#spacedescribed

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Image Source: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI | Image Description: An hourglass-shaped, multi-color cloud set against the black, starry background of space. This cloud of dust and gas is illuminated by light from a protostar, a star in the earliest stages of formation. The upper “bulb” of the hourglass is orange, while the lower “bulb” transitions from white to dark blue. Together, the two bulbs stretch out like butterfly wings turned 90 degrees to the side. Extending from the upper and lower bulbs are long, wispy filaments of color, looking almost like burning fire. In the center of the hourglass shape is a small, dark demarcation line. This line is an edge-on view of a protoplanetary disk, a disk of material being pulled into a star as it forms. End ID

The dark cloud L1527 within the Taurus star-forming region is only visible in infrared light, making it an ideal target for Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam). The protostar seen here is only about 100,000 years old, and is considered a Class 0 protostar - the earliest stage of star formation. It doesn't generate its own energy through nuclear fusion of hydrogen yet, and is still a small clump of hot puffy gas between 20 to 40% the mass of our Sun. As the protostar continues to gather mass, it gets closer to stable nuclear fusion. As material from the surrounding cloud falls into it, it spirals around the center and creates a dense disk of material called an accretion disk. The accretion disk is visible in this photo as a dark band in the center of the picture, and is about the size of our solar system.

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from NASA/ESA/CSA: IC 1623 is a pair of entwined galaxies in the constellation Cetus, about 270 million light years from Earth. The collision of galaxies produces intense infrared emissions, and a thick band of dust has blocked other telescopes like Hubble from being able to fully observe it. JWST's infrared sensitivity has allowed it to see past the dust and create this image using its Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI) imagery.

[Image description: The two galaxies swirl into a single chaotic object in the centre. Long, blue spiral arms stretch vertically, faint at the edges. Hot gas spreads horizontally over that, mainly bright red with many small gold spots of star formation. The core of the merging galaxies is very bright and radiates eight large, golden diffraction spikes. The background is black, with many tiny galaxies in orange and blue.]

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Image Source: NASA/Joel Kowsky | Image Description: Clouds of smoke billow around the base of the Space Launch System as it just begins to take off from Kennedy Space Center. The rocket is bright orange with white boosters on either side, contrasting against the dark nighttime sky, and its bright ignition illuminates the scene. A few tower structures rise around the launch pad, framing the rocket in the image.

Last night, at 1:47 am EST on 16 November 2022, NASA's Artemis I mission finally launched. Originally scheduled to launch in late August, launch was waved off twice due to faulty temperature sensors and a liquid hydrogen leak. After weathering Hurricane Nicole, the rocket and the Orion spacecraft it carries are on track to travel 40,000 miles beyond the Moon over the course of 25.5 days before returning to Earth.

Artemis I is the first unmanned flight test for the Artemis missions, which aim to send humans back to the moon for the first time since the Apollo missions. The manned Artemis II mission, next year, will run a similar course as Artemis I - entering lunar orbit and returning to Earth - while Artemis III after it will once again land astronauts on the surface of the Moon.

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JWST - The Pillars Of Creation (image and description from NASA)

[Image description: This Webb image of the “Pillars of Creation” has layers of semi-opaque, rusty red gas and dust that start at the bottom left and go toward the top right. There are three prominent pillars rising toward the top right. The left pillar is the largest and widest. The peaks of the second and third pillars are set off in darker shades of brown and have red outlines. Peeking through the layers of gas and dust is the background, set in shades of blue and littered with tiny yellow and blue stars. Many of the tips of the pillars appear tinged with what looks like lava. There are also tiny red dots at the edges of the pillars, which are newly born stars.]