NASA Webb Telescope

The Official *NASA* Webb X account.

The world's most powerful space telescope. Launched: Dec. 25, 2021. First images revealed: July 12, 2022.

[NASA Webb Telescope @NASAWebb]

This July was our 4th science anniversary, and the results have been fascinating! Bringing us previously unseen details from all throughout the universe to right here in our own solar system, Webb has given scientists, and the world, a powerful new set of tools.

[Space Telescope Science Institute @SpaceTelescope]

NOVEMBER 10: The Cigar Galaxy has been notoriously difficult to study. It contains large amounts of dust, making its disk nearly impenetrable at optical wavelengths. Now #NASAWebb has pierced through its dust to reveal its structure in incredible detail. https://t.co/XGnZ5AVFBi

[NASA Webb Telescope @NASAWebb]

@NASAHubble Hubble and Webb’s complementary views of the Cat’s Head Nebula are helping astronomers learn more about the elusive, chaotic, and complex process known as star formation. Read more: https://t.co/jcCtg7RQOP

[NASA Webb Telescope @NASAWebb]

Happy Halloween! 👻

Like a spectral form rising out of a cold mist, @NASAHubble and Webb have captured a hauntingly dynamic star-forming scene, which lies within the vast Carina Nebula, a diffuse star-forming region located about 7,500 light-years away from Earth.

[NASA Webb Telescope @NASAWebb]

@NASAHubble The small, select area both telescopes observed is nicknamed the Cat’s Head Nebula because of its resemblance to a cat sitting with its back toward the viewer. The “head” of the cat is turned to the right, revealing a glowing eye.

[NASA Webb Telescope @NASAWebb]

The two telescopes offer complementary views of the shadowy form, nicknamed the Cat’s Head Nebula, which reflects the “magical” process of star formation. Read more: https://t.co/PJO96OSUyG

[NASA Webb Telescope @NASAWebb]

Pspspsp! Just in time for Halloween, NASA’s Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes recently stared at an eerie star-forming scene within the Carina Nebula, a massive gas and dust cloud located approximately 7,500 light-years away from Earth.

[NASA Webb Telescope @NASAWebb]

@ahis12ha Webb's angular resolution (or image "sharpness") in the infrared is about equivalent to Hubble's angular resolution in visible light! So Webb is "better" in the infrared and Hubble in visible light. Their data are very complementary!

[NASA Webb Telescope @NASAWebb]

Rest easy, Captain. We have the helm. ✨

This is Webb’s look at Westerlund 1, a super star cluster. Because our galaxy is past its peak of star formation, and because stars live relatively short lives, only a few of these clusters exist to give us clues to that past era.

[NASA Webb Telescope @NASAWebb]

Note for clarity: "because such stars live relatively short lives..." Massive stars are relatively short-lived.

[NASA Webb Telescope @NASAWebb]

@NASAHubble It's possible to "fly through" these views with the help of visualizations created by data scientists, which bring Hubble and Webb observations to 3-D life.

[NASA Webb Telescope @NASAWebb]

@NASAHubble and @NASAWebb captured a purr-fect view of the Cat’s Head Nebula.

This long thin structure, made of dark, dense dust, looks like the head of a cat, its eye a newborn star still shrouded by the dust and gas from which it formed.
https://t.co/t4nTxu6j2W

[NASA Webb Telescope @NASAWebb]

@NASAHubble In the mid-IR, the dust shines brightly, and in the near-IR, Webb can see through the dust to the stars hidden within. In visible light, Hubble shows a dark pillar of dust, with a yellow ridge along the right where the gas is illuminated by UV radiation from nearby massive stars.

[Chandra Observatory @chandraxray]

Ghosted by the universe, just in time for Halloween!🎃 This eerie structure, combining data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory & @NASAWebb, is part of the Carina Nebula, located about 7,500 light years from Earth in our Milky Way galaxy. 👻https://t.co/TSN970iegH

[NASA Webb Telescope @NASAWebb]

This region has a lower metallicity (proportion of elements that are heavier than helium and hydrogen) than our Milky Way, revealing more about how stars formed in the conditions of the early universe.

[NASA Webb Telescope @NASAWebb]

Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble 🧙‍♀️

This turbulent cauldron of star formation, N159, resides about 161,000 light years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud, one of the satellite galaxies orbiting our Milky Way.

https://t.co/qJTDi5noN0

[NASA Universe @NASAUniverse]

With its quick reflexes, flexible scheduling, and multiwavelength vision, our Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory has made discoveries with nearly every NASA space telescope during its 22 years in space.

As the mission winds down, let’s see how Swift’s collaborations have helped us unravel the mysteries of the cosmos.
🔽

[NASA Webb Telescope @NASAWebb]

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) - enigmatic, millisecond-long flashes of radio emission from the distant universe - were first discovered in 2007.

Their origins are difficult to pinpoint, but Webb found the host galaxy to the most distant FRB seen to date.

https://t.co/nd2NQqrRdX

[NASA Webb Telescope @NASAWebb]

Happy World Space Week!

If you're searching up space facts today, you might run into our newest image! 👇

https://t.co/HOpYdEpIlw

[NASA Webb Telescope @NASAWebb]

Brewing up new stars 🪄

Webb’s unique view of the stellar nursery known as NGC 7129 reveals numerous stars formerly hidden in this cosmic cauldron, helping astronomers study the star lifecycle in more depth.

https://t.co/JZwya3QLUR

[NASA Webb Telescope @NASAWebb]

Brewing up new stars 🪄

Webb’s unique view of the stellar nursery known as NGC 7129 reveals numerous stars formerly hidden in this cosmic cauldron, helping astronomers study the star lifecycle in more depth.

https://t.co/JZwya3QLUR

[NASA Webb Telescope @NASAWebb]

Our solar system might have experienced more than one extreme debris disk phase, like when the Earth, with its silica-rich crust, was formed by a giant collision. The gas giants migrating outward may have disrupted smaller bodies, generating dust-rich conditions.

[NASA Webb Telescope @NASAWebb]

They say planet formation’s a cruel endeavor

Violent collisions, like that between a proto-Earth and a Mars-sized object named Theia 4.5 billion years ago, shaped our home planet. Webb is helping compare other young stellar systems to our own. https://t.co/Chc49miHrh

[NASA Webb Telescope @NASAWebb]

Silica-rich debris disks seem to be produced by high-energy impacts between Mars-sized bodies around younger stars. Silica-poor ones might be formed by smaller scale collisions across a range of ages, which is likely why they vary in brightness.