Mars’s oddest cloud may be even odder than we thought

Elongated cloud on Mars – annotated
Credit: ESA/GCP/UPV/EHU Bilbao
Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO or ESA Standard Licence
(content can be used under either licence)

Scientists using the European Space Agency's Mars Express, in combination with a state-of-the-art meteorological model of the Red Planet, have found that there may be some very exotic physics behind Mars’s most curious cloud.

Every spring and summer in Mars’s southern hemisphere, during the martian dusty season, we see a spectacular cloud emerge: the Arsia Mons Elongated Cloud (AMEC), the most visually striking cloud on the Red Planet.

This white wisp of water ice emerges downwind of the 20-km-tall Arsia Mons volcano. It forms, grows, and fades on a daily basis, stretching out for up to 1800 km – nearly twice the length of the UK – before quickly evaporating. This cycle repeats every morning for several months.

Mars Express first revealed the AMEC in 2018, and has viewed the recurrent cloud repeatedly since. Researchers have explored its evolution, vivid dynamics and intriguing behaviour, determining it to be an orographic cloud: a type of cloud also seen on Earth that forms as wind flows past the craggy topography of a volcano or mountain.

However, when trying to model exactly how the cloud springs to life, our simulations simply didn't reproduce what we see in the images – until now.

“To create the AMEC in our modelling, we found that we needed to include some exotic physics… physics that, while included in textbooks, is treated as theoretical and usually thought not to happen in nature. It certainly hasn’t been seen in action before,” says Jorge Hernández-Bernal of LMD/CNRS/Sorbonne Université in Paris, France, lead author of the new study. “Once we included this physics in our simulations, the AMEC emerged just as we hoped.”

New modelling of Mars’s most striking cloud
Credit: ESA/EHU (top); Hernandez-Bernal et al., Nature Geoscience 2026 (bottom)
Acknowledgements: Jorge Hernandez-Bernal
Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO or ESA Standard Licence
(content can be used under either licence)

“Wholly unexpected”: a rare process in action

On Earth and elsewhere, clouds typically form when moist air cools and water vapour condenses into liquid droplets or icy crystals. This usually happens via a process known as heterogeneous nucleation, which requires specks of other ‘stuff’ to be present in the atmosphere for vapour to cling and condense onto – salt, pollen, soot, or dust, for instance. On Mars, it’s thought to be dust.

“For the AMEC, it seems that cloud formation takes place without needing any of this ‘stuff’,” adds Jorge. “Water vapour turns directly into icy cloud particles without any middle step. It’s akin to droplets of condensation appearing in the middle of a room, rather than on a window. We call this homogeneous nucleation, and we’ve never seen it before in a planetary atmosphere. It’s wholly unexpected.”

Mars Express views the most striking cloud on Mars
Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin
Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO or ESA Standard Licence
(content can be used under either licence)

Scientists had suggested that this process might take place in the upper atmospheres of Earth and Venus, but it hasn’t been spotted. Its rarity is due to it requiring exceptional circumstances, with extreme relative humidity levels of over 100 000 times those usually experienced in our daily life on Earth. “We’ve not seen these conditions on Mars before, but our finding now strongly suggests that the planet’s humidity can indeed reach these extreme levels,” says Jorge.

Jorge and colleagues found that the AMEC sits in a unique position where Mars’s thin atmosphere and the towering height of the nearby Arsia Mons volcano come together to create the conditions needed to see this rare process in action.

As winds flow past Arsia Mons, the volcano’s bulk triggers a powerful wave that lifts moist parcels of air several kilometres up into the air in just a few minutes. This cools the atmosphere rapidly, causing temperatures to drop by 30 degrees in just 10 minutes and relative humidity levels to spike. Water vapour then spontaneously freezes directly into cloud particles, forming the AMEC.

The Arsia Mons Elongated Cloud as seen by Mars Express
Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin
Acknowledgements: J. Cowart
Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO or ESA Standard Licence
(content can be used under either licence)

A win for Mars Express

While some aspects of the modelled cloud don’t exactly match the observations, “the result is remarkable,” says Jorge. “We don’t have nearly as much information about Mars’s atmosphere as we do about Earth's, so reproducing the AMEC to this degree is a big success for the model.”

The researchers based their modelling on data from the three cameras aboard Mars Express: the Visual Monitoring Camera, High Resolution Stereo Camera, and OMEGA. Mars Express can image large swathes of the martian surface at high resolution, and it is one of the few Mars-orbiting spacecraft – alongside ESA’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter – able to observe during morning hours, when the AMEC is present.

“Mars Express can also track how the cloud is changing on timescales of mere hours, which gives us an unrivalled view of short-lived phenomena on the planet,” says ESA Mars Express Project Scientist Colin Wilson. “Overall, this finding is a true accomplishment for the mission and its scientists: Mars Express discovered the AMEC, has followed up and monitored it for years, and is now helping reveal the secrets of its formation.”

Beyond furthering our understanding of atmospheric processes on Mars and elsewhere, the result highlights that we should not discount unlikely processes when exploring the planets of the Universe (including exoplanets). Colin adds: “While clouds on Earth and Mars seem to be governed by the same ‘rules’, understanding this exotic martian cloud required exotic physics – and this may be true elsewhere in the cosmos.”

Source: ESA/Science Exploration

---

Notes for editors

Mars Express has imaged the AMEC using both the lower-resolution VMC camera and – as in this release – with the high-resolution HRSC. This marks the first ESA release featuring HRSC imagery of the AMEC, and shows the cloud in striking detail.

‘Homogeneous ice Nucleation from Water Vapour Suggested by Elongated Clouds on Mars’ by J. Hernández-Bernal et al. is published today in Nature Geoscience. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-026-02089-9. A free version of the paper is available here.

---

For more information please contact:

ESA Media Relations
media@esa.int

---

NASA's Chandra Breaks Down 'Treble Clef's' Galaxy Cluster Collision

VLSS J0318.9+5755 (The Treble Clef Cluster)

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/INAF-IRA/A. Botteon et al.; Infrared: UKIDSS-GPS ; Radio: ASTRON/LOFAR; Image processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk

JPEG (327.3 kb) - Large JPEG (5 MB) - Tiff (147.2 MB) - More Images

A Tour of NASA's Chandra Breaks Down 'Treble Clef's' Galaxy Cluster Collision - More Videos

---

• Using Chandra, astronomers have discovered the origin of an unusual source of radio waves called the “Treble Clef”.


• Scientists use this nickname because the radio source has a distinct shape resembling the musical symbol.


• They determined the structure was formed by an outburst from a supermassive black hole followed by a collision between two galaxy clusters.


• This new image contains X-rays from Chandra and eROSITA, radio data from LOFAR, and infrared data from UKIRT.

---

Astronomers have used NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory to break down the cause of a remarkable formation of radio waves they have nicknamed the “Treble Clef” because its distinct shape strongly resembles the musical symbol.

The researchers discovered the Treble Clef is likely caused by an outburst from a supermassive black hole, followed by a collision of two galaxy clusters. A paper describing the findings, led by Andrea Botteon of the National Institute for Astrophysics, or INAF, in Italy, published Wednesday in the Astronomy & Astrophysics journal.

An explanation for the Treble Clef has been particularly difficult to find because the formation lies almost directly behind the plane of the Milky Way, meaning that stars, gas, and dust from our home galaxy largely block the view from Earth. However, by using telescopes that can peer through the intervening material, a team of researchers was able to identify what is responsible for this uncommon structure.

NASA’s Chandra and the German Extended RÖntgen Survey with an Imaging Telescope Array (eROSITA) X-ray telescope found diffuse, hot gas at the location of the Treble Clef, showing that a galaxy cluster hosts the object. The researchers also determined the galaxy cluster is, in fact, two clusters in the process of merging. Galaxy clusters are some of the largest structures in the universe, containing hundreds of individual galaxies and huge reservoirs of superheated gas.

This new composite image of the Treble Clef and its cluster shows the multimillion-degree gas detected in X-rays by Chandra and eROSITA in blue, with some of the Chandra data derived from a special technique the authors used to highlight important features in the Chandra data. Radio data shown in red from the LOw Frequency ARray (LOFAR), a large network of radio telescopes in Europe reveals the doppelganger of the musical notation. The final piece of the combined image comes from infrared data obtained by the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope, appearing mostly white.

The authors concluded that the Treble Clef likely formed in a two-stage process. First, an earlier outburst from a supermassive black hole in the galaxy cluster’s center drove clouds of charged particles and magnetic fields away at close to the speed of light. This led to a type of cosmic crescendo and initially produced bright radio waves that later faded as the particles lost energy. Next, the collision between the two clusters compressed or reenergized the cloud, which became brighter again in radio waves. Shock waves — similar to the sonic booms from supersonic jets — from the collision may have played a role in this reenergizing process.

To reveal evidence for the cluster collision in the Chandra data, the authors used a special technique that examined how much the cluster’s hot gas deviates from a symmetrical shape. Most of the hot gas is symmetrical and shaped approximately like an oval. The authors removed this symmetrical oval shape from the original X-ray image. The remaining X-ray emission in the residual image shows t is brightest on the left and right, and faintest in the center. The new composite image combines both the original X-ray and the residual X-ray images.

The brighter X-rays in the residual image, toward the left and right of the cluster’s center, imply that the collision between the two clusters likely occurred along the left-right direction as seen in the image. The researchers think the direct collision between the two clusters occurred a few hundred million years ago, and the clusters are now moving away from each other.

The resemblance to a treble clef is a case of pareidolia, the phenomenon when people see familiar shapes in random data, since there is no scientific connection to the musical notation. A second interpretation of pareidolia for this radio emission structure is a dragon that is being viewed from the side.

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.

Quick Look: NASA's Chandra Breaks Down 'Treble Clef's' Galaxy Cluster Collision

Source: NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory

---

Fast Facts for VLSS J0318.9+5755, The Treble Clef Cluster

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/INAF-IRA/A. Botteon et al.; Infrared: UKIDSS-GPS ; Radio: ASTRON/LOFAR; Image processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk
Release Date: October 14, 2026
Scale: Image is about 14.5 arcmin (6 million light-years) across.
Category: Groups & Clusters of Galaxies
Coordinates (J2000): RA 03h 18m 57.8s | Dec +57° 54´ 59.2"
Constellation: Camelopardalis
Observation Dates: 4 observations in April 2026
Observation Time: 13 hours 34 minutes
Obs. ID: 30487, 32286-32288
Instrument: ACIS
References: Botteon, A., et al., 2026, A&A, accepted.
Color Code: X-ray: blue; Infrared: red, green, blue; Radio: red
Distance Estimate: About 1.55 billion light-years from Earth (z=0.117)

---

ALMA Reveals Hidden Planet-Forming Structures in the Smallest Disks

ALMA images of the 11 compact planet-forming disks observed in the Lupus star-forming region. Using the highest angular resolution available with ALMA at a wavelength of about 0.9 millimeters, astronomers revealed previously hidden structures in several of these small disks. The lower-right panel shows the orbits of Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, together with the asteroid belt, for scale. The comparison illustrates how these observations probe planet formation at distances comparable to those within our own Solar System. Each white scale bar represents two astronomical units; one astronomical unit is the average distance between Earth and the Sun. Credit: P. Curone et al. – ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)

A comparison of ALMA images of HL Tau (left), a famous example of a large, bright planet-forming disk, and the much smaller Sz 112 (center). HL Tau has been rescaled to appear as it would at the distance of Sz 112, allowing a direct comparison of their physical sizes. The enlarged view of Sz 112 (right) reveals a central cavity on a scale comparable to Earth’s orbit. The study identifies Sz 112 as the smallest known transition disk—a planet-forming disk with an inner cavity. The scale bars represent 20 astronomical units in the left panel and one astronomical unit in the enlarged view. Credit: P. Curone et al. – ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)

---

Using ALMA’s exceptionally sharp vision, astronomers have uncovered rings, gaps, and cavities in extremely compact disks around young stars. The observations show that planet-formation structures extend into regions comparable in size to the inner Solar System, suggesting that many small disks may have looked smooth simply because their details were too small to resolve.

Some of the most striking images from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) show young stars surrounded by broad gas and dust disks divided into intricate rings and gaps. These structures can trap solid material and may mark places where planets are beginning to form.

But astronomers have mostly seen those spectacular structures in large, bright disks. Much smaller disks have often appeared smooth and relatively featureless, raising the question of whether they evolve differently — or whether their structures have simply been too small to see.

A team led by Pietro Curone of the CATA (Center for Astrophysics and Associated Technologies) and Universidad de Chile, with Gijs Mulders of Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Nienke van der Marel of Leiden Observatory, and Laura Pérez of Universidad de Chile, has now taken a much closer look.

Using ALMA in its most extended antenna configuration, the astronomers observed 11 extremely compact protoplanetary disks in the Lupus star-forming region. The observations, made in ALMA Band 7 at a wavelength of about 0.9 millimeters, reached an angular resolution of roughly 0.02 arcseconds. At Lupus's distance, that corresponds to scales of about two astronomical units, or twice the average distance between Earth and the Sun. This is the highest angular resolution currently available with ALMA at this wavelength.

At that resolution, several disks that had appeared simple began to reveal hidden detail. The team detected clear substructures within 10 astronomical units of the central star in four of the 11 disks and found indications of similar features in another three. In one system, Sz 112, ALMA resolved a central cavity extending to only 1.6 astronomical units from the star.

“For a long time, the smallest disks looked much simpler than the large, spectacular disks that ALMA made famous. What we find is that at least part of that difference was an illusion caused by resolution,” explains Curone. “When we zoom in far enough, rings, gaps and cavities begin to appear, even in these tiny systems.”

The result suggests that compact disks may not represent a fundamentally different kind of planet-forming environment. Instead, many may contain the same kinds of structures found in larger disks but compressed into regions only a few astronomical units across.

That is particularly important because the regions probed in this study are much closer to the orbital scales of many known planetary systems. Previous high-resolution ALMA surveys have largely resolved structures at distances of several to tens of astronomical units from their stars. Yet many exoplanets are found much closer in. Compact disks therefore offer a way to investigate planet formation in regions that more closely overlap with the places where many planets ultimately reside.

“The central question for us was whether small disks truly lack structure, or whether their features were simply beyond our resolution limit,” explains co-author Mulders. “To answer that, we compared the new observations of compact disks with previous ALMA studies of planet-forming disks.”

The comparison revealed a strong dependence on how well a disk had been resolved. Among disks observed with enough resolution to reliably reveal structure, substructures were detected in about 44% of extremely compact disks with radii between 3 and 10 astronomical units and in about 55% of disks between 10 and 30 astronomical units. For disks larger than 30 astronomical units, the detection rate rises above 90%.

The result suggests that the previously reported scarcity of rings and gaps in small disks was driven, at least in part, by insufficient angular resolution rather than by their genuine absence.

“This is a good example of how the picture changes when we gain resolution. A disk that looks smooth from farther away can show rich internal structure once we can separate features only a few astronomical units apart”, says Pérez, a co-author of the study.

The structures matter because dust in a protoplanetary disk does not simply remain where it was born. Solid particles tend to lose angular momentum and drift inward toward the star. Without some mechanism to slow that migration, millimeter-sized grains could disappear from the outer disk much faster than the lifetime of the disk itself.

Rings and gaps can signal changes in gas pressure that trap those particles. By slowing or stopping their inward drift, these pressure traps can preserve concentrations of solid material and create favorable locations for planet growth.

“Our new ALMA observations suggest that such traps can exist only a few astronomical units from young stars, even in extremely compact disks,” says co-author of the study van der Marel. “One possible explanation for some of the newly detected gaps is that young planets created them.”

The researchers estimated which kinds of planets could produce the observed structures if a single planet caused each gap. For structures within five astronomical units, the required masses fall within the range associated with super-Earths and mini-Neptunes. These possible planets would occupy a region of planet mass and orbital distance that is difficult to probe with both current exoplanet surveys and disk observations focused on much larger orbital scales.

“If planets are responsible for some of these gaps, we may be seeing the signatures of relatively low-mass planets while they are still forming, at orbital distances that have been very difficult to access before,” adds Curone.

The team cautions that rings, gaps and cavities are not themselves direct detections of planets. Several physical mechanisms can create structure in protoplanetary disks, and the current observations do not completely rule out non-planetary explanations. The authors find that a planetary origin is consistent with the structures detected in several disks, but further observations are needed to determine what produces them.

The observations also revealed another surprise. Two of the apparently compact systems, Sz 73 and Sz 130, have faint rings extending well beyond their bright central disks. Four additional systems show tentative signs of similar outer emission. This raises the possibility that some disks classified as very small may have more extended material that has remained hidden because it is faint.

Together, the results point toward a more continuous picture of protoplanetary disks. Large and compact disks may share many of the same basic structures and physical processes, with the main difference being the scales on which they occur.

By resolving features only a few astronomical units across, ALMA is beginning to bridge the gap between observations of planet-forming disks and the architectures of mature planetary systems. Future high-resolution observations of more compact disks, at different wavelengths and using tracers of both dust and gas, will help determine how common these hidden structures are and whether they truly mark the formation sites of the planets that will eventually emerge from them.

Source: ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array)Press Releases

---

Additional Information

This research appears in “Probing Planet Formation within 10 au: Dust Substructures in Extremely Compact Protoplanetary Disks2” by P. Curone et al. in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international astronomy facility, is a partnership of the European Southern Observatory (ESO), the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), and the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) of Japan in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. ALMA is funded by ESO on behalf of its Member States, by NSF in cooperation with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) in Taiwan, and by NINS in cooperation with the Academia Sinica (AS) in Taiwan and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI).

ALMA construction and operations are led by ESO on behalf of its Member States; by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), managed by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI), on behalf of North America; and by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) on behalf of East Asia. The Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) provides the unified leadership and management of the construction, commissioning, and operation of ALMA.

---

Contacts:

Nicolás Lira
Education and Public Outreach Officer
Joint ALMA Observatory, Santiago - Chile
Phone: +56 2 2467 6519
Cel:  +56 9 9445 7726
Email: nicolas.lira@alma.cl

Jill Malusky
Public Information Officer
NRAO
Phone: +1 304-456-2236
Email: jmalusky@nrao.edu

Bárbara Ferreira
ESO Media Manager
Garching bei München, Germany
Phone: +49 89 3200 6670
Email: press@eso.org

Seiichiro Naito
NAOJ EPO Lead
Email: naito.seiichiro@nao.ac.jp

---

NuSTAR Observes a Rare Supernova

An artist’s impression of a Type Ia supernova – the explosion of a white dwarf locked in a binary system with a companion star. Image credit: ESA/ATG medialab/C. Carreau.  Download Image

Over the past week, NuSTAR observed supernova SN 2026sqf, a rare type of supernova, which was discovered on July 8th by an amateur astronomer in Utah. Supernovae, or exploding stars, are empirically classified based on how their brightness and spectroscopic properties evolve over time. Some supernovae, such as Type II supernovae, occur at the end of a massive star’s life. Others, known as Type Ia supernovae, are the result of a binary star system where a white dwarf accretes from its companion and crosses over a critical mass limit that causes it to detonate completely. One very rare subclass of the latter, representing << 1% of Type Ia supernovae, have spectra that show narrow emission lines due to interactions with dense gas and dust surrounding the star. This matter is called circumstellar material (CSM) and these rare cosmic explosions are called Type Ia-CSM supernovae. Studying such events provide one of the few direct probes of mass loss from the supernova progenitor system in its late evolutionary stages. However, the high-energy view of such systems remains almost entirely unexplored. Until recently, SN 2012ca, detected by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory months to years after the explosion, was the only SN Ia-CSM detected in X-rays. High-energy X-rays above ~10 keV, as probed by NuSTAR, are critical to constrain the temperature of the emitting plasma and break degeneracies that are inherent to modeling X-ray spectra when only low-energy data is available. NuSTAR observations of SN 2026sqf in the nearby galaxy NGC 3310 represents, to our knowledge, the first high-energy X-ray observation of a Type Ia-CSM supernova. These data will enable unique constraints on the temperature and properties of the material surrounding this system, which, in turn, will provide clues to the properties of its progenitor.

Author: Nayana AJ, Postdoctoral Scholar (UC Berkeley)

Source: NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR)/Weekly Highlights

---

Chandra & Swift: Celebrating NASA's Chandra and Swift Exploring Space Together

>

SMC - NGC 1097 - NGC 4151 - NGC 1365
Chandra & Swift Galaxy Image Collection, Unlabeled.
Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO

JPEG (530.6 kb) - Large JPEG (12.1 MB) - Tiff (29.3 MB) - More Images

A Quick Look: Celebrating NASA's Chandra and Swift Exploring Space Together - More Videos

---

• To help commemorate NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, four composite images are being released.


• Swift, launched in 2004, can quickly observe changing events in space in ultraviolet, X-ray, and gamma-ray light.


• NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory frequently worked in tandem with Swift to study mysterious objects and phenomena.
.
• These new Chandra/Swift images include a view of the Small Magellanic Cloud, NGC 1097, NGC 4151, and NGC 1365.

---

As NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory nears its final days in orbit, it is an excellent opportunity to celebrate this telescope and its place in NASA’s fleet of eyes on the universe.

NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory is one of the many telescopes that frequently teamed up with Swift to make important discoveries about the cosmos. Chandra and Swift have complementary abilities. While Swift can quickly capture rapidly-changing events in space in ultraviolet, X-ray, and gamma-ray light, Chandra is able to gather more detailed data with its sharp X-ray vision. When combined, these two telescopes helped provide a more complete picture of events and objects in space than either could alone.

This new image collection is just a sample of the many cosmic objects that Chandra and Swift have both observed in the pursuit of learning more about the mysteries of space

SMC - NGC 1097 - NGC 4151 - NGC 1365 (Labeled)
Chandra & Swift Galaxy Image Collection, Labeled.
Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO

Top left: The Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) is one of the Milky Way’s closest galactic neighbors, and orbits around our home galaxy, at a distance of about 200,000 light-years from Earth. This new view of the SMC contains a multitude of layers of light including ultraviolet data from Swift (magenta and cyan), X-rays from the Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA’s XMM-Newton (red, green and navy), infrared data from NASA’s retired Spitzer Space Telescope and ESA’s Herschel Space Observatory (orange), and optical data the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile (pink, peach and purple).

Top right: NGC 1097 is a spiral galaxy about 48 million light-years from Earth that contains a supermassive black hole about 140 million times more massive than our Sun. The region around the black hole glows brightly in X-rays as material nearing the black hole is heated to millions of degrees. In this combined view, X-rays from Chandra (yellow and orange) have been combined with ultraviolet data from Swift (blue) along with an optical light image from Hubble and a ground-based telescope (red, green, and blue).

Bottom left: NGC 4151 is also a spiral galaxy with an actively-growing supermassive black hole at its center. The X-ray emission detected by Chandra (orange) has been attributed to an outburst powered by the black hole. Ultraviolet data and X-ray light detected by Swift (magenta) has been combined with the Chandra data and added to an optical light image taken from the ground by an astrophotographer.

Bottom right: There is another growing giant hole at the center of the galaxy NGC 1365. Astronomers call these very bright cores “active galactic nuclei” (or AGN), which are fueled by a steady flow of material streaming onto the black hole. In this composite, there are X-rays from Chandra (purple) and Swift (magenta), ultraviolet data from Swift (teal), and an optical light image from a ground-based telescope.

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.

Quick Look: Celebrating NASA's Chandra and Swift Exploring Space Together

Source: NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory

---

Visual Description:

Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC)

A multilayered, composite image of the Small Magellanic Cloud, which resembles a highly detailed splatter painting. Here, splashes of burnt orange, neon purple, cyan blue, and brilliant white, in flecks ranging from minuscule pinpricks to fat smears, form a cloud roughly shaped like an upside-down letter V.

NGC 1097

A bright, composite image of spiral galaxy NGC 1097, viewed face on. The galaxy has gleaming cyan blue and neon purple arms spiraling around a central black hole, which is awash in glowing yellow X-ray light. At our upper right, the ends of the neatly corkscrewing arms are diffused, spread around a neighboring satellite galaxy.

NGC 4151

A brilliantly crisp composite image of spiral galaxy NGC 4151, viewed face on. The galaxy has a bright, golden orange and purple core with spiraling neon blue arms that are tight around the actively growing supermassive black hole at the center, but spread and grow wispy as they extend outward. At our lower left is a second spiral galaxy, NGC 4156, which appears small by comparison, and whose colorful, tightly wound arms give it the appearance of a swirly lollipop.

NGC 1365
A composite image of spiral galaxy NGC 1365, viewed face on. The galaxy has a glowing pale-yellow core at its center, surrounded by a muddle of clouds in various shades of purple. Extending out of this dense core are cloudy, light blue arms, which spiral outwards in an oval shape, stretching toward our upper left and lower right.

---

Fast Facts for Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC):

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO and ESA/XMM-Newton; UV: NASA/Penn State Univ/Swift and NASA/CAS/CNES/John Hoplins Univ. Applied Physics Laboratory; Optical: NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/MCELS Team/Middlebury College/F. Winkler; Infrared: ESA/NASA/JPL-CalTech/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare

Release Date: October 8, 2026
Scale: Image is about 329 arcmin (19,000 light-years) across.
Category: Normal Galaxies & Starburst Galaxies
Coordinates (J2000): RA: 00h 52m 44.8s | Dec: -72° 49' 43"
Constellation: Tucana and Hydrus
Observation Date(s): 22 observations from Dec 2012 to Mar 2014
Observation Time: 265 hours and 19 minutes (11 days 1 hour 19 minutes)
Obs. IDs: 14665-14674, 15498-15507, 16367, 16490
Instrument: ACIS

Color Code: X-ray: red, green, and blue; UV: magenta, green, and cyan; Optical: orange, green, blue, and magenta; Infrared: red, green, and blue

Distance Estimate: About 200,000 light-years from Earth

---

Fast Facts for NGC 1097:

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; UV: NASA/Penn State Univ./Swift; Optical: Mark Hanson; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare

Release Date: October 8, 2026
Scale: Image is about 33.4 arcmin (440,000 light-years) across.
Category: Normal Galaxies & Starburst Galaxies
Coordinates (J2000): RA: 2h 46m 19.1s | Dec: -30° 16' 29.6"
Constellation: Fornax
Observation Date(s): 7 observations from Jan 2001 to May 2025
Observation Time: 19 hours 32 minutes
Obs. IDs: 1611, 2339, 29637, 30142, 30937, 30938, 30948
Instrument: ACIS
Color Code: X-ray: red, green, and blue; UV: blue; Optical: red, green, and blue
Distance Estimate: About 45 million light-years from Earth

---

Fast Facts for NGC 4151:

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; UV: NASA/Penn State Univ./Swift; Optical: Mark Hanson; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare

Release Date: October 8, 2026
Scale: Image is about 20 arcmin (300,000 light-years) across.
Category: Normal Galaxies & Starburst Galaxies
Coordinates (J2000): RA: 12h 10m 32.60s | Dec: +39° 24' 20.40"
Constellation: Canes Venatici
Observation Date(s): March 27th and 29th, 2008
Observation Time: 50 hours 31 minutes (2 days 2 hours 31 min)
Obs. IDs: 9217, 9218
Instrument: ACIS
Color Code: X-ray: magenta; UV: blue; Optical: red, green, and blue
Distance Estimate: About 51 million light-years from Earth

---

Fast Facts for NGC 1365:

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; UV: NASA/Penn State Univ/Swift; Optical:Armen Akopian; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare

Release Date: October 8, 2026
Scale: Image is about 3.25 arcmin (53,000 light-years) across.
Category: Normal Galaxies & Starburst Galaxies
Coordinates (J2000): RA: 3h 33m 36.4s | Dec: -36° 08′ 24.7"
Constellation: Fornax
Observation Date(s): 22 observations from Dec 2002, to May 2021
Observation Time: 164 hours 50 minutes (6 days 20 hours 50 minutes)
Obs. IDs: 3554, 6868-6873, 13920, 13921, 24737, 24787-24795, 25015, 25024, 25036
Instrument: ACIS
Color Code: X-ray: magenta; UV: red, green, and blue; Optical: red, green, and blue
Distance Estimate: About 56 million light-years from Earth

---

Webb Measures Distance to Farthest Fast Radio Burst, Suggesting Origin

FRB 20240304B (NIRCam Image)

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) was able to detect the host galaxy of the fast radio burst called FRB 20240304B, whose location is shown by the white cross. They found it is a small dwarf galaxy actively forming stars. Credit Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Themiya Nanayakkara (USYD); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

Farthest Fast Radio Burst Host Galaxy Spectrum

Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope were able to study the host galaxy of the most distant known fast radio burst (FRB). They confirmed it has a cosmological redshift of 2.148 and that the FRB occurred just 3 billion years after the big bang. Credit Illustration: NASA, ESA, CSA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI); Science: Manisha Caleb (SIfA)

FRB 20240304B (NIRCam Compass Image)

This image of the host galaxy of fast radio burst FRB 20240304B, captured by the James Webb Space Telescope’s Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam), shows compass arrows, scale bar, and color key for reference. Credit Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Manisha Caleb (SIfA); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

---

First discovered in 2007, fast radio bursts are enigmatic, millisecond-long flashes of radio emission from the distant universe. Their origin remains uncertain, particularly since most are seen once and never again. Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have pinpointed the host galaxy of the most distant fast radio burst (FRB) seen to date. Their finding has implications for what kind of energetic event creates these bursts.

“What makes fast radio bursts interesting is that we don't know what generates them. We have theories for what objects produce them, but we don't have conclusive proof,” said Manisha Caleb of the University of Sydney, lead author on the study published Thursday in the journal Science.

The MeerTRAP team used the MeerKAT telescope to detect the burst on March 4, 2024, leading to its designation as FRB 20240304B. The radio data from this burst suggested that it was extremely distant, possibly the most distant one seen to date. To confirm that distance, though, astronomers would need to study its host galaxy. Although they knew the location of the FRB very precisely, the world’s largest ground-based telescopes could not see any galaxy at that spot in the sky. As a result, the team turned to the Webb telescope.

Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument detected a galaxy in the right location, and its NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) instrument provided a precise measurement of the galaxy’s redshift: 2.148, corresponding to a time just 3 billion years after the big bang. The vast majority of FRBs detected to date occurred billions of years later in cosmic history.

The team discovered that the host galaxy of FRB 20240304B was not typical of other galaxies with FRBs. Most FRB galaxies are massive star-forming galaxies, but the galaxy they found was 1,000 times less massive than they expected.

“We thought it would be a big, nicely formed galaxy with lots of stars, and instead it was a little dwarf galaxy, although it was actively forming stars,” said Caleb.

“The host sticks out in the whole galaxy sample that we have. And it definitely was not what we were expecting,” said Ben Stappers of the University of Manchester, United Kingdom, a co-author on the paper. “This combination of using the MeerTRAP project on the MeerKAT telescope to discover and localize these distant bursts and Webb to study their hosts is very exciting.”

The galaxy existed at the height of “cosmic noon” – a period in the history of the universe when star formation was at its peak. The galaxy’s rate of star formation suggested that the majority of its stars may have formed within just 30 million years.

This has important implications for the origin of fast radio bursts. One theory suggests that FRBs may originate from the merger of two neutron stars. However, the process of orbiting neutron stars gradually approaching closer and closer until they collide is expected to take billions of years. As a result, FRBs would be expected to be associated with older galaxies containing more evolved stellar populations.

A second theory proposes that an FRB can originate from a single, young, highly magnetic neutron star known as a magnetar through a mechanism like starquakes. In that case, once a massive star explodes as a supernova and leaves behind a magnetar, an FRB might occur relatively quickly with no large time delay. As a result, FRBs would also be expected to be found in younger galaxies like the host of FRB 20240304B.

“Our work suggests that it’s very unlikely that this FRB was produced by a merger,” said Caleb.

"Our results further show the amazing capability of Webb where we can push boundaries beyond what was previously possible," said co-author Themiya Nanayakkara of the University of Sydney, Australia.

In addition to being a record-holder, the new FRB enabled the team to learn more about the billions of light-years of apparently empty space between the burst and Earth.

“A fast radio burst is almost like a cosmic flashlight. It lights up everything along the path. It carries an imprint of everything that it travels through, so you can use it to trace the ‘cosmic web’ – the otherwise invisible matter and structures that it encounters along the way,” said co-author J. Xavier Prochaska of the University of California, Santa Cruz.

The team found the imprint of two cosmic structures on the FRB’s signal – one previously unknown galaxy cluster at a redshift of 0.3 (about 3.5 billion light-years from Earth), and the nearby Virgo Cluster, which is located about 54 million light-years from Earth.

In the future, the team is excited about the potential to discover more distant FRBs. They estimate that the MeerKAT telescope may be able to detect and localize several FRBs per year at a redshift greater than 1.0, meaning they existed more than halfway back to the start of the universe. As other new radio telescope facilities and instruments come online, that discovery pace may grow. The Webb telescope will be essential for characterizing those distant host galaxies.

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).

Source:  NASA's James Webb Space Telescope/Latest News

---

Details:

Last Updated: Oct 09, 2026
Location: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Contact Media:

Laura Betz
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland
laura.e.betz@nasa.gov

Christine Pulliam
Space Telescope Science Institute
Baltimore, Maryland

---

A swirling galaxy

M83
Credit: ALMA(ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/J. Koda et al.

Like a portal to another dimension, a hypnotising swirl features in today’s Picture of the Week. This is the spiral galaxy M83, also known as the Southern Pinwheel, located approximately 15 million light-years away. It is one of the brightest galaxies in the night sky, but this image –– taken with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), in which ESO is a partner –– doesn’t show how M83 looks in the light our eyes can see. Instead, it depicts the light emitted by cold gas molecules, the ingredients of star formation.

Astronomers are interested in molecular gas clouds as virtually all stars are born from their collapse. Once stars form, they heat up their surroundings, making it harder for gas to condense and form further stars. This, combined with galactic dynamics that continually stirs gas, controls the growth of galaxies. ALMA allows astronomers to map how the density and temperature of these gas clouds change in different locations within a galaxy, such as the central regions, the spiral arms, or the space between them. This in turn helps us understand whether stars form differently in different galactic environments.

M83 closely resembles our own galaxy, the Milky Way. Since M83 appears nearly face-on in the sky, astronomers enjoy a privileged view to study whether the recipe to turn gas into stars is universal or changes within M83.

Links

• M83 in visible light
• Interactive comparison of M83 in visible and submillimetre wavelengths
• Research paper in The Astrophysical Journal by J. Koda et al.

Source: ESO/potw

---

Cosmic Cocktail: Exotic Methanol Discovered in Planet-Building Zones

COMPASS MPIfR

This composite image shows the Perseus molecular cloud, which is located about 1,000 light-years from Earth. A rare form of the organic alcohol methanol has been observed around at least one of the very young stars still embedded within it. This is the first time this molecule has been detected in space, as shared by the ALMA COMPASS Large Program (Complex Organic Molecules in Protostars with ALMA Spectral Surveys). Credit: Ekaterina Moerova / MPIfR; Background: NASA, CXC, SSC, NOAO, DSS; and 3D image of methanol fromPubChem [Internet]. Bethesda (MD): National Library of Medicine (US), National Center for Biotechnology Information; 2004-. PubChem Compound Summary for CID 887, Methanol; [cited 2026 July 16].

---

A Major Survey of Young Stars by ALMA has Spotted a Rare Form of Heavy Methanol

An international team of astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), of which the U.S. National Science Foundation National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a partner (NSF NRAO), has combined expertise from across the globe to open a new window on how the organic molecules that seed planets, and potentially life, form in space.

New results from the ALMA COMPASS Large Program (Complex Organic Molecules in Protostars with ALMA Spectral Surveys) show that young, still-forming stars are surrounded by a surprisingly sophisticated “chemical starter kit”, including organic molecules such as methanol that may one day enrich planets.

“We are getting completely new insights into the complex chemistry occurring around the youngest protostars”, said Jes Jørgensen Professor at the Niels Bohr Institute of University of Copenhagen and PI of the program. “The interesting question is how these chemical ingredients may influence the conditions on planets and potentially the origin of life there.”

100 Hours of ALMA Observations

COMPASS is a major international project using ALMA to study 11 nearby, Sun-like infant stars in unprecedented detail and requiring more than 100 hours of telescope time to systematically catalog their chemical compositions. By combining signals from up to 66 of its dishes, ALMA detects the extremely faint “fingerprints”of organic molecules, and maps how different chemicals are distributed around young stars on scales comparable to our own Solar System. The COMPASS program’s first results appear in seven papers in Astronomy & Astrophysics, offering initial analyses of this dataset and the first glimpse of its scientific discoveries.

“With COMPASS we can for the first time systematically compare protostars from different environments and in different evolutionary stages to begin to understand how chemical complexity develops during star formation,” said Dr. Adele Plunkett of the NSF NRAO and one of four co-PIs of the program together with Dr. Audrey Coutens of University of Toulouse in France, Dr. Maria Drozdovskaya of University of Bern in Switzerland and Prof. Jeong-Eun Lee of Seoul National University in South Korea.

Alcohol in Space

Several of the highlights from this first wave of results focus on methanol, the simplest alcohol, which plays a central role in building larger organic molecules. ALMA’s sensitivity and advanced spectral capabilities allow the detection of faint and obscure variations of methanol, among other molecules. One key discovery, reported in a paper led by Seoul National University graduate student Jae-Hong Jeong, shows that the methanol maser emission, naturally occurring radio beacons produced by methanol molecules, is far more widespread around low-mass protostars than previously thought. The COMPASS data reveal methanol masers in more than half of the young stars studied, and therefore such emission may be a common feature of early stellar evolution, apparent when observations are sufficiently sensitive.

ALMA Observations Discover CD₃OD In Space

In parallel, the survey enabled the first-ever detection in space of a fully “heavy” version of methanol. In this rare variant, known as fully deuterated methanol (CD₃OD), all of methanol’s hydrogen atoms are replaced by a heavier form of hydrogen called deuterium. Reported in a paper led by Dr. Arnaud Belloche of the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, CD₃OD was discovered around the young protostar IRAS 4A2 in the Perseus molecular cloud, about 1,000 light-years from Earth.

More Analysis To Yield More Discoveries

These results demonstrate that powerful spectral surveys like COMPASS make ALMA an invaluable tool for uncovering rare and previously unseen chemical phenomena. They also represent only the first step: analysis of the full COMPASS dataset will continue, extending the study to all detected species across all eleven sources. This work aims to determine whether variations in chemical composition among protostars arise from their birth environments or from evolutionary processes during star formation. “We are just beginning to tap into the richness of this dataset”, said Prof. Jeong-Eun Lee. “As we expand the analysis, we expect to uncover entirely new aspects of how chemistry evolves on the path to planet formation.”

This program contributes important pieces to the broader puzzle about how chemistry evolves in different regions of our Galaxy and at different stages of star formation. Recent NSF NRAO- and ALMA-supported surveys, including eDisk and the ALMA CMZ Exploration Survey, have taken systematic approaches to investigating the early chemical signatures of planet-forming disks around young stars.

By uniting cutting-edge ALMA observation with laboratory work and advanced modeling, the NSF NRAO and its international partners are charting how molecular complexity flows from interstellar clouds into emerging planetary systems—and, ultimately, into worlds that could resemble our own.

Source: National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO)/News

---

Links

• COMPASS Large Program website
• Press Release from Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy

---

Press Contacts:

Jill Malusky
Sr. Public Information Group Manager and Public Information Officer
Email | Phone

---

About ALMA

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international astronomy facility, is a partnership of the European Southern Observatory (ESO), the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) of Japan in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. ALMA is funded by ESO on behalf of its Member States, by NSF in cooperation with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) in Taiwan and by NINS in cooperation with the Academia Sinica (AS) in Taiwan and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI).

ALMA construction and operations are led by ESO on behalf of its Member States; by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), managed by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI), on behalf of North America; and by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) on behalf of East Asia. The Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) provides the unified leadership and management of the construction, commissioning and operation of ALMA.

---

Gemini North Reveals Pearl-Like Knots in the Remnant of a Supernova Witnessed in the Year 1181

PR Image noirlab2624a
Supernova remnant Pa 30

PR Image noirlab2624b
Gemini North’s laser shines through airglow

---

Videos


PR Video noirlab2624a
Pan on supernova remnant Pa 30


PR Video noirlab2624b
Zooming into supernova remnant Pa 30

---

Cascading knot structure of historic supernova remnant are uncovered in new observations from the Gemini North telescope in Hawai‘i

The Gemini North telescope located on Maunakea in Hawai‘i has revealed the most detailed view yet of Pa 30, the likely remnant of the historic supernova seen in the year 1181. The new observations reveal that its famous “firework” filaments are not smooth streaks, but chains of tiny knots.

No, this is not a firework display. This is Pa 30 — the likely remnant of the historic supernova witnessed in the year 1181, now captured here in unprecedented detail by the Gemini North telescope, one half of the International Gemini Observatory, partly funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and operated by NSF NOIRLab. This image was captured with the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS), and it shows that the remnant’s unmistakable firework-shaped ejecta take a cascading knot-like structure.

The historic supernova, named SN 1181, is one of only five supernovae in the Milky Way that were observed from Earth before the invention of the telescope. Eight separate texts show that Chinese, Japanese, and Arabic astronomers first observed the supernova between 4 and 6 August 1181. The supernova remained visible in the constellation Cassiopeia for 185 days. According to what we know about how stars end their lives, the colossal explosion would have left something behind. Pa 30, a system composed of a blue central star and surrounding firework-shaped shell, is the top candidate for this supernova remnant.

Pa 30 was only discovered in 2013 through a citizen science campaign to find planetary nebulae in Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) data. It was the 30th nebula found by American amateur astronomer Dana Patchick. Follow-up imaging on the KPNO 2.1-meter Telescope and the Hiltner 2.4-meter Telescope, both located at NSF Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), a Program of NSF NOIRLab, revealed faint, diffuse nebular emission and remarkable radial filaments threading the nebula in a nearly perfect sphere. Based on its estimated age and brightness, scientists consider Pa 30 to be the likely remnant of SN 1181.

Analysis of the new observations from Gemini North, which was led by Timothy Cunningham (Center for Astrophysics — Harvard & Smithsonian) and Ilaria Caiazzo (Institute of Science and Technology Austria), reveals about ten times more filamentary structure in Pa 30 than previously seen. It also shows that the radial filaments are made of consistent chains of tiny knots of gas, rather than smooth streaks as previously thought. This knotty structure suggests that there may have been thermal or density variations in the circumstellar medium that shaped the supernova ejecta as it expanded radially away from the explosion.

Pa 30 is unique among all known supernova remnants. The central star remaining after the explosion, IRAS 00500+6713, is extremely hot, with a temperature of about 200,000°C (~360,000°F). It also possesses very fast stellar winds that move at around 16,000 kilometers per second (~10,000 miles per second).

Surviving remnant stars are expected to be “kicked” away during the powerful supernova explosion. However, the central star of Pa 30 appears almost exactly centered in the remnant. This curious configuration implies that the explosion was quite symmetrical, and it rules out a large kick that could have knocked the star off-center. From this, the researchers conclude that SN 1181 was an extremely rare Type Iax supernova. Unlike the standard high-energy explosions of Type Ia supernovae that wipe out their stars, Type Iax supernovae are lower-energy, incomplete explosions that leave behind a surviving remnant star. Pa 30 is the only known Type Iax remnant in the Milky Way.

The story of SN 1181 is one of humans working together, across time and space, to understand the changing Universe. As new astronomical questions arrive every day, SN 1181 invites us to wonder what mysteries remain unsolved from the distant past.

Source: NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory (NOIRLab)/News

---

More information

Analysis of this data is presented in a paper titled “Detection of knots in the supernova type Iax remnant Pa 30” appearing in The Astrophysical Journal. DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ae9cb2

The team is composed of T. Cunningham (Center for Astrophysics — Harvard & Smithsonian [CfA]; now University of Warwick), I. Caiazzo (Institute of Science and Technology Austria), J. C. Raymond (CfA), and S. J. Kenyon (CfA).

NSF NOIRLab, the U.S. National Science Foundation center for ground-based optical-infrared astronomy, operates the International Gemini Observatory (a facility of NSF, NRC–Canada, ANID–Chile, MCTIC–Brazil, MINCyT–Argentina, and KASI–Republic of Korea), NSF Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), NSF Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), the Community Science and Data Center (CSDC), and NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory (in cooperation with DOE’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory). It is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with NSF and is headquartered in Tucson, Arizona.

The scientific community is honored to have the opportunity to conduct astronomical research on I’oligam Du’ag (Kitt Peak) in Arizona, on Maunakea in Hawai‘i, and on Cerro Tololo and Cerro Pachón in Chile. We recognize and acknowledge the very significant cultural role and reverence of I’oligam Du’ag to the Tohono O’odham Nation, and Maunakea to the Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians) community.

---

Links

• Explore Pa 30 in more detail
• Read the paper: Detection of knots in the supernova type Iax remnant Pa 30
• ISTA press release
• CfA press release
• Photos of the Gemini North telescope
• Videos of the Gemini North telescope
• Check out other NOIRLab Photo Releases

---

Contacts:

Timothy Cunnigham
Center for Astrophysics — Harvard & Smithsonian
Email: timothy.cunningham@cfa.harvard.edu

Ilaria Caiazzo
Institute of Science and Technology Austria
Email: ilaria.caiazzo@ist.ac.at

Josie Fenske
Public Information Officer
NSF NOIRLab
Email: josie.fenske@noirlab.edu

---

NASA’s Webb Captures Commotion From Nebula’s Stellar Jets

NGC 7129 (NIRCam Image)

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has revealed many protostars and stars within the glowing gases of  NGC 7129. Hot, atomic hydrogen gas is shown here in the golden region, while cooler, molecular hydrogen gas, shocked by embedded protostars, is represented in red. Credit Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

NGC 7129 Side-by-Side (Spitzer and Webb Image)

NASA’s retired Spitzer Space Telescope observed the gas and dust within NGC 7129; however, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s improved resolution shows more detailed gas and dust filaments, along with many background galaxies. Credit Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, NASA-JPL; Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

---

A cauldron of cosmic creation is being revealed in a new image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Webb has unveiled numerous stars formerly hidden by clouds of dust in a stellar nursery known as NGC 7129, which resides about 3,300 light-years from Earth.

Stars, the engines of elemental creation, have life cycles that begin with their birth in molecular clouds – cold, dense regions of dust and gas. Because of these dusty cocoons, young stars are often impossible to view by many telescopes, particularly those incapable of capturing infrared light. Webb, however, has a high degree of infrared sensitivity, allowing astronomers to peer through that dust and study the beginning of the star life cycle.

The stars from this cluster are in different stages of their development, as the more massive stars form and evolve the fastest. The most massive (and the most mature) is the region’s luminous central star, LkH(alpha) 234 (pronounced Lick-H-alpha). This star, which sports the image’s most prominent diffraction pattern, is a pre-main-sequence star weighing around 5 to 8 times the mass of our Sun. Pre-main-sequence stars like these have mostly finished gathering mass and are contracting under the force of gravity, causing their temperatures to rise. In time, this star will fuse its own hydrogen like our Sun.

The cavity to its left, which appears in gold and spans about 3.5 light-years, is the largest demonstration of the central star’s impact. Outflows from an earlier stage of the star’s life cycle carve into the dense molecular cloud of hydrogen. Both the outflows and the star’s light energize the gas, causing it to glow. While much of this hydrogen gas is blown away, a large amount is also compressed, creating the conditions for even more stars to form.

A few of these stars are visible within the cavity. Several of them are also pre-main-sequence and emit stellar winds. The nearby bow shocks, the curved compressed gas that appears near the stars, are created as those winds push into the energetic gas and create their own, smaller cavities.

Together, the central and embedded stars also create the sharp ridge seen at the top of the golden cavity. Their light generates a hot environment that pushes against the colder and denser molecular gas outside the cavity, and creates a boundary known as a photodissociation region. In this region, the molecules of hydrogen break down into atoms. By influencing the temperature and chemistry of the region, this collection of stars offers insight into how these molecular clouds will gradually erode over millions of years.

The region to the right of the central star narrates a different, but equally chaotic tale. This clumpy matter represented in red hides much younger objects than those on the left: protostars. The protostar stage is earlier than the pre-main-sequence stage and occurs after molecular clouds of gas and dust initially compress and fragment.

As the protostars accumulate matter and increase their mass, they eject outflows of superheated material. These outflows interact with the dense, gray, translucent matter the protostars are wrapped within, creating shocks that cause a textured appearance. The red glow is also the result of the interaction. Multiple outflows from multiple stars overlap from our point of view, leading to the scene’s chaotic look.

More of these protostellar outflows can be seen at the upper left of the image, near a blue-colored nebula. The center of this blue region hosts a protostar surrounded by a donut-shaped disk of material. This disk casts a shadow against the surrounding nebula, reminiscent of a similar structure known as the “Bat Shadow” that was observed by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.

Webb’s high spatial resolution reveals many rich structures in the region’s gas, building on research done previously by NASA’s retired Spitzer Space Telescope. Astronomers will continue to use this Webb data to study how the stars and protostars in this region influence the surrounding gas and dust.

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).

Source: NASA's James Webb Space Telescope/Latest News

---

Details:

Last Updated: Oct 06, 2026
Location: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Contact Media:

Laura Betz
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland
laura.e.betz@nasa.gov

Matthew Brown
Space Telescope Science Institute
Baltimore, Maryland

Hannah Braun
Space Telescope Science Institute
Baltimore, Maryland

---