, that is, at the time when gas in the universe went from being opaque to transparent. This is also the time when the very first stars were forming very large, massive and bright stars in a veritable firestorm of star birth when the young universe was less than 5% of its current age.

The 2021 lunar calendars are here. Order yours before theyre gone!

The Webb telescope will be located near the second Lagrange point a relatively stable region of space, gravitationally speaking, known as L2 some 930,000 miles (1.5 million km) from Earth. To conduct the new survey, the Webb telescope will be staring at a small point of space for nearly 800 hours (approximately 33 days) to be able to see fainter objects than those ever seen before and thus to find the first generation of galaxies. Astronomers want to know, among other things, how fast did these galaxies form, and how fast did their stars form? They also want to look for the very first supermassive black holes, which are thought to lie at the hearts of nearly all large galaxies, including our Milky Way.

The long-anticipated launch of the James Webb Space Telescope has been postponed a number of times for a variety of reasons, most recently because of effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. It is the formal successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, but is equipped with instrumentation able to image further into the infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum than Hubble could.

This capability also makes it a worthy successor to the infrared Spitzer Space Telescope which recently went into retirement.

What makes the infrared part of the spectrum so important for surveys like JADES? If you look really deep, you will also look back in time, and the farther back in time you look, the more redshifted the galaxies are (the farther away they are, the faster they move away from us, and the more their light has been shifted towards the red part of the spectrum). This means that the light we want to observe, originally in the optical (visible) part of the electromagnetic spectrum, might not even show much in the optical part anymore. Instead, its been shifted to longer wavelengths, into the infrared regime.

In other words, the use of infrared cameras is necessary to be able to see the light from the first generation of galaxies. Daniel Eisenstein, a professor of astronomy at Harvard University, said:

Galaxies, we think, begin building up in the first billion years after the Big Bang, and sort of reach adolescence at 1 to 2 billion years. Were trying to investigate those early periods. We must do this with an infrared-optimized telescope because the expansion of the universe causes light to increase in wavelength as it traverses the vast distance to reach us. So even though the stars are emitting light primarily in optical and ultraviolet wavelengths, that light is shifted quite relentlessly out into the infrared. Only Webb can get to the depth and sensitivity thats needed to study these early galaxies.

In fact, the James Webb Space Telescope was built specifically for this purpose. Up to now, infrared images are much less resolved less clear than optical images, because of their longer wavelength. With its much larger collecting area, the Webb will be able to image, in infrared, at the same resolution detail that Hubble could obtain in the optical part of the spectrum.

Get ready for a whole new set of mind-blowing images of the universe, this time in the infrared, from Webb!

After having successfully deployed its solar panels precisely as its supposed to do once its in space the Webb telescope is shown here ready for the final tests on December 17, 2020, at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center. Then it will be packed up and transported to French Guyana, to be launched on October 31, 2021, via an Ariane V rocket. Image via NASA/ Chris Gunn.

The use of deep field surveys is a young science, for two reasons. First, astronomers didnt have the right instrumentation before Hubble to do them. Second, its also because no one initially knew the result of staring into a piece of empty space for a long time. Such a long stare into the unknown would require valuable observation time, and if this long observation didnt produce any results, it would be considered a waste.

But in 1995, Robert Williams, then the director of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STSci), which administrates the Hubble telescope, decided to use his directors discretionary time to point the Hubble toward a very small and absolutely empty-looking part of the sky in the direction of the constellation Ursa Major the Great Bear. There were no stars visible from our Milky Way (or extremely few), no nearby galaxies visible in the field, and no visible gas clouds. Hubble collected photons for 10 consecutive days, and the result, the Hubble Deep Field, was a success and a paradigm changer: A patch of sky about as small as the eye of George Washington on an American quarter (25-cent coin) held out at arms length, showed a 10 billion-light-years-long tunnel back in time with a plethora of galaxies around 3,000 of them at different evolutionary stages along the way. The field of observational cosmology was born.

This was done again in 1998 with the Hubble telescope pointed to the southern sky (Hubble Deep Field South), and the result was the same. Thus we learned that the universe is uniform over large scales.

Next was the installation of a new, powerful camera on Hubble (the Advanced Camera for Surveys) in 2002. The incredible Hubble Ultra Deep Field was acquired in 2004, in a similarly small patch of sky near the constellation Orion, about 1/10 of a full moon diameter (2.4 x 3.4 arc minutes, in contrast to the original Hubble Deep Fields north and south, which were 2.6 x 2.6 arc minutes). And so our reach was extended even deeper into space, and even further back in time, showing light from 10 thousand galaxies along a 13-billion-light-years-long tunnel of space. If youll remember that the universe is about 13.77 billion years old, youll see this is getting us really close to the beginning!

The Hubble Ultra Deep Field was the most sensitive astronomical image ever made at wavelengths of visible (optical) light until 2012, when an even more refined version was released, called the Hubble eXtreme Deep Field, which reached even farther: 13.2 billion years back in time.

The JADES survey will be observed in two batches, one on the northern sky and one on the southern in two famous fields called GOODS North and South (abbreviated from Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey).

Marcia Rieke, a professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona who co-leads the JADES Team with Pierre Ferruit of the European Space Agency (ESA), explained:

We chose these fields because they have such a great wealth of supporting information. Theyve been studied at many other wavelengths, so they were the logical ones to do.

View larger. | Look closely. Every single speck of light in this image is a distant galaxy (except for the very few ones with spikes which are foreground stars). This telescopic field of view is part of the GOODS South field. Its one of the directions in space thatll be observed in JADES, a new survey that aims to study the very first galaxies to appear in the infancy of the universe. Image via NASA/ Hubble Space Telescope/ James Webb Space Telescope site.

The GOODS fields have been observed with several of the most famous telescopes, covering a great wavelength range from infrared through optical to X-ray. They are not fully as deep (the observations dont reach as far back) as the Ultra Deep Field, but cover a larger area of the sky (4-5 times larger) and are the most data-rich areas of the sky in terms of depth combined with wavelength coverage. By the way, the first deep field, HDF-N, is located in the GOODS north image, and the Ultra deep field/eXtreme (dont you love these names?) is located in the GOODS south field.

There are a large number of ambitious science goals for the JADES program pertaining to the composition of the first galaxies, including the first generation of supermassive black holes. How these came about at such an early time is a mystery. As well, the transition of gas from neutral and opaque to transparent and ionized, something astronomers call the epoch of reionization, is not well understood. JADES team member Andrew Bunker, professor of astrophysics at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, who is also part of the ESA team behind the Webb telescope, said:

This transition is a fundamental phase change in the nature of the universe. We want to understand what caused it. It could be that its the light from very early galaxies and the first burst of star formation It is kind of one of the Holy Grails, to find the so-called Population III stars that formed from the hydrogen and helium of the Big Bang.

People have been trying to do this for many decades and results have been inconclusive so far.

But, hopefully, not for much longer!

Bottom line: JADES is an ambitious new deep sky survey to be observed with the James Webb Space Telescope, once launched. It will reach further back in time and space than any survey before, to study the very first generation of galaxies after the universe transitioned from opaque to transparent.

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JADES will go deeper than the Hubble Deep Fields - EarthSky

It was a tough year here on Earth, but 2020 was a bright spot for space exploration. SpaceX sent its futuristic Starship to new heights, three countries launched Mars missions, and robots grabbed debris from the moon and an asteroid.

Next year promises more, including a planned launch of the Hubble Space Telescopes successor.

Perhaps its no surprise then that space themes are having a moment in home decor. When so many of us Earthlings are stuck at home because of the pandemic, space imagery can add a sense of adventure or whimsy to rooms, walls and ceilings.

Ive done outer space, and starry skies, says New York interior designer Patrice Hoban. My clients love using stars as a backdrop in nurseries. Ive also worked with glow-paint to add an extra pop to kids rooms and home theaters.

She sticks tiny glow-in-the-dark stars to the ceiling; the light can last for hours. Its the closest thing Ive found to being in a planetarium, she says.

Rachel Magana, senior visual designer at the sustainable furniture-rental company Fernish, picked up some cosmological decorating ideas from a colleagues recent nursery project.

Base your color palette around deep blue tones, then splash in bits of color like yellow, white or red, she says.

Or create your own galaxy wall, she says. Paint a blue wall, then use some watered-down white paint to splatter it with fine droplets. You may just create some new constellations.

She suggests adding fun, space-agey lamps, and vintage NASA posters.

Outer space has inspired designers for decades. In the 1960s, the space race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, along with the development of space age-y, synthetic materials, led to a surge in futuristic furniture like molded plastic chairs and Sputnik-shaped lighting.

These days, you can download artwork directly from NASA: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/, or find it at retailers like Red Bubble, Etsy and Zazzle.

Magana also suggests making a letter board with a space-themed quote like Neil Armstrongs famous One small step for man phrase.

Much of the astronomy-themed art in the marketplace would be striking in any room. There are lunar graphics on canvas at Target. Tempapers got constellation wallpapers, but if you cant do wallpaper, consider Kenna Sato Designs constellation decals for walls or ceilings.

Galaxy Lamps has a sphere that looks like a planetoid. Charge it up with the included USB and cycle through 16 colors with three lighting modes. Theres a moon version, too. And at Beautiful Halo, find a collection of rocket-ship ceiling fixtures.

German designer Jan Kath has created a rug collection called Spacecrafted inspired by imagery of gas clouds and asteroid nebulae from the Hubble telescope.

Studio Greytak, in Missoula, Montana, has designed a Jupiter lamp out of the mineral aragonite, depicting the whirling, turbulent gases of the planet. And theres the Impact table, where a chunk of desert rose crystals is embedded with cast glass, as though a piece of asteroid had plunged into a pool.

Zodiac wall decals and a Milky Way throw rug can be found at Project Nursery. There are hanging mobiles of the planets and of stars and clouds, at both Crate & Kids and Pottery Barn Kids.

A glow-in-the-dark duvet cover printed with the solar system is also at PBK, but if youre ready to really head to the stars, check out Snurk Livings duvet set. The studio, owned by Dutch designers Peggy van Neer and Erik van Loo, has designed the set photoprinted with a life-size astronaut suit.

Creating a night sky on the ceiling of a home theater seems to be popular; Houzz has hundreds of examples for inspiration.

Maydan Architects in Palo Alto, California, designed one for a recent project.

Our clients grandfather was the owner of multiple movie theaters, says Mary Maydan. One of them had a retractable ceiling that enabled guests to experience the starry sky at night. When our client decided to build their home theater, this installation was actually fulfilling a lifelong dream.

The ceiling isnt retractable, but has an eight-paneled fixture depicting the Milky Way and a shooting star.

It provides very soft light and was intended to be kept on during the screening of the movie and create a magical experience, says Maydan.

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Space-themed decor brings the heavens indoors | MAD Life | heraldbulletin.com - The Herald Bulletin