Webb and Chandra Telescopes In Space Team Up For Amazing Imagery

Space.com

See composites created using James Webb Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory imagery.  A pair of galaxies, a nebula, and a star cluster are the targets.   Credit: NASA/CXC/A. Hobart

Transcript

00:00 [ music ]

00:02 Visit Chandra's beautiful universe.

00:05 Chandra Webb Composites

00:08 Four composite images deliver dazzling views

00:13 from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory

00:15 and James Webb Space Telescope

00:17 of two galaxies, a nebula, and a star cluster.

00:21 Each image combines Chandra's X-rays,

00:24 a form of high-energy light,

00:26 with infrared data from previously released Webb images.

00:30 Data from the Hubble Space Telescope

00:32 and retired Spitzer Space Telescope,

00:35 plus ESO's XMM-Newton

00:37 and the ESO's New Technology Telescope, is also used.

00:41 While most of these wavelengths of light

00:43 are invisible to the human eye,

00:45 the data have been mapped to colors

00:47 so we can explore these cosmic wonders in details within.

00:51 The data in these images have been released to the public before,

00:54 but this is the first time they have been combined in this way.

00:58 The images include NGC 346,

01:01 a star cluster in a nearby galaxy,

01:04 the small Magellanic Cloud,

01:06 about 200,000 light-years from Earth.

01:09 Webb shows plumes and arcs of gas and dust

01:11 that stars and planets use as source material

01:14 during their formation.

01:16 The purple cloud on the left, seen with Chandra,

01:19 is the remains of a supernova explosion

01:21 from a massive star.

01:23 The Chandra data also reveals young, hot, and massive stars

01:28 that send powerful winds outward from their surfaces.

01:31 NGC 1672 is a spiral galaxy,

01:35 but one that astronomers categorize as a barred spiral.

01:39 In regions close to their centers,

01:41 the arms of barred spiral galaxies

01:43 are mostly in a straight band of stars

01:45 across the center that encloses the core,

01:47 as opposed to other spirals

01:49 that have arms that twist all the way to their core.

01:52 The Chandra data reveals compact objects

01:54 like neutron stars or black holes,

01:56 pulling material from companion stars

01:59 as well as the remnants of exploded stars.

02:02 Messier 16, also known as the Eagle Nebula,

02:05 is a famous region of the sky

02:07 often referred to as the Pillars of Creation.

02:10 The Webb image shows the dark columns of gas and dust

02:14 shrouding the few remaining fledgling stars just being formed.

02:18 The Chandra sources, which look like dots,

02:21 are young stars that give off copious amounts of X-rays.

02:25 Messier 74 is also a spiral galaxy,

02:29 like our Milky Way,

02:31 that we see face-on from our vantage point on Earth.

02:34 It is about 32 million light-years away.

02:37 In the composite, Webb outlines gas and dust in the infrared,

02:41 while Chandra data spotlights high-energy activity

02:44 from stars at X-ray wavelengths.

02:47 Hubble optical data showcases additional stars and dust

02:51 along the dust lanes.

02:53 We look forward to many more new images from Chandra data

02:56 and its companion telescopes,

02:58 both in space and on the ground,

03:00 as this exciting era of astronomy continues.

03:04 [Music]

03:18 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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