Fall Collection: Before Fall Leaves, See Seasonal Offerings from NASA's Chandra

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A Quick Look: Before Fall Leaves, See Seasonal Offerings from NASA's Chandra - More Videos

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• Four images that one can imagine connections to fall have been released by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.


• The images are the star-forming region NGC 6334, supernova remnant G272.2-0.3, interacting spiral galaxies NGC 2207 and IC 2163, as well as R Aquarii.


• Each image contains X-rays from Chandra that have been combined with data from other telescopes that detect different types of light.


• Pareidolia is the phenomenon that allows people to see familiar patterns or shapes in data.

Before fall gives way to winter in the northern hemisphere, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has several images that celebrate autumn and its many delights to share. In spirit of the season, this collection gathers Chandra data with those from its telescopic family including NASA’s James Webb, Hubble, and Spitzer Space Telescopes, plus others in space and on the ground.

Here is a sample of the seasonal offerings that space has in store:

NGC 6334: COSMIC LEAVES BLOWING

For many, nothing evokes fall more than fallen leaves. In this view of NGC 6334, glowing pockets of dust and gas in the nebula resemble leaves that have been picked up by a wind gust. This region is actually home to strong winds blowing from the young stars that have formed there. This image contains X-ray data from Chandra (blue, green, and yellow) that shows the effects of these winds, which have been combined with infrared data from the now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope (red, brown), which shows the dust and gas that fuels the growing stars.

G272: THE SPACE PUMPKIN

Born after a violent explosion of a star, this cosmic gourd is the supernova remnant G272.2-03.2. X-ray observations (orange and magenta) from Chandra provide evidence that G272 is the result of a Type Ia supernova explosion, where a white dwarf star pulls material from a companion star until it triggers a thermonuclear explosion and obliterates the star. The inside of the “pumpkin” is superheated gas that is filling the space cleared out by the explosion as it moves outward.

R AQUARII: A COSMIC SWEATER

Multiple telescopes teamed up to capture an image that looks like a cozy sweater with fuzzy arms. X-rays from Chandra and ESA’s XMM-Newton (purple), optical light data from Hubble and the Very Large Telescope in Chile (orange, red, and violet), and an optical image from astrophotographer Bob Fera (deep blue) combine to reveal R Aquarii. Nestled within the cozy ‘body’ of R Aquarii is a pair of stars where a white dwarf is pulling material from a much larger red giant companion. When enough material accumulates on the surface of the white dwarf, it triggers an outburst that sends a jet out into space. Over time, these jets twist and loop around each other weaving the structure seen today.

NGC 2207 and IC 2163: A PAIR OF GALACTIC CORNUCOPIA

A cornucopia is a horn-shaped basket that traditionally carries fruits and vegetables. There is nothing edible in this pair of galactic cornucopias but there are a bounty of stars, dust, and other ingredients than make up these two spiral galaxies, known as NGC 2207 (right) and IC 2163 (left), that we see face-on. This view of NGC 2207 and IC 2163 takes a James Webb infrared image (white, gray, and red) and adds the X-ray view from Chandra (blue). Together, it is quite an eye-catching result.

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: Before Fall Leaves, See Seasonal Offer ings from NASA's Chandra

Source: NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory

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Visual Description:

This release highlights a collection of four composite images, presented in a two-by-two grid. Each image features data gathered by the Chandra X-ray Observatory and additional NASA and other telescopes.

At our upper left is NGC 6334, a massive nebula and star-forming region. In this image, scores of glowing young stars, depicted as tiny specs of distant light, illuminate an otherwise dark scene. The specs of red, green, yellow, purple, and white, are clustered near the center of the image, but extend to the edges of the frame in faint streaks. Partially masking the specs of color are tendrils of grey clouds; strong winds of dust and gas blowing from the still-forming stars.

The image at our upper right features a supernova remnant called G272.2-3.2. Here, a white dwarf star has pulled material from a companion star, triggering a thermonuclear explosion. What remains is a giant ball of superheated gas, set against a densely-packed field of distant stars and galaxies. In this image, the ball of gas is a mottled, translucent orange sphere with patches of hot pink at the outer edges.

The image at the grid's lower right depicts a pair of colliding spiral galaxies. Here, both spirals are shown face on, with the smaller of the two galaxies, IC 2163, at the upper left of the larger galaxy, NGC 2207, which dominates the center and lower right of the image. Both galaxies have long, spiraling, silver blue arms, dotted with specs of blue and red. Toward our upper left, the curving arms overlap, and bend toward their neighbors' core.

Finally, at our lower left, is R Aquarii, a symbiotic binary star. Here, a white dwarf star pulls material from a much larger red giant companion, sending looping jets of matter into space. In this composite image, which includes an optical image from astrophotographer Bob Fera, the resulting structure resembles a cozy sweater with a red body, and blue wooly arms opened wide.

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Fast Facts for NGC 6334:

Credit: X-ray: NASA/SAO/CXC; Infrared: NASA/JPL/CalTech/Spitzer; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Schmidt
Release Date: November 24, 2025
Scale: Image is about 72 arcmin (115.2 light-years) across.
Category: Normal Stars and Star Clusters
Coordinates (J2000): RA: 17h 20m 50.9s | Dec: -36° 06' 54"
Constellation: Scorpius
Observation Date(s): 10 observations from August 2002 to July 2016
Observation Time: 85 hours 28 minutes (3 days 13 hours 28 minutes)
Obs. IDs: 2573, 2574 ,3844, 4591, 8975, 12382, 13436, 18082, 18081, 18876
Instrument: ACIS
Color Code: X-ray: red, orange, green, and purple; Infrared: white and red
Distance Estimate: About 5,500 light-years from Earth

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Fast Facts for SNR G272.2-03.2:

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SA0; Optical: NOIRLab/DECaPS2; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare
Release Date: November 24, 2025
Scale: Image is about 2.8 arcmin (5.7 light-years) across.
Category: Supernovas & Supernova Remnants
Coordinates (J2000): RA: 9h 06m 47s | Dec: -52° 05' 50"
Constellation: Vela
Observation Date(s): 2 observations Aug 26-27, 2008
Observation Time: 17 hours 55 minutes
Obs. IDs: 9147, 10572
Instrument: ACIS
Color Code: X-ray: cyan, yellow, and magenta; Optical: red, green, and blue
Distance Estimate: About 7,000 light-years from Earth

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Fast Facts for R Aquarii:

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; ESA/XMM-Newton; Optical HST: NASA/ESA/STScI; Optical Ground: Deep Space Remote observatories/B. Fera; ESO/VLT; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare

Release Date: November 24, 2025
Scale: Image is about 9.5 arcmin (1.8 light-years) across.
Category: White Dwarfs and Planetary Nebulas
Coordinates (J2000): RA: 23h 43m 49.5s | Dec: -15° 17' 04"
Constellation: Aquarius
Observation Date(s): 3 pointings between Sep 2001 and Oct 2005
Observation Time: 34 hours 54 minutes (1 day 10 hours 54 minutes)
Obs. IDs: 651, 4546, 5438
Instrument: ACIS

Color Code: X-ray: purple and blue; Optical (HST): cyan and orange; Optical (Ground): red, green, and blue; Radio: red with green

Distance Estimate: About 650 light-years from Earth

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Fast Facts for NGC 2207 & IC 2163:

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Infrared: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/Webb; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare
Release Date: November 24, 2025
Scale Image is about 5 arcmin (189,000 light-years) across.
Category: Normal Galaxies, Starburst Galaxies, & Black Holes
Coordinates (J2000): RA: 6h 16m 22.1s | Dec: -21° 22′ 22"
Constellation: Canis Major
Observation Date(s): 4 observations from July 2010 to August 2013
Observation Time: 17 hours 20 minutes
Obs. IDs: 11228, 14914, 14799, 14915
Instrument: ACIS
Color Code: X-ray: blue; Infrared: white, red, green, and blue
Distance Estimate: About 130 million light-years from Earth

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Baby stars blowing bubbles

LMC N159

A field filled with stars and covered by clouds of gas and dust. The centre and left side are totally blanketed with billowing, bright red clouds. They are opaque some places — showing clusters of stars forming within — and transparent others. Small patches are dark black in colour, while a large cloud below the centre is mostly pale blue. The right side of the view, mostly gas-free, glitters with stars near and far. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, R. Indebetouw

Today’s ESA/Hubble Picture of the Week brings a distant stellar birthplace into focus. This gigantic cloud of cold hydrogen gas is called N159, and it’s located about 160 000 light-years away in the constellation Dorado. N159 is one of the most massive star-forming clouds in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy that is the largest of the small galaxies that orbit the Milky Way.

This image shows just a portion of the N159 star-forming complex. The entire complex stretches over 150 light-years across. To put that into perspective, 150 light-years is nearly 10 million times the distance between Earth and the Sun!

In the subzero interior of this gas cloud, subjected to the crushing pressure of gravity, young stars begin to gleam in the darkness. Particularly hot and high-mass stars illuminate their birthplaces with red light. This red glow is characteristic of excited hydrogen atoms, to which Hubble is exquisitely sensitive.

Though some of the bright stars in the cloud appear to be blanketed with reddish gas, others seem to lie at the centre of a reddish bubble, through which the dark backdrop of space is visible. These bubbles are evidence of stellar feedback, in which young stars fry their habitats with high-energy radiation and blow bubbles with their intense stellar winds.

A previous Hubble image of the full N159 star-forming cloud was released in 2016. This version incorporates an additional wavelength of light to highlight the hot gas that surrounds newborn stars.

Source: ESA/Hubble/potw

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Webb witnesses a feasting supermassive black hole in the early Universe

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CANUCS-LRD-z8.6 in MACS J1149.5+2223

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MACS J1149.5+2223

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Pan video: Galaxy cluster MACS J1149.5+2223

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Researchers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have confirmed an actively growing supermassive black hole within a galaxy just 570 million years after the Big Bang. Part of a class of small, very distant galaxies that have mystified astronomers, CANUCS-LRD-z8.6 represents a vital piece of this puzzle that challenges existing theories about the formation of galaxies and black holes in the early Universe. The discovery connects early black holes with the luminous quasars we observe today.

Over its first three years, Webb's surveys of the early Universe have turned up an increasing number of small, extremely distant, and strikingly red objects. These so-called Little Red Dots (LRDs) remain a tantalising mystery to astronomers, despite their unexpected abundance. The discovery in CANUCS-LRD-z8.6, made possible by Webb’s exceptional capabilities, has assisted in this hunt for answers. Webb’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) enabled researchers to observe the faint light from this distant galaxy and detect key spectral features that point to the presence of an accreting black hole.

Roberta Tripodi, lead author of the study and a researcher of the University of Ljubljana FMF, in Slovenia and INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma, in Italy, explained: "This discovery is truly remarkable. We’ve observed a galaxy from less than 600 million years after the Big Bang, and not only is it hosting a supermassive black hole, but the black hole is growing rapidly - far faster than we would expect in such a galaxy at this early time. This challenges our understanding of black hole and galaxy formation in the early Universe and opens up new avenues of research into how these objects came to be."

The team analysed the galaxy's spectrum, which showed gas which had been highly ionised by energetic radiation, and suggested it was rotating quickly around a central source. These features are key characteristics of an accreting supermassive black hole. The precise spectral data yielded an estimate of the black hole’s mass, revealing it to be unusually large for such an early stage in the Universe, and showed that CANUCS-LRD-z8.6 is compact and has not yet produced many heavy elements — a galaxy at an early stage of its evolution. This combination makes it an intriguing subject for study.

Additionally, the Webb spectroscopy allowed the team to measure how much energy is emitted at different wavelengths, from which they were able to characterise the galaxy’s physical properties. This allowed them to determine the mass of the galaxy’s stars and compare it with the black hole’s mass. "The data we received from Webb was absolutely crucial,” added Dr. Nicholas Martis, a collaborator from the University of Ljubljana, FMF, who helped analyse the spectrum of the source. “The spectral features revealed by Webb provided clear signs of an accreting black hole at the centre of the galaxy, something that could not have been observed with previous technology. What makes this even more compelling is that the galaxy’s black hole is overmassive compared to its stellar mass. This suggests that black holes in the early Universe may have grown much faster than the galaxies that host them."

Astronomers have previously observed that the mass of a supermassive black hole and its host galaxy are linked: the larger a galaxy grows, the larger its central black hole also becomes. CANUCS-LRD-z8.6 is the most massive host galaxy known at such an early time, yet its central black hole is even more massive than we would expect, defying the usual relation. The result suggests that black holes may have formed and started growing at an accelerated pace in the early Universe, even in relatively small galaxies.

"This discovery is an exciting step in understanding the formation of the first supermassive black holes in the Universe,” explained Prof. Maruša Bradač, leader of the group at the University of Ljubljana, FMF. “The unexpected rapid growth of the black hole in this galaxy raises questions about the processes that allowed such massive objects to emerge so early. As we continue to analyse the data, we hope to find more galaxies like CANUCS-LRD-z8.6, which could provide us with even greater insights into the origins of black holes and galaxies."

The team is already planning additional observations with the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA) and Webb to further study the cold gas and dust in the galaxy and to refine their understanding of the black hole’s properties. The ongoing research into this LRD is poised to answer crucial questions about the early Universe, including how black holes and galaxies co-evolved in the first billion years of cosmic history.

As astronomers continue to explore the early Universe with JWST, further surprises are expected to emerge, offering an increasingly detailed picture of how the first supermassive black holes grew and evolved, setting the stage for the formation of the luminous quasars that light up the Universe today.

The results were obtained by the CANUCS collaboration from the Webb observing programme #1208 (PI: C. J. Willott) and have been published today in Nature Communications.

Source: ESA/Webb/News/Press Releases

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More information

Webb is the largest, most powerful telescope ever launched into space. Under an international collaboration agreement, ESA provided the telescope’s launch service, using the Ariane 5 launch vehicle. Working with partners, ESA was responsible for the development and qualification of Ariane 5 adaptations for the Webb mission and for the procurement of the launch service by Arianespace. ESA also provided the workhorse spectrograph NIRSpec and 50% of the mid-infrared instrument MIRI, which was designed and built by a consortium of nationally funded European Institutes (The MIRI European Consortium) in partnership with JPL and the University of Arizona.

Webb is an international partnership between NASA, ESA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).

Image Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, G. Rihtaršič (University of Ljubljana, FMF), R. Tripodi (University of Ljubljana, FMF)

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Links

• Science paper
• Release on ESA website

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Contacts:

Roberta Tripodi
University of Ljubljana FMF, Slovenia
Email: roberta.tripodi@inaf.it

Bethany Downer
ESA/Webb Chief Science Communications Officer
Email: Bethany.Downer@esawebb.org

ESA Newsroom and Media Relations Office
Email: media@esa.int

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Black Holes with a Shared Background

An artist's impression of a triple-star system.
Credit: Adapted from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

What if there was one process capable of creating every type of detectable stellar-mass black hole system? Recent research suggests there might be, and that it involves a triple-star system.

An illustration of the first black hole discovered with a star on a wide orbit. The black hole moves along the smaller inner ellipse, while its companion star orbits along the wider outer one. Credit: ESA/Gaia/DPAC

Three Separate Contexts

Stellar-mass black holes, or black holes that are at most a few hundred times the mass of the Sun, pop up in a number of different environments in the Milky Way. Astronomers have known since the 1960s that these black holes are the engines behind accreting low-mass X-ray binaries; more recently, researchers at gravitational wave observatories such as LIGO have found pairs of black holes orbiting each other just prior to merging; and, in just the past few years, scientists using the Gaia spacecraft have found black holes on wide, prowling orbits around still-burning stars.

Although each of these scenarios involves a black hole, it’s unclear how exactly these black holes are related to one another, or if they’re related at all. For instance, do low-mass X-ray binaries form the same way as the binary black holes observed with LIGO? Are the wide star–black hole binaries discovered by Gaia destined to eventually merge as two black holes, or are they a separate population altogether?

Recent research led by Smadar Naoz (University of California, Los Angeles) offers a potential answer to this question of relatedness — that each of these situations forms through the same underlying process.

A schematic illustration of how triple-star systems can produce all three types of observable stellar-mass black hole systems. Credit: Naoz et al. 2025

Triples Systems

The mechanism Naoz and collaborators describe would work as follows. First, three stars begin their lives all bound together via gravity. Two of these stars orbit each other fairly closely, but the third hangs back much farther away. After the two inner stars burn out and collapse into black holes, they undergo the kind of collision commonly observed by LIGO and merge together. This process gives the resulting larger black hole a “kick,” meaning it goes flying off away from the site of the impact with some new velocity.

What happens next depends on the geometry of the system and the direction of the kick. If the remnant black hole gets shot away from the third star, it might just drift off on its own and leave the star behind. If the kick isn’t too strong, the remnant will remain gravitationally bound to that third star, and the system will eventually look like the star–black hole pairs observed by Gaia. Finally, if the kick sends the remnant toward the third star, some dramatic outcomes become possible: either the black hole starts nibbling on the star and the system becomes a low-mass X-ray binary, or the black hole simply smashes into the star, destroying it completely in a large, flashy explosion paired with a gravitational wave signal.

The authors stress that this mechanism is almost certainly not the only way that these three stellar-mass black hole systems form. However, it is exciting to consider a common thread underlying such seemingly different scenarios, and with upgrades coming to gravitational wave observatories, we can hope for tests of its feasibility in the near future.

By Ben Cassese

Citation

“Triples as Links Between Binary Black Hole Mergers, Their Electromagnetic Counterparts, and Galactic Black Holes,” Smadar Naoz et al 2025 ApJL 992 L12. doi:10.3847/2041-8213/ae0a20

Source: American Astronomical Society/AAS-Nova

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NASA's Roman Could Bring New Waves of Information on Galaxy’s Stars

Red Giant Echoes with the Roman Space Telescope
Credits/Image: NASA, STScI, Ralf Crawford (STScI)

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Red Giant Echoes with the Roman Space Telescope (Video)
Credits/Video: NASA, STScI
Sonification: Christopher Britt (STScI), Martha Irene Saladino (STScI)
Designer: Ralf Crawford (STScI) | Science: Noah Downing (OSU), Trevor Weiss (CSU)

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A team of researchers has confirmed stars ring loud and clear in a “key” that will harmonize well with the science goals and capabilities of NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.

Stars’ turbulent natures produce waves that cause fluctuations in their overall brightness. By studying these changes — a method called asteroseismology — scientists can glean information about stars’ ages, masses, and sizes. These shifts in brightness were perceptible to NASA’s Kepler space telescope, which provided asteroseismic data on approximately 16,000 stars before its retirement in 2018.

Using Kepler data as a starting point and adapting the dataset to match the expected quality from Roman, astronomers have recently proven the feasibility of asteroseismology with the soon-to-launch telescope and provided an estimated range of detectable stars. It’s an added bonus to Roman’s main science goals: As the telescope conducts observations for its Galactic Bulge Time-Domain Survey — a core community survey that will gather data on hundreds of millions of stars in the bulge of our Milky Way galaxy — it will also provide enough information for astrono mers to determine stellar measurements via asteroseismology.

“Asteroseismology with Roman is possible because we don’t need to ask the telescope to do anything it wasn’t already planning to do,” said Marc Pinsonneault of The Ohio State University in Columbus, a co-author of a paper detailing the research. “The strength of the Roman mission is remarkable: It’s designed in part to advance exoplanet science, but we’ll also get really rich data for other scientific areas that extend beyond its main focus.”

Exploring what’s possible

The galactic bulge is densely populated with red giant branch and red clump stars, which are more evolved and puffier than main sequence stars. (Main sequence stars are in a similar life stage as our Sun.) Their high luminosity and oscillating frequency, ranging from hours to days,work in Roman’s favor. As part of its Galactic Bulge Time-Domain Survey, the telescope will observe the Milky Way’s galactic bulge every 12 minutes over six 70.5-day stretches, a cadence that makes it particularly well suited for red giant asteroseismology.

While previous research has explored the potential of asteroseismology with Roman, the team took a more detailed look by considering Roman’s capabilities and mission design. Their investigation consisted of two large efforts:

First, the team members looked at Kepler’s asteroseismic data and applied parameters so the dataset matched the expected quality of Roman data. This included increasing the observation frequency and adjusting the wavelength range of light. The team calculated detection probabilities, which confirmed with a resounding yes that Roman will be able to detect the oscillations of red giants.

The team then applied their detection probabilities to a model of the Milky Way galaxy and considered the suggested fields of view for the galactic bulge survey to get a sense of how many red giants and red clump stars could be investigated with asteroseismology.

“At the time of our study, the core community survey was not fully defined, so we explored a few different models and simulations. Our lower limit estimation was 290,000 objects in total, with 185,000 stars in the bulge,” said Trevor Weiss of California State University, Long Beach, co-first author of the paper. “Now that we know the survey will entail a 12-minute cadence, we find it strengthens our numbers to over 300,000 asteroseismic detections in total. It would be the largest asteroseismic sample ever collected.”

Bolstering science for all

The benefits of asteroseismology with Roman are numerous, including tying into exoplanet science, a major focus for the mission and the galactic bulge survey. Roman will detect exoplanets, or planets outside our solar system, through a method called microlensing, in which the gravity of a foreground star magnifies the light from a background star. The presence of an exoplanet can cause a noticeable “blip” in the resulting brightness change.

“With asteroseismic data, we’ll be able to get a lot of information about exoplanets’ host stars, and that will give us a lot of insight on exoplanets themselves,” Weiss said.

“It will be difficult to directly infer ages and the abundances of heavy elements like iron for the host stars of exoplanets Roman detects,” Pinsonneault said. “Knowing these things — age and composition — can be important for understanding the exoplanets. Our work will lay out the statistical properties of the whole population — what the typical abundances and ages are — so that the exoplanet scientists can put the Roman measurements in context.”

Additionally, for astronomers who seek to understand the history of the Milky Way galaxy, asteroseismology could reveal information about its formation.

“We actually don’t know a lot about our galaxy’s bulge since you can only see it in infrared light due to all the intervening dust,” Pinsonneault said. “There could be surprising populations or chemical patterns there. What if there are young stars buried there? Roman will open a completely different window into the stellar populations in the Milky Way’s center. I’m prepared to be surprised.”

Since Roman is set to observe the galactic bulge soon after launch, the team is working to build a catalog in advance and provide a target list of observable stars that could help with efforts in validating the telescope’s early performance.

“Outside of all the science, it’s important to remember the amount of people it takes to get these things up and running, and the amount of different people working on Roman,” said co-first author Noah Downing of The Ohio State University. “It’s really exciting to see all of the opportunities Roman is opening up for people before it even launches and then think about how many more opportunities will exist once it’s in space and taking data, which is not very far away.” Roman is slated to launch no later than May 2027, with the team working toward a potential early launch as soon as fall 2026.

The paper was published in The Astrophysical Journal.

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is managed at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, with participation by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California; Caltech/IPAC in Pasadena, California; the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore; and a science team comprising scientists from various research institutions. The primary industrial partners are BAE Systems, Inc. in Boulder, Colorado; L3Harris Technologies in Melbourne, Florida; and Teledyne Scientific & Imaging in Thousand Oaks, California.

To learn more about Roman, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/roman

Source: Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI)/Press Releases

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About This Release

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Media Contact:

Abigail Major
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore

Christine Pulliam
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore

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Noticias en español: El telescopio espacial Roman de la NASA podría aportar información nueva sobre las estrellas de la galaxia, PDF (406.55 KB)

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Students in Hawai‘i Name Mesmerizing Image Ua ʻŌhiʻa Lani for the International Gemini Observatory’s 25th Anniversary

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Ua ʻŌhiʻa Lani: An Image to Celebrate Gemini North’s 25th Anniversary

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Project Hōkūlani Gemini Interns

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Project Hōkūlani Gemini Interns visit Hilo Base Facility

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Project Hōkūlani Gemini Intern Zoe Russo

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Smoke and Mirrors

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Pan across Ua ʻŌhiʻa Lani


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Zooming into Ua ʻŌhiʻa Lani


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Cosmoview Ep. 103: Ua ʻŌhiʻa Lani: An Emission Nebula to Celebrate Gemini North’s 25th Anniversary


PR Video noirlab2529d (in Spanish)
Cosmoview Ep. 103: Ua ʻŌhiʻa Lani: Una nebulosa de emisión paar celebrar el aniversario 25 de Gemini Norte

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Gaseous pillars and a sparkling star cluster, reminiscent of rain in ʻŌhiʻa forests, feature in this new image from the Gemini North telescope

To celebrate 25 years since the completion of the International Gemini Observatory, students in Hawai‘i voted for the Gemini North telescope to image NGC 6820 — a striking emission nebula and open star cluster. The image was named Ua ʻŌhiʻa Lani, which means the Heavenly ʻŌhiʻa Rains. The International Gemini Observatory is partly funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and operated by NSF NOIRLab.

In July 2025, four Hawaiʻi Island high school students participated in a summer internship during which they researched, selected, and named the image released today to celebrate the International Gemini Observatory’s 25th anniversary. Inspired by a traditional Hawaiian story, they chose the name Ua ʻŌhiʻa Lani, which means the Heavenly ʻŌhiʻa Rains. The image features the emission nebula NGC 6820, as well as its embedded open star cluster NGC 6823, captured in incredible detail by the Gemini North telescope on Maunakea. The Gemini North telescope celebrated First Light in June 1999, and the Observatory was completed 25 years ago when its Southern Hemisphere twin, the Gemini South telescope, saw First Light in November 2000.

“This image is crimson and red like lava because of the abundance of hydrogen gas present in the nebula,” explains Gemini intern Hope Arthur. “One of Pele’s most well-known stories is that of ʻŌhiʻa and Lehua. Their story is about regrowth after tragedy and the act of new beginnings, which we felt was evocative of the cycle of stellar life, death, and rebirth.”

The selection of this target for Gemini North’s anniversary image began with the Gemini First Light Anniversary Image Contest. This contest engaged students in Hawai‘i and Chile — the host locations of the Gemini telescopes — to choose which type of astronomical object each telescope should image. Before voting, students took part in educational activities that taught them about different astronomical phenomena.

The top contenders from the contest were then narrowed down by four students from Kamehameha Schools in Keaʻau and Parker School in Waimea who were participating in Gemini’s first-ever Project Hōkūlani summer internship, in partnership with CLD TEAMS at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Interns Hope Arthur, Iolani Sanches, Zoe Russo, and Isabella Branco researched the top four contenders and presented their findings before reaching a group consensus on which astronomical object to image.

“It was so important to me that our interns gained a solid understanding of not just the astronomical science that takes place on Maunakea, but also the cultural and environmental significance of the mauna,” said Leinani Lozi, Hawaiʻi Education and Engagement Manager at Gemini North and internship mentor. “The depth of their learning is evident in the name they created, and I’m so impressed and proud of them.”

In addition to the research and presentation portions of their internship, the students also engaged in telescope operations, the astronomical imaging process, visits to the summit of Maunakea, Native Hawaiian protocol for entering wahi pana (sacred spaces), and stargazing at the Visitor Information Station and Liliʻuokalani Gardens. These experiences introduced the students to the variety of career options at observatories.

Russo had this to share about her experience: “I realized that we have so many science opportunities here, thanks to where we live. Project Hōkūlani has allowed us to dive deeper into our interests and make amazing connections. It's a great way to become established in a field or try something new for a little bit.”

The emission nebula NGC 6820 is located within the faint constellation Vulpecula, around 6000 light-years away from Earth. Vulpecula can be seen in the middle of the Summer Triangle: a famous asterism consisting of the bright stars Deneb, Vega, and Altair. In Hawaiʻi, this area of the sky is known as Mānaiakalani, the Great Fishhook of Maui.

Emission nebulae are clouds of interstellar gas and dust that glow from being energized by ultraviolet radiation emitted by nearby stars. The stars fueling NGC 6820’s emission are those of the open star cluster NGC 6823, seen in this image as scattered specks of blue-white light dotting the veil of red gas. The intense radiation emitted by these hot, massive stars is blowing away the gas in the nebula, creating the dark, pillar-like structures seen emerging from the interstellar medium.

“The baby blue stars in the image reminded us of rain and how, in the story of ʻŌhiʻa and Lehua, when you pick the lehua blossoms, it rains. The fact that these are all young stars and that we learned this story when we were children felt important,” says Sanches.

This image was taken as part of the NOIRLab Legacy Imaging Program — a continuation of the program started at the International Gemini Observatory in 2002, called the Gemini Legacy Imaging Program. Its aim is to use observing time on NOIRLab telescopes that is dedicated to acquiring data specifically for color images to share with the public. Stay tuned for the upcoming Photo Release featuring the image contest winner for the Gemini South telescope in Chile.

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

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More information

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.

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Links

• Explore Ua ʻŌhiʻa Lani in more detail
• Read about the formation of the International Gemini Observatory in Part I of NOIRLab’s Gemini Anniversary Blog series
• Photos of Gemini North
• Videos of Gemini North
• Check out other NOIRLab Photo Releases

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Contacts:

Leinani Lozi
Hawaiʻi Education & Engagement Manager
NSF NOIRLab
Email: leinani.lozi@noirlab.edu

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

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Astronomers Discover Fastest-Evolving Radio Signals Ever Observed from Black Hole Tearing Apart Star

Artist’s interpretation of two massive black holes (MBHs) within a galaxy. A tidal disruption event unfolds around the MBH that resides away from the galactic center and matter from a disrupted star swirls into a bright accretion disk, launching an energetic outflow and resulting in two bright radio flares. Credit: NSF/AUI/NSF NRAO/P.Vosteen

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An international team of astronomers has discovered the first radio-bright tidal disruption event (TDE) occurring outside a galaxy's center, combining data from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and from the Very Large Array (VLA) of the U.S. National Science Foundation National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NSF NRAO), along with several partner telescopes. The event, designated AT 2024tvd, revealed the fastest-evolving radio signals ever observed from this type of cosmic catastrophe.

The discovery, led by principal investigators Itai Sfaradi and Raffaella Margutti of the University of California, Berkeley, and others, represents a significant breakthrough in understanding how massive black holes can hide in unexpected places throughout the universe.

"This is truly extraordinary," said Sfaradi, lead author of the study. "Not only is this the first time we've observed such bright radio emission from a tidal disruption event happening away from a galaxy's center, but it's also evolving faster than anything we've seen before."

Tidal disruption events occur when a star ventures too close to a massive black hole and is torn apart by the black hole's immense gravitational forces. While these events typically occur at the centers of galaxies where supermassive black holes reside, AT 2024tvd was discovered approximately 0.8 kiloparsecs (about 2,600 light-years) away from its host galaxy's center.

The international team observed the event in great detail using a network of radio telescopes that covered a wide range of wavelengths, from centimeters to millimeters. Their data revealed an exceptionally fast and unusual evolution never before seen in this kind of phenomenon. The event produced two separate bursts of radio waves that brightened and faded far more rapidly than any known tidal disruption event. The first burst increased in brightness over a very short period of time and then dimmed almost as quickly, while the second flared up and faded even faster. These dramatic changes occurred on timescales many times shorter than those astronomers typically observe, showing that this was an extraordinarily dynamic and short-lived event.

"The radio emission from AT 2024tvd evolves so rapidly that it stands out even among the most extreme cosmic events we know," explained co-principal investigator Raffaella Margutti. "These observations are revealing new physics about how material behaves when launched from the vicinity of black holes," added Kate Alexander, PI of the VLA Program and professor at the University of Arizona.

The discovery utilized an extensive network of radio telescopes, including NSF NRAO's VLA and ALMA, the Arcminute Micro-Kelvin Imager Large Array (AMI-LA), the Allen Telescope Array (ATA), and the Submillimeter Array (SMA). This multi-telescope approach allowed the team to track the event's evolution across a wide range of radio frequencies over approximately 300 days.

The research suggests that the rapid radio evolution results from at least one—and possibly two—outflows launched significantly after the initial stellar disruption. The team's analysis indicates these outflows were likely launched 80 and 170 days after the optical discovery, challenging traditional models of how tidal disruption events unfold.

"What makes this discovery even more remarkable is that it reveals a massive black hole that would otherwise be invisible to us," said Raffaella Margutti, "The only reason we can detect this wandering black hole is because it happened to tear apart a star and produce these incredibly bright radio signals."

The off-nuclear position of this TDE provides crucial insights into the population of massive black holes that may be wandering through galaxies or recoiling from past interactions. Current theories suggest such black holes could result from triple black hole interactions or be remnants from galaxy mergers.

The team's sophisticated analysis also marks the first time that both free-free absorption and inverse-Compton cooling have been considered together in modeling TDE radio emission, providing new tools for understanding these extreme events.

"This discovery opens up entirely new possibilities for finding hidden black holes throughout the universe," noted Itai Sfaradi. "With upcoming sky surveys, we may discover that these off-nuclear tidal disruption events are more common than we thought."

The research also revealed a potential connection between the launch of radio-emitting outflows and changes in the event's X-ray emission, suggesting a link to accretion processes around the black hole.

AT 2024tvd was initially discovered by the Zwicky Transient Facility on August 25, 2024, at optical wavelengths before follow-up observations revealed its radio brightness and off-nuclear nature.

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

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Additional Information

The findings are published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters,and you can read them HERE.

This text is based on the press release by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), aALMA partner on behalf of North America.

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 leaders,/divhip and management of ALMA's construction, commissioning, and operation.

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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

Yuichi Matsuda
Education and Public Outreach Officer
NAOJ
Email: yuichi.matsuda@nao.ac.jp

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Webb First to Show 4 Dust Shells 'Spiraling' Apep, Limits Long Orbit View All Press Releases

Wolf-Rayet Apep (MIRI Image)

Webb’s mid-infrared image shows four coiled shells of dust around a pair of Wolf-Rayet stars known as Apep for the first time. Previous observations by other telescopes showed only one. Webb’s data also confirmed that there are three stars gravitationally bound to one another.nCredits: Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Science: Yinuo Han (Caltech), Ryan White (Macquarie University); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

Wolf-Rayet Apep (MIRI Compass Image)
This image was created with Webb data from proposal: 5842 (Y. Han). Image processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI).

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NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has delivered a first of its kind: a crisp mid-infrared image of a system of four serpentine spirals of dust, one expanding beyond the next in precisely the same pattern. (The fourth is almost transparent, at the edges of Webb’s image.) Observations taken prior to Webb only detected one shell, and while the existence of outer shells was hypothesized, searches using ground-based telescopes were unable to uncover any. These shells were emitted over the last 700 years by two aging Wolf-Rayet stars in a system known as Apep, a nod to the Egyptian god of chaos.

Webb’s image combined with several years of data from the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile narrowed down how often the pair swing by one another: once every 190 years. Over each incredibly long orbit, they pass closely for 25 years and form dust.

Webb also confirmed that there are three stars gravitationally bound to one another in this system. The dust ejected by the two Wolf-Rayet stars is “slashed” by a third star, a massive supergiant, which carves holes into each expanding cloud of dust from its wider orbit. (All three stars are shown as a single bright point of light in Webb’s image.)

“Looking at Webb’s new observations was like walking into a dark room and switching on the light — everything came into view,” said Yinuo Han, the lead author of a new paper in The Astrophysical Journal and postdoctoral researcher at Caltech in Pasadena, California. “There is dust everywhere in Webb’s image, and the telescope shows that most of it was cast off in repetitive, predictable structures.” Han’s paper coincides with the publication of Ryan White’s paper in The Astrophysical Journal, a PhD student at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia.

Han, White, and their co-authors refined the Wolf-Rayet stars’ orbit by combining precise measurements of the ring location from Webb’s image with the speed of the shells’ expansion from observations taken by the VLT over eight years.

“This is a one-of-a-kind system with an incredibly rare orbital period,” White said. “The next longest orbit for a dusty Wolf-Rayet binary is about 30 years. Most have orbits between two and 10 years.”

When the two Wolf-Rayet stars approach and pass one another, their strong stellar winds collide and mix, forming and casting out heaps of carbon-rich dust for a quarter century at a time. In similar systems, dust is shot out over mere months, like the shells in Wolf-Rayet 140.
High-speed ‘skirmish’

The dust-producing Wolf-Rayet stars in Apep aren’t exactly on a tranquil cruise. They are whipping through space and sending out dust at 1,200 to 2,000 miles per second (2,000 to 3,000 kilometers per second).

That dust is also very dense. The specific makeup of the dust is another reason why Webb was able to observe so much more: It largely consists of amorphous carbon. “Carbon dust grains retain a higher temperature even as they coast far away from the star,” Han said. While the exceptionally tiny dust grains are considered warm in space, the light they emit is also extremely faint, which is why it can only be detected from space by Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument).

Slicing dust

To find the holes the third star has cut like a knife through the dust, look for the central point of light and trace a V shape from about 10 o’clock to 2 o’clock. “The cavity is more or less in the same place in each shell and looks like a funnel,” White said.

“I was shocked when I saw the updated calculations play out in our simulations,” he said. “Webb gave us the ‘smoking gun’ to prove the third star is gravitationally bound to this system.” Researchers have known about the third star since the VLT observed the brightest innermost shell and the stars in 2018, but Webb’s observations led to an updated geometric model, clinching the connection. (See the system in 3D by watching the visualization below.)

Video A: Wolf-Rayet Apep Visualization

This scientific visualization models what three of the four dust shells sent out by two Wolf-Rayet stars in the Apep system look like in 3D based on mid-infrared observations from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Apep is made up of two Wolf-Rayet binary stars . Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Simulation: Yinuo Han (Caltech), Ryan White (Macquarie University); Visualization: Christian Nieves (STScI); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

“We solved several mysteries with Webb,” Han said. “The remaining mystery is the precise distance to the stars from Earth, which will require future observations.”

Future of Apep

The two Wolf-Rayet stars were initially more massive than their supergiant companion, but have shed most of their mass. It’s likely that both Wolf-Rayet stars are between 10 and 20 times the mass of the Sun, and that the supergiant is 40 or 50 times as massive compared to the Sun. Eventually, the Wolf-Rayet stars will explode as supernovae, quickly sending their contents into space. Either may also emit a gamma-ray burst, one of the most powerful events in the universe, before possibly becoming a black hole.

Wolf-Rayet stars are incredibly rare in the universe. Only a thousand are estimated to exist in our Milky Way galaxy, which contains hundreds of billions of stars overall. Of the few hundred Wolf-Rayet binaries that have been observed to date, Apep is the only example that contains two Wolf-Rayet stars of these types in our galaxy — most only have one.

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: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/webb/

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Related Information

Read more: Webb Watches Carbon-Rich Dust Shells Form, Expand in Star System

Read more:Webb Reveals Shells of Dust Surrounding Brilliant Binary Star System

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More Webb News

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Related For Kids

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. SpacePlace for Kids

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Finding star clusters in the Lost Galaxy

NGC 4535

A close-in view of a spiral galaxy that faces the viewer. Brightly lit spiral arms swing outwards through the galaxy’s disc, starting from an elliptical region in the centre. Thick strands of dark reddish dust are spread across the disc, mostly following the spiral arms. The arms also contain many glowing pink-red spots where stars form. The galaxy is a bit fainter beyond the arms, but speckled with blue stars. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, F. Belfiore, J. Lee and the PHANGS-HST Team

Today’s ESA/Hubble Picture of the Week features the spiral galaxy NGC 4535, which is situated about 50 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo (The Maiden). This galaxy has been nicknamed the ‘Lost Galaxy’ because it’s extremely faint when viewed through a small telescope. With a mirror spanning 2.4 metres across, Hubble is well equipped to observe dim galaxies like NGC 4535 and pick out features like its massive spiral arms and central bar of stars.

On full display in this Hubble image are NGC 4535’s young star clusters, which dot the galaxy’s spiral arms. Many of the groupings of bright blue stars are enclosed by glowing pink clouds. These clouds, called H II (‘H-two’) regions, are a sign that the galaxy is home to especially young, hot, and massive stars that are blazing with high-energy radiation. By heating the clouds in which they were born, shooting out powerful stellar winds, and eventually exploding as supernovae, massive stars certainly shake up their surroundings.

This Hubble image incorporates data from an observing programme that will catesa/alogue roughly 50 000 H II regions in nearby star-forming galaxies like NGC 4535. A previous image of NGC 4535 was released in 2021. Both the 2021 image and today’s image incorporate observations from the PHANGS programme, which seeks to understand the connections between young stars and cold gas. Today’s image adds a new dimension to our understanding of NGC 4535 by capturing the brilliant red glow of the nebulae that encircle massive stars in their first few million years of life.

Source: ESA/Hubble/potw

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The Sun Left Home in a Hurry

An open star cluster named NGC 2002, as viewed by the Hubble Space Telescope. The Sun may have been born in a similar cluster. Credit: NASA, ESA and G. Gilmore (University of Cambridge); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)

By simulating how the orbits of distant solar system objects were altered by close encounters with other stars early in the Sun’s life, astronomers have placed tight constraints on how long our home star stuck around its siblings after birth.

The Hubble Space Telescope’s view of a collection of young stars still embedded within their natal nebula. Credit: NASA, ESA, G. Duchene (Universite de Grenoble I); Image Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)

Born in Batches

Though our Sun currently travels on a solitary trajectory through the galaxy, its earliest childhood was not spent so lonely. Instead, the Sun was likely born as part of a litter of many other stars all collapsing out of the same cloud of precursor gas and dust. As a consequence, its early adolescence was spent in the company of dozens of other young stars, all zipping along on their own paths, destined to drift apart but initially packed close together.

Despite their kinship, these young stars were not kind to one another when they passed nearby. When two stars grow close, the intense gravity of the encounter can severely disrupt their proto-planetary systems, scattering the objects orbiting farthest from their stars and potentially even ejecting some objects altogether. These early years likely left scars on the edges of our solar system that persist even today, billions of years after the early tussles.

Recent research led by Amir Siraj, Princeton University, leverages these scars or their apparent absence to ask the question: given the structure we observe in the outer solar system today, what limits can we place on the number of stars born near the Sun and the amount of time the Sun spent in its birth cluster?

An illustration of the orbits for some of the distant sednoids considered in this study.
Credit: NAOJ

Distance is Power

Several authors have asked this question over the past several decades, but Siraj and collaborators added a new twist: instead of studying either the giant planets or the cold classical Kuiper Belt, they instead focused exclusively on the “distant sednoids.” This rarefied collection of only nine known objects includes only the most distant minor planets in our solar system: the sednoids never come within 40 au of the Sun, and they spend much of their orbits beyond 400 au. Interestingly, however, all of them orbit on planes that are fairly aligned with that of the planets, and none ever strays farther than 20° from the ecliptic.

Through a suite of numerical simulations, Siraj and collaborators demonstrate that this relatively tight distribution of inclinations implies that the Sun couldn’t have been too roughed up on its way out of the cluster. By simulating many different close flybys and their influence on the distant sednoids, the researchers constrained the product of the number of stars in the Sun’s birth cluster and the time the Sun spent there to be less than or equal to 5 billion years per cubic parsec. Assuming a typical cluster density of 100 stars per cubic parsec, this suggests that the Sun cleared out of the densest and most dangerous part of the cluster within just 50 million years.

The authors stress that this conclusion leans on the assumption that the distant sednoids arrived on their extreme orbits essentially immediately, though in fact astronomers aren’t sure exactly how and when these objects ended up on the outskirts of the solar system. If the sednoids were in fact implanted onto their orbits early on, this limit on how long it took the Sun to leave its siblings is by far the strongest to date. With the Vera C. Rubin Observatory poised to discover thousands of new distant solar system objects, it’s likely that the bound will grow even more stringent in the next few years.

By Ben Cassese

Citation

“Limits on Stellar Flybys in the Solar Birth Cluster,” Amir Siraj et al 2025 ApJL 993 L4. doi:10.3847/2041-8213/ae1025

Source: American Astronomical Society/AAS-Nova

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