Spaceflight & Cosmology

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SKB
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James Webb Space Telescope - First Deep Field Colour Image
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(NASA) 11th July 2022
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has produced the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe to date. Known as Webb’s First Deep Field, this image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 is overflowing with detail.

Thousands of galaxies – including the faintest objects ever observed in the infrared – have appeared in Webb’s view for the first time. This slice of the vast universe covers a patch of sky approximately the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length by someone on the ground.

This deep field, taken by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), is a composite made from images at different wavelengths, totaling 12.5 hours – achieving depths at infrared wavelengths beyond the Hubble Space Telescope’s deepest fields, which took weeks.

The image shows the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 as it appeared 4.6 billion years ago. The combined mass of this galaxy cluster acts as a gravitational lens, magnifying much more distant galaxies behind it. Webb’s NIRCam has brought those distant galaxies into sharp focus – they have tiny, faint structures that have never been seen before, including star clusters and diffuse features. Researchers will soon begin to learn more about the galaxies’ masses, ages, histories, and compositions, as Webb seeks the earliest galaxies in the universe.
Comparison, Hubble on left, James Webb on right:
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SW1
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Re: Spaceflight & Cosmology

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SKB wrote: 12 Jul 2022, 07:51 James Webb Space Telescope - First Deep Field Colour Image
Image
(NASA) 11th July 2022
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has produced the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe to date. Known as Webb’s First Deep Field, this image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 is overflowing with detail.

Thousands of galaxies – including the faintest objects ever observed in the infrared – have appeared in Webb’s view for the first time. This slice of the vast universe covers a patch of sky approximately the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length by someone on the ground.

This deep field, taken by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), is a composite made from images at different wavelengths, totaling 12.5 hours – achieving depths at infrared wavelengths beyond the Hubble Space Telescope’s deepest fields, which took weeks.

The image shows the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 as it appeared 4.6 billion years ago. The combined mass of this galaxy cluster acts as a gravitational lens, magnifying much more distant galaxies behind it. Webb’s NIRCam has brought those distant galaxies into sharp focus – they have tiny, faint structures that have never been seen before, including star clusters and diffuse features. Researchers will soon begin to learn more about the galaxies’ masses, ages, histories, and compositions, as Webb seeks the earliest galaxies in the universe.
Comparison, Hubble on left, James Webb on right:
Image
Take the second star to the right straight on till morning…
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SKB
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Re: Spaceflight & Cosmology

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SKB
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Re: Spaceflight & Cosmology

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SpaceX Starship IFT 2

(Scott Manley) 18th November 2023
SpaceX finally got to fly their second integrated flight test of the fully reusable Starship & Superheavy system, the launch was spectacular, excitement had been guaranteed and excitement was delivered. The reusable part however remains elusive for now, but I look forward to seeing the next launch be even more successful.

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SKB
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High Down (Isle of Wight) - Britain's (former) Secret Rocket Base

(Jago Hazzard) 17th November 2023

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SKB
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Uranus and Neptune's true colours revealed.
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Images from the Voyager 2 probe in the 1980s showed Neptune to be a rich blue and Uranus green. But a study has discovered that the two ice giant planets are both similar shades of greenish blue. It has emerged that the earlier images of Neptune had been enhanced to show details of the planet's atmosphere, which altered its true colour.

"They did something that I think everyone on Instagram will have done at some time in their life, they tweaked the colours," Prof Catherine Heymans, Astronomer Royal for Scotland and a University of Edinburgh astrophysics professor, told BBC Radio 4's Today.

"They accentuated the blue just to reveal the features that you can see in Neptune's atmosphere, and that's why the image looks very blue, but in reality, Neptune is actually pretty similar to Uranus."

The images were recombined to create the composite colour images, which were not always accurately balanced. The contrast was also strongly enhanced to bring out details in the clouds, bands and winds of the planets. In the case of Neptune, both processes made it bluer than it really was.

In the recent study, the researchers used data from the Hubble Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph and the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer on the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope.

In both instruments, each pixel is a continuous spectrum of colours which enables the researchers to produce the true colours of both planets.

The analysis revealed that Uranus and Neptune are a similar shade of greenish blue, although researchers found a slight difference. Neptune has a slight hint of additional blue, which the model reveals to be because of a thinner haze layer on that planet.

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